This is onion overkill. I had to remove probably two-thirds of these to get the taste proportions correct.

I love immigrants.  I’m convinced that if anything is to save the U.S. from its tech-tweaked obliviousness and proudly-uninformed politics, it will be immigrants coming here to kick ass and remind the rest of us how it is done.  There are two primary personal experiences that actualize this feeling of love.  The first is the rare experience of taking a cab (always driven by an immigrant) and leaving soothed by the reminder that people all over the world still see this as the place to come and work your ass of in relative peace and safety.  The second is the torta.

The torta is the ultimate combination of Mexican gastronomic glory and that ultimate form in American dining: the sandwich.  Its bread is white-bread hero rolls, and I don’t even care.  We eat beans a lot in our house because 1) they’re super tasty, 2) they’re super inexpensive, and 3) they’re super inexpensive, and after paging through cookbooks looking for something out of the ordinary to make for dinner and getting distracted by a recipe for marinating onions, I decided to riff on the torta motif with those onions as the primary ingredient.

First, the onions, a version of a recipe found in a Moosewood cookbook named Simple Suppers.

• Slice 2 medium-sized red onions into rings and cover with boiling water for ten minutes.  Drain.
• Combine in a bowl
  • 1 tsp of salt
  • 1 tsp of raw sugar
  • ¼ tsp of allspice
  • 1 tbs of cider or red wine vinegar
  • ¼ cup of fresh lime juice
  • a hella ton of hot sauce
  • Mix the ingredients above and toss in the onions.

Voila.  Super easy, and they store well.

For the rest of the sandwich, a made beans like I always do, dumping in this and that and whatever spices over a fanatical amount of sautéed garlic.  I then hacked the beans into a paste torta-style, spread them on toasted flatbread, and topped them with grilled fake sausages, mushrooms I sautéed in a butter and buckets of paprika, and a few of the onions.

Awesomeness.

It’s important to go light on the onions.  Too many, and you can’t taste the mushrooms, and that combo of smoke and vinegary bite is crucial.

And now I have the onions and bean spread on-hand for more sandwiches, which I’m really hoping cuts down on the number of weeknights I’m cooking for over an hour and eating at 9:30.  And with these two ingredients at the ready, I can knock out a number of dinners in less than half-an-hour.