Vidalia Onion

An excellent sweet, mild onion grown in Vidalia, Georgia.  It is about the size as a standard white onion but has a smooth, sweet flavor and lacks the heat of a standard yellow or white.  It was originally sold in 1931 and has gained in popularity since. In 1990 it was made Georgia's official state vegetable. 

Although onions are rarely eaten plain, the Vidalia onion is one of the few varieties that is edible on its own. Simply slice each onion in half at its thickest part and set it on a baking sheet. If you've done this right so far, you should have two halves of the onion, the bottom and the top, resting on the sheet with their points sticking upward. Go ahead and preheat the oven to about 350 degrees or thereabouts. At this point, you can either spray each onion half with cooking spray (such as Pam) or paint them with melted butter. The spray is simpler, as I'm sure you can tell. At this point, take a mixture of bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese and sprinkle it over each onion so that the butter holds the dry ingredients on the onion's outside. Put the whole thing in the oven. The actual cooking time varies from 15-22 minutes according to taste, but I have found that the best rule of thumb to follow is simply to cook until it starts smelling good. The outside should probably begin to brown, but you should definitely take it out once it begins to blacken. The flavor of the finished dish is very sweet and a bit buttery and works well as a first course in a multi-course meal. One onion can usually serve two people, unless one of them is an absolute fiend for onions, in which case you should probably make more anyway.