Pissaladière

In winter, when it’s dark with a biting wind, Provence can be a pretty bleak place.

Especially if you’re teaching and living in a concrete lycée full of adolescent stoners. But there are things that’ll always make you smile, and this sort of French onion pizza I discovered at the bakery opposite the school did just that.

Finely slice three onions (they should technically be all white but I throw a red one in for racial equality). Fry them with a big knob of butter on a very low heat. They’ll take about half an hour, during which they’ll sweat, lose their sharpness, go limp, then gradually release their sugars and turn caramel brown. That’s when you can take them off the heat.

I used puff pastry, which is probably wrong but it’s easy and the sides puff up a treat (secret’s in the name). Puff pastry is made in a magical elf world, and it’s the only place where it’s possible, so don’t try making it at home. You’ll need about half a ready-made sheet. Lay it on some greaseproof paper on a baking tray and prick it all over, leaving a centimetre border where it will, as promised, ‘puff up nicely’.

Splurge on your onions and lay some anchovies in a pretty if a little pretentious criss-cross diamond pattern. If you really hate anchovies, leave them out (obviously) but their sharp salty taste works very well with the sweet gooey onions. Chuck on a handful of olives (more if you’ve chickened out on the anchovies), then bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees until golden and ‘puffed up nicely’.