Baby Onions
see Pickling Onions
Browned Skinned Onions
with white flesh beneath the skin, they have a strong flavour
when raw, but this is tamed to a delicious tang when cooked, and these are
the best type of onion for flavouring.
These onions also make good side vegetable dishes if roasted with
a joint, braised alone or with other vegetables, or fried - often in rings
that have been coated with batter - to serve with steak, liver or
hamburgers.
Bunching Onion
See Welsh Onion
Chives
fine tubular leaf, usually sold in bunches or in pots.
There are many hybrid varieties, all hard to tell apart.
Use:
Primarily as seasoning in soups, sauces, salads and other dishes and also
as garnish.
Chinese Chives
long narrow flat leaves with a slight taste of garlic.
The white flowers are also edible ( harvested in the bud ).
Use:
The leaves are used as seasoning in various dishes, mainly Indian and Chinese.
The flower buds may be fried.
Garlic
white or purplish, rather flat,angular dry bulbs with cloves.
There are many different varieties, but it is difficult to tell them
apart. Used primarily, but not exclusivly as a flavouring and has a
character all it's own.
Leek
herbaceous plant with a distictive smell. The base
of the stem and leaf sheath form a white to greenish-white shaft. The
leaf is long, flat and quite broad. Colour varies from light grey-green
to a dark bluish-green depending on variety.
Use:
Mostly it's the white shaft that's used, but sometimes 4-6 inches / 10-15cm
of the green leaf is eaten as well.
Cook as a vegetable or use in soups and savoury flans.
Pickling / Baby Onions
have a similar flavour to brown onions, and their
small size makes them ideal for use with kebabs, or for use whole in casseroles
( add them towards the end of the cooking time, so they retain their shape
). Baby onions are an essential ingrediant in beef
bourguignonne.
Red Onions
have a deep reddish-brown skin, this encloses alternate
layers of white and purple-red flesh. This onion is very mild, and
looks very attractive when thinly sliced in a mixed salad. Baby red
onions are sometimes called Chinese Red Onions
and are often used in oriental dishes because of their colour, which is retained
after cooking.
Shallots
the most common variety of shallots are similar in
appearence to baby onions, but are more oval in shape, and
often have a pair of smaller bulbs inside the brown skin. The flesh
is usually pinker than that of brown skinned onions.
They can be used the same way as brown skinned and pickling
/ baby onions, but, because they have a more subtle flavour, are preferred
by those preparing french cuisine.
Silverskin Onions
small white onions, obtained by sowing particular onion
varieties thickly and deep in the soil, ( as the onions turn green if they
do not form below-ground ). Fresh sliverskin onions are seldom available,
as they nearly all go for processing.
Spanish Onions
resemble brown onions, but are much larger and milder
in flavour. These are good stuffed, raw, or as an addition to
stir-fries.
Spring Onions ( scallions, green shallots, salad onions
)
vegetable with small white bulbs and long green
leaves, frequently used in salads and stir-frying, and often as
garnish
Welsh Onion ( Bunching Onion )
white, tightly-closed shaft ( like a leek ) and tubular
hollow leaf ( like a onion ). The length of the shaft depends on the
variety and method of cultivation.
Use:
When harvested young, shredded raw as salad onions. Later cooked like
leeks.
Especially good for onion soup.
White Onions
these have a papery white skin and is delicious raw,
or cooked and used as a flavouring if you find brown skinned onions too
strong.