This is deceptively simple, and is a great crowd-pleaser. Whole roasted onions, without even peeling them? Genius. Smoking them first? Next level.

Never fear if you’ve never smoked anything in your kitchen before, this is surprisingly simple to do, and all you need is a pot, a stovetop and some tinfoil!

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Whole roasted smoked onions with tahini sauce

Smokey, sweet, soft, crunchy, creamy – This dish hits all the right buttons, so easily!

Course Appetizer, mezze, Side Dish

Cuisine Fusion, Middle Eastern

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Ingredients

• 1 kg medium onions
• 3 tbsp white rice
• 2 lemons
• 2 medium, or 1 large clove of garlic, crushed
• 1/4 cup tahini
• salt and pepper

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 200C (or 180 fan)
• Line a medium pot (for which you have a tight fitting lid) with 2 layers of tinfoil, with some overlap sticking out above the edges.

  Peel the zest off one of the lemons with a vegetable peeler, and add to the pot.

  Add the rice and 2 tbsp water.
• Place your onions (whole) on the rice, and turn the heat on high. Place the lid on and seal tightly – you can fold the extra tinfoil over if you want. As soon as you start notice the rice burning and smoke being produced, start the timer and smoke for exactly 4 minutes.

  Remove, bang into the oven and bake for an hour.
• While the onions are baking, make the tahini sauce – mix the tahini with equal volumes of water, a crushed garlic clove, salt to taste and the juice from a squeezed lemon. If its too runny, add a little more tahini or take some of the water out :D.
• Take the onions out the oven, and let cool. Once cool enough to handle, chop them in half and peel off the skin. Use a sharp knife to trim any extra skin around the top.

  Add to a bowl and drizzle over with the tahini sauce, then grate the second lemon's zest on top.

  Serve warm or at room temperature.