"The Maui Onion Cookbook" includes five onion soup recipes.

Onions and cookbook sweet combo
By Catherine K. Enomoto
Star-Bulletin


Valley Isle resident Barbara Santos is doing her third Maui Onion Festival, her fourth Maui Writers Conference and her first cookbook.

She combined the first two to produce the third.

"That's how it happened," said Santos, whose "The Maui Onion Cookbook" (Celestial Arts, 1996, $5.95) premieres at this weekend's Maui Onion Festival, Friday to Sunday at Whalers Village. "It never would have happened otherwise."

Santos owns her own public relations business and co-created The Ulupalakua Thing (Maui County Agricultural Trade Show & Sampling). Her clients include the Maui Onion Festival, Maui County Fair and Maui Writers Conference, which has burgeoned from 150 to 1,000 full-time attendees.

Barbara
Santos

She recalled dining with Ten Speed Press publisher David Hinds at Lahaina's Avalon Restaurant as part of the first Maui Writers Conference in 1993. She broached the idea of a cookbook on Maui's uniquely mild, sweet, crunchy and flavorful onion. She mentioned that Avalon chef/restaurateur Mark Ellman would be one of the top chefs featured in such a cookbook. That tidbit piqued Hinds' appetite.

"He showed me one of the books in the miniature cookbook series, die cut in the shape of the vegetable it was featuring. He asked me to give him a proposal based on the chile and mushroom cookbooks. I submitted a proposal and got a check - it's that easy."

Three years later the Maui onion collection is part of the latest Celestial Arts (a Ten Speed Press subsidiary) crop of popular 96-page, miniature cookbooks featuring trendy recipes, breezy blurbs and tasty background information.

"It's great," Santos enthused. "I've had two sample books for the last few weeks; they were nice because they broke me in. Now I have 1,008 books in the front room waiting for the Maui Writers Conference. It's like Christmas. The cookbook will be unveiled at the Maui Onion Festival. But the Maui Writers Conference is where it all started."

Preparing a Maui onion recipe and a Maui onion manuscript may be similar. The secret, Santos said about the sweet bulb, is "not to cook it to death. Cook it the bare minimum. It's full of moisture; that's why it's so sweet and has its special texture."

Santos warned that their high moisture content makes Maui onions perishable and sensitive to overcooking. "But that's (high moisture) what makes them so special. They're like shooting stars, I guess."

Yes, bulbs may come and go, but there is only one Maui onion. And, beneath her own layers, what does Santos find?

"I never knew I had all of this creativity and ability to make things happen. Since I have moved to Maui, things keep coming out of me - The Ulupalakua Thing, the Maui Writers Conference. It's so wonderful. I don't think this would have happened anywhere else in the world. Maui is a really special place."

"The Maui Onion Cookbook" features six chapters of recipes, including appetizers, salads, soups, entrees, vegetable dishes, and lunch favorites and side dishes; here's a pair of recipes:

Maui Onion Tapenade

(By Joanna Jeronimo)

1 large Maui onion, sliced into rings
8 to 10 cloves garlic
1 cup stuffed green olives, rinsed
2 teaspoons fresh marjoram
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon red chile
pepper flakes
Dash balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon olive oil
White pepper to taste

Grill onion and garlic. Machine process with olives, herbs and red chile pepper flakes until well blended. Add vinegar, drizzle in olive oil and add white pepper. Process 10 seconds more. Garnish and serve with grilled slices of dense bread. Makes 3/4 cup.

Approximate nutritional analysis per 3-tablespoon serving: 65 calories, 4 grams total fat, 0.5 gram saturated fat, no cholesterol, 520 milligrams sodium.*

Award-Winning Maui Onion Gumbo

(By chef Martina Hilldorfer)

1 pound Portuguese sausage, diced
1 medium Maui onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 small green bell pepper, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 quart fish stock or clam juice
1 medium tomato, diced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon Cajun spice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon EACH basil, thyme and garlic
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 can (15 ounces) kidney beans
1 cup okra, sliced
1/4 cup brown roux (see note)
12 crab claws, poached
12 shrimp, poached
16 scallops, poached

In olive oil, saute sausage, onion, celery and green pepper until soft. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, fish stock and spices. Simmer 15 minutes. Add kidney beans and okra. Simmer 15 minutes. Add brown roux to thicken slightly. Garnish with poached shellfish. Makes 8 servings.

Note: To make roux, mix 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup oil. Brown on low heat until chocolate-colored, 15 to 30 minutes.

Approximate nutritional analysis per serving: 410 calories, 28 grams total fat, 7 grams saturated fat, 75 milligrams cholesterol, 1,200 milligrams sodium.*



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