Onion Family

I revere the onion. It is definitely in my top three favourite vegetables alongside broad beans and beetroots. The backbone of so many cuisines, onions go quietly about their business, ungrudgingly playing second fiddle. Shop-bought, they can be poor, yellowing and gnarly, quietly sprouting on the shelf, but when chosen carefully and not taken for granted, they are generous and wholly essential to so many dishes that would be flat without them.

Tiny little pearl onions dotted throughout a coq au vin, refreshing salsas spiked with shallots, the snapping crunch of a pickled onion plucked from a ploughman’s, the gentle flavour of white onions draped over fish; whether raw, fried, burnt, pickled or boiled, they are all great, beautifully packaged and, considerate to the last, will store well.