Jeffrey Buben: Hello, I am Jeff Buben, Chef/owner of Vidalia Restaurant and Bistro Bis in Washington DC. Today we're going to do some demonstrations of Vidalia Onion Recipes. These are some recipes that we've collected over the years of the restaurant. There are some signature dishes and we're going to show you how easy they are to prepare at home.
Our first dish that we're going to do is a Vidalia Onion and Apple Upside Down Cake. This is takeoff of a traditional upside cake made with sweet Vidalia onions. Next is going to a Jumbo Lump Crab and Vidalia Onion Souffl. This captures the best of the mid-Atlantic region with our Jumbo Lump Crab meat and sweet Vidalia Onion. It sounds like it might be hard to do, but we're going to show you just how easy it is.
The next recipe we're going to do for you is Applewood Bacon Vinaigrette made with sweet Vidalia onions and this is a great vinaigrette to use on hearty greens like dandelion greens, ros salad, and wild watercress. Finally, the last recipe we're going to do for you is a roasted Heirloom Beet and Vidalia Onion salad with a great sweet onion vinaigrette.
Before we get started, let's talk about some of the things that we're going to do in the kitchen today. We're going to be using a KitchenAid Mixer for a few of our dishes. We're going to be handling some knifes, always make sure your knifes are sharp. You never get cut with a sharp knife and we're going to be using some whisks, some spoons and a little bit of a mix bowls in our cooking today. But it's all pretty simple and pretty straightforward. So you just want to be sure that you always have anew safety. When you're around the range, you want to make sure that you have the ovens at the right temperature before you get started and you make sure that you turn off your ranges when you're done cooking a particular dish.
Let me tell you a little bit about my background. In 1993, my wife Sallie and I opened Vidalia Restaurant and have been in business there. In 1998 we started Bistro Bis on Capitol Hill which has become a real nice Capitol Hill restaurant, plenty of celebrities and powerbrokers and Senators Congressmen in that restaurant.
When we first started, we really didn't expect to do that many Vidalian recipes. In fact, we didn't have any Vidalian recipes on the menu. We quickly found that people loved Vidalia onions and they all came to us with their particular story about how they first discovered Vidalia onions and that let us to start making recipes and start doing onion dishes on the menu. Today we're going to do onions from appetizer all the way to dessert.
Alright, I think, we're ready to begin. Our first dish is going to be the Vidalia Onion and Apple Upside Down Cake. You're going to love this dish.
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