Lee Miller's Onion Upside Down Cake
From Lee Miller: A Life with Food, Friends and Recipes by Ami Bouhassane (2021)
This pungent tart has a fiery kick from the ginger, curry powder and pepper (you can reduce the latter if you don’t want it quite as hot). The topping or base is made from a scone like mixture so it best eaten soon after cooking. I made the tart below in an ovenproof, 20cm/8in frying pan which I had used to cook the onions in but you could transfer them to a sandwich tin or similar after frying if you prefer.
This recipe has been reproduced as it appears in the Lee Miller cookbook with the kind permission of Ami.
You can find Kathy Slack’s braised red cabbage recipe over on the Tales From the Veg Patch Substack.
Ingredients
This recipe was published in the British Vogue article ‘How Famous People Cook: Lady Penrose - The Most Unusual Recipes You Have Ever Seen’ by Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale. Pub. April 1974. (Additional comments by Sam Bilton are in italics.)
2 large onions, peeled and sliced into rings
2 tbsp salted butter (about 30g/1oz)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp curry powder (I used garam masala as that’s what I had in the cupboard)
1 tsp black pepper (or ½ tsp for a less punchy result)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
3 tbsp canned red pimento slices (I used jarred, grilled peppers)
30g/⅓ cup raisins or currants
For the biscuit topping
200g/2 cups plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
4 tbsp salted butter (about 60g/2oz)
180ml/¾ cup full fat milk (I found 60-80ml/¼-⅓ cup sufficient)
1 tsp finely grated onion
30g/⅓ cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped (which I forgot!)
Method
Sauté onion rings very slowly in butter and oil till softened. Do not turn them and do not let them brown. Remove carefully with spatula to a round flan tin, arranging them in a single layer in a circle with 1 slice in the middle. Sprinkle with the seasonings and ginger. Fill in the spaces decoratively with pimentos and raisins. Set aside and prepare the biscuit topping.
Sift together dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut in the butter and stir in the grated onion. Quickly stir in with a fork enough milk to make a dough. Knead for 30 seconds on a lightly floured board. Roll into a circle 1cm/½ thick. Trim dough to size of baking tin and lay over onions.
Bake at 200℃/400℉ for 25-30 minutes (ovens vary - 20 minutes was sufficient in mine). Cover the pan with an inverted circular platter, holding it carefully in place, turn the tin and platter upside down. Carefully lift off flan tin. Serve sprinkled with parsley.
You can find more of Lee Miller’s recipes in Lee Miller: A Life of Food, Friends and Recipes by Ami Bouhassane. Farley’s Farmhouse and Gallery also hosts cookery classes using Lee’s recipes with
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