Pearl Onion

Brushing the underside of the dough with egg wash for this pot pie recipe creates an airtight seal so that steam will push the pastry lids into a dramatic dome during baking.

These bright zesty pickles are equally at home in a cocktail as they are in a salad, with pâté, or as part of a cured meats and cheese board.

You know how sometimes the meat is dry and there's not enough gravy? We fixed that by braising dark meat in a robust pan sauce. Ta-da!

Sweet, tender pearl onions are the star of this reimagined classic, which gets an elegant update with fennel, citrus, and Parm.

This black bean spread gets a hint of unexpected sweetness from the ground fennel seeds. Traditional Mexican dishes often use dried avocado leaf, which has a similar flavor. Try the spread as a base for tostadas or nachos, or serve with chips for dipping.

Aromatic spices and tangy yogurt give great flavor to this quick riff on the Indian classic.

An easy fancy meal with a bonus: Mushrooms and tomato may fight cancer.

This is a winning-contestant recipe from Season Four of FOX's MasterChef.

Whoever believes that bread-based stuffing is the only one worth eating hasn’t tried this wild rice version. Alongside perfectly cooked poultry, its blend of sweet and savory stands out as a great-tasting, healthier alternative to plain old stuffing. Pearl onions are sweeter than their larger cousins and they add a nice visual touch, so seek them out in the market’s frozen section. And to fortify nutrients, substitute with brown rice, which requires a little more cooking time than white.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

Okay, rabbit is a traditional meat and curry is a classic sauce, but who knew they went together? Of course, in curry-crazy Britain, you shouldn't be surprised. Traditionally, this dish is called a Scottish curry, but it's really just a British rabbit stew with curry added.

We used frozen pearl onions, but you could use fresh instead. To peel, place them in boiling water for 1 minute, and then let them cool slightly before slipping off their papery skins.

You can substitute frozen pearl onions for fresh, if you like, and skip step 1.

This recipe uses the shredded meat and tomato pieces left over from making the beef stock (recipe follows). Serve over egg noodles or rice.

It’s hard to improve upon a standard, but this recipe for chicken potpie does just that. Each individual serving is topped with a ruffle-edged round of herb-flecked dough. The filling contains all the usual, well-loved components, but the creamy sauce is brightened with lemon zest.

GOOD TO KNOW Soaking pearl and cipollini onions in warm water for just ten minutes makes their thin, tight skin easier to remove. After soaking, simply cut off the root end and peel back the skin. If you can’t find pearl or cipollini onions, you can substitute one large or two small yellow onions, each cut into eight wedges.