Piedmont-style onions stuffed with buckwheat and mushrooms

Ingredients

For 1 serving

• Onion250 g
• Buckwheat60 g
• Button mushrooms120 g
• Cooked cannellini beans80 g
• Nutritional yeast8 g
• Fresh sage3 g
• Nutmeg1 pinch
• Extra virgin olive oil10 g
• Saltto taste
• Black pepperto taste

In season: October – February

Method

1. Bring two small pans of water to the boil and salt them. Peel the onions, leaving them whole, and boil them in one for 15 minutes, until tender but still firm; in the other cook the rinsed buckwheat for 15 minutes, until tender, and drain.
2. Meanwhile heat the oven to 190 °C (conventional); wipe the button mushrooms with a damp cloth and chop them.
3. Drain the onions, let them cool for a moment, halve them horizontally and hollow them out, leaving 2–3 outer layers; chop the insides.
4. Heat half the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and sauté the chopped onion with the mushrooms and fresh sage leaves for 6 minutes, until the mushrooms are golden; turn off the heat and stir in the buckwheat, the cannellini beans mashed with a fork, the nutritional yeast, nutmeg, salt and black pepper.
5. Fill the onions with the stuffing, arrange them in a lined baking tin and drizzle with the remaining oil.
6. Bake for 25 minutes, until the onions are soft and the filling has a golden crust.