Chef Thomas
Baked Onions with Cream and Thyme
Whole onions surrendered to a low oven with cream and thyme until they collapse into something golden, sweet and yielding, the kind of side dish that quietly upstages everything else on the table.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Champ
Created by Chef Thomas
Floury potatoes beaten with spring onions warmed in milk and a good deal of butter, the kind of side dish that quietly becomes the thing you reach for first.
Side Dishes
British
Weeknight
Quick Meal
10 min
Active Time
25 min cook•35 min total
Yield4 servings
The first spring onions at the market are the signal. They arrive in loose bunches, still a little muddy, the white parts firm and the green tops bright enough to look lit from inside. That's when champ makes sense. Not before.
This is not a complicated thing. Potatoes, boiled and mashed. Spring onions, gently warmed in milk. Butter, more than feels polite. You beat it all together and put it in a warm bowl with another knob of butter melting on top, and that's it. That's the recipe. It takes less than half an hour, uses five ingredients, and produces something that makes people close their eyes on the first bite. I don't know why it works as well as it does. The spring onions bring a sweetness and a freshness that ordinary mash doesn't have, something green and alive in all that warm, starchy comfort.
Champ comes from the same kitchen as colcannon, but it's lighter, simpler, more of a spring dish than a winter one. No cabbage, no kale. Just the onions and the butter doing their quiet work. I make it when the evenings are still cool but the light has started to stretch, and I want something beside a piece of fish or a chop that doesn't ask too much of anyone. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: potatoes, spring onions, butter, April. It hasn't needed updating since.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
floury potatoes
Quantity
1kg
peeled and cut into even chunks
spring onions
Quantity
1 bunch (about 6-8)
trimmed and finely sliced, green and white parts
whole milk
Quantity
150ml
unsalted butter
Quantity
50g, plus extra for serving
fine sea salt
Quantity
to taste
white pepper
Quantity
to taste
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| floury potatoespeeled and cut into even chunks | 1kg |
| spring onionstrimmed and finely sliced, green and white parts | 1 bunch (about 6-8) |
| whole milk | 150ml |
| unsalted butter | 50g, plus extra for serving |
| fine sea salt | to taste |
| white pepper | to taste |
Equipment Needed
- •Large saucepan for the potatoes
- •Small saucepan for the milk and onions
- •Potato masher or ricer
- •Wooden spoon
Instructions
- 1
Boil the potatoes
Put the potatoes in a large pan of cold, well-salted water. Bring to a steady boil, then lower the heat so they simmer rather than rattle. Cook until they offer no resistance to a knife, which takes twenty minutes or so depending on how large you cut them. The water should taste faintly of the sea. If it doesn't, you haven't salted it enough.
Start in cold water, always. Potatoes dropped into boiling water cook unevenly: soft outside, hard in the centre. Cold water lets the heat travel through slowly. - 2
Warm the milk and onions
While the potatoes are simmering, pour the milk into a small saucepan and add the sliced spring onions. Set it over the gentlest heat you have. You want the milk warm and the onions just softened, still bright green, still with some life in them. Five minutes, no more. Don't let it boil or the milk will catch on the bottom and the onions will lose their colour. Take it off the heat and let it sit. The onions will keep giving their flavour to the milk while you wait.
- 3
Drain and dry the potatoes
Drain the potatoes well in a colander and return them to the hot, empty pan. Set the pan back over a low heat for a minute, shaking it gently. You'll see the surface of the potatoes go chalky and dry. That's the excess moisture leaving, and it matters. Wet potatoes make gluey mash. Dry potatoes make light mash. A small thing that changes everything.
- 4
Mash and beat
Add the butter to the hot potatoes and mash until there are no lumps. Use a potato masher or a ricer if you have one. Never a food processor, which will turn them to wallpaper paste. Pour in the warm milk with all the spring onions and beat everything together with a wooden spoon until the mash is smooth, light, and flecked with green. It should be soft enough to fall lazily from a spoon, not stiff, not soupy. Taste it. Season with salt and white pepper. Taste it again.
- 5
Serve with butter
Spoon the champ into a warm bowl, or pile it onto warm plates beside whatever else you're eating. Make a small well in the top and drop in a generous knob of butter. Let it sit there for a moment, melting into a golden pool. That pool of butter is not optional. It's the whole point. You eat from the outside in, dipping each forkful into the melting butter as you go.
Chef Tips
- •Use floury potatoes, not waxy ones. Maris Piper or King Edward will mash into something light and fluffy. A waxy potato like Charlotte will fight you and turn to glue. The variety matters more than the technique.
- •Don't throw away the green tops of the spring onions. They carry more flavour than the white parts and they look beautiful flecked through the mash. Slice the whole thing, root to tip.
- •The butter on top isn't a garnish. It's part of the dish. You make a well, drop the butter in, and eat from the edges towards the centre, dipping each forkful into the pool as it melts. This is how champ is meant to be eaten. Your kitchen, your rules, but this is one tradition worth keeping.
- •If you have any left over, shape it into cakes the next day and fry them in butter until golden and crisp on both sides. Cold champ, reborn. Sometimes better than the original.
Advance Preparation
- •Champ is best made and served straight away. It doesn't wait well. The spring onions lose their brightness and the texture stiffens as it cools.
- •Leftover champ can be refrigerated overnight and fried as potato cakes the next day, which is arguably its finest second act.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 310g)
Calories
340 calories
Total Fat
16 g
Saturated Fat
10 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
5 g
Cholesterol
40 mg
Sodium
615 mg
Total Carbohydrates
44 g
Dietary Fiber
6 g
Sugars
5 g
Protein
7 g
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