Onions

• apples
• bacon
• butter
• cheese sauce, especially Cheddar or Gruyere
• cinnamon
• cloves
• cream
• mushrooms
• nutmeg
• paprika
• Parmesan cheese
• parsley
• pepper, black
• raisins
• salt
• sherry
• sorrel
• thyme
• tomato sauce
• vinegar
• Worcestershire sauce
• bake
• boil
• braise
• fry
• grill
• raw
• roast
• sauté
• steam

In Mexico, you use raw onions but you always wash them really well after you cut them, or you let them soak for five minutes in acidulated water made with lime or vinegar, or you douse them real heavily with sour orange juice and you let them sit for two hours, or you blanch them for thirty seconds in water. There are all these different variations on working with raw onions and still keeping the fresh, raw crispness to them. On the other hand, we do a number of dishes where we throw whole onions down into the fire and let them blacken on the outside, because there's a sort of steaming that happens on the inside, which is very different from trying to grill it or cook it on a flat top or something like that already sliced. —Rick Bayless