Swiss onion Pie or 13-year old’s lament to all things right with the world.
We now venture into a pie that is great with dinner or even breakfast. This is the Swiss onion Pie. Of course, as you know this does not refer to the fact that this recipe harkens from Switzerland. Rather it tells us the type of cheese that is used in making up this pie. This is one of the second non-dessert pies I have made that I now completely love next to the Hawaiian Ham Pie (the recipe can be found here). The great design of pies allows you to whip it up, pop it in the oven, set the timer. Of course in the case of frozen pies, you will want to skip the whole oven thing. But you get the gist. It’s one of those dishes that you do not have to stand over a stove watching it intently as you stir this or that and prevent things from burning. This way someone like me can pop it in the oven and forget the timer and burn it gracefully, but I was off doing other magnificent things rather than standing over the stove.
Now with this pie, I did not burn it and it turned out fantastic. There were skeptics and for good reason. After all, the 50 through the 70s had some very strange foods indeed. Reviving them has been fun and adventuresome to the taste palate, but I am sure there is a reason these fell out of regular use, and with good reason. This one is in my opinion one that should maybe stick around. I really enjoyed making this one, I am sure you can tell.
I can not tell you what made this pie so good, the swiss cheese? Or perhaps it was the onions? Maybe it was the bacon? Or maybe put together it was the combination that just surprised everyone. Like I said before my son believes that I am on a mission to destroy his trust in pies leaving him broken-hearted about his future with pies. He is at that rather dramatic stage in his life at the moment.
Now you are probably saying “Will she introduce the recipe or not?”
So here it is the Swiss Onion Pie:
Swiss Onion Pie
Ingredients:
1 cup of saltine cracker crumbs (for pie crust or you can get frozen pie crust as a substitute which I did because the saltine cracker crust was not working for me.)
4 Tablespoons melted butter or margarine for the pie crust. Skip it if you are going the frozen pie crust path.
6 slices of bacon
1 chopped onion
2 cups of natural Swiss Cheese
¾ cup dairy sour cream
2 slightly beaten eggs
⅛ teaspoon pepper
½ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese.
Directions:
Combine crumbs and butter or margarine and press into a 9-inch pie pan. You can skip this if you use an already made pie crust or make a traditional flour crust recipe.
In a skillet, you want to cook the bacon until crisp, but not burned.
Drain the bacon on a paper towel and pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat
Add onion to the same skillet and cook until tender, but not brown.
Crumble the bacon and combine it with the onion, swiss cheese, sour cream, eggs, and pepper and pour it into the prepared pie shell.
Between the bacon and onion cooking, you will want to preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. It is a rather important step, and if you have pans kept in storage in the oven, remove them first (I store my cast Iron in there as I have not enough cupboard space in my rental.)
Place the pie into the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, sprinkle with the sharp cheddar cheese, and cook for 2 or 3 minutes more until the cheese has melted.
Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.
Makes 6-8 servings and is great as an appetizer, breakfast, entree, or accompaniment to a meat dish.
Swiss Onion Pie
I want to make a statement here, I know people are trying various healthy recipes and they should, my goal here is to look back on recipes of the past and see how some grandparents and even great grandparents ate and cooked with various ingredients. That brings me to the next topic I will cover “The molded salad” not just for fruits, they used it in meat dishes and vegetables.
If you are just jumping in here the menu of my Christmas dinner adventure can be found here. The Merry Berry Coffee Cake can be found here and the egg bake here. The Christmas Sandwich can be found here. As I get the recipes written up and the pictures to go with them I will make sure the Christmas menu post will be properly linked.
Oh, and in case you are wondering I made two of these pies and they got eaten up for dinner and breakfast with my 13 years old rather despondent when the last of the pies were eaten up. He wants more of this one. I would say that this was a win for my family.
