Dinner tonight - or last night.

Ah, that Guardian writer I mentioned is Jack Monroe.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/08/jack-monroe-spring-herb-risotto-parsley-mint-dill-recipe

This is the recipe I’m following for the Macaroni salad. The only thing I’m leaving out is the raw onion, none of us like raw onions!

Mega Egga Macaroni Salad

have you tried using Vidalias, or other sweet Georgia onions?

those, minced tiny tiny tiny, can be nice raw in a salad. they don't have the sharpness of many other onions.

my dad and I were just talking about them last night. he was recalling a road trip in the US and how the air around Vidalia smelled so beautifully sweet. I've never tried it, but apparently some people eat Vidalias like apples. Their sugar content is crazy high.

I haven’t.

I suppose if they were tiny enough they would be okay to use. We went out to lunch yesterday and had burgers, we asked for no onion and they put onion on them anyway, we send them back but all they did was take off the onion but I could still smell them. Even the smell of raw onions makes me nauseous.

My treatment of onions in the last few years has been to caramelize the ordinary brown spanish ones that aren't sweet to start with - just to end with, using the Russ Parsons recipe - got to be home to watch that through the changes re heat applied, though. I let them go for about four hours, a whole bag of onions chopped up at at time. Do that every few months and freeze most of that. They stay delicious. Other than that, I've made roasted red onions with balsamic and honey and oh god they're good. The two resulting batches of onions are quite different but I love them both. And both are great on pizza..

I should try sweet onions like vidalia or maui but I don't see them in my ordinary store. I don't mind a bit of regular uncooked onion on a burger but I have admittedly peculiar taste buds.

Both recipes on a2k if anyone's interested.

Alex, how long do you roast them?/temp? slow time or fast? until easy to peel? or shortly, leaving peel on? I roast different kinds of peppers but still struggle with some of the peeling. Pretty much I don't care if some still clings, as I dice them anyway afterwards. I've a fear of burning the whole batch, a little black being ok but don't want a lot, so maybe I take them out too soon. On some, depending on the heat, I keep the seeds too, living dangerously for fun.

I know you can just hold peppers over a gas flame and then peel, but I'm clumsy, would probably flame my elbow. And I read something about putting the roasted peppers in a bag for a while, but I've forgotten about that.

it's just about peak time for Vidalias - see if you can find one

they are so different from regular cooking onions

You can smell the onions from the next town over . Lyons.
I have.
But I haven't used another type of onion for decades.
Vidalias are good eatin'.
Raw or cooked.

osso, look for the Texas 1015, developed from the Spanish onion.
It's just now the peak season

Vidalias, Walla Wallas, they taste like tulip bulbs. NO TSTE, My wife likes em cause they dont give her the burps. Ill live with em as long s I can tste ONION.

When we fry yellows and Gyptians, they get so sweet. A vidalia just misses that extra boost of flavor.


TONITE IS RIBS , we are by ourselves and Im trying a new veggie pck of early spring veggies (sugar peas and mushrooms along with fresh carrots in hobo packs on the grill)

I'll keep my eyes out for them, thanks.

That's Parsons' take on them too, re flavor - that the spanish ones end up (slow) caramelizing better for both sweet and flavorful results. He didn't get into fried in that set of articles, unless you call a 4 hour saute a fry.


I mention slow because that's part of the majick spell.

nuh unh

your tastebuds must be burnt out

vidalias have a beautiful sweet flavour. they're really nice in salads with sweet, juicy tomatoes.

there's no point in caramelizing a Vidalia (or other sweet onion) - they don't need to have the sugar developed by way of heat

Russ Parsons' point at the time was that the end result on the slow cooked spanish ones was sweeter/richer than trying it with "sweet onions" if anyone was considering caramelizing them. So both make sense, your point that they aren't right for that, and his, for caramelizing, use these others.

I make strange cole slaws lately. There's the present savoy cabbage and bok choy series (both stems and greens sauteed, others might hate this) and other refrigerated stuff, generally spicy. I can see a sweet cole slaw with raw sweet onions........ I think, if I ever find one at the store.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, driving on Interstate 80 between Sacramento and the Bay Area, you always know when you are approaching the city of Vacaville (about halfway between. The aroma of onions drying in the fields at harvest time is strong enough to make your eyes water.

Same goes for the Gilroy area near San Jose and garlic harvesting season.


jcboy, try mincing your onions and then put them in a mesh colander and run it under warm water for a few minutes. Squeeze all the water out of them in a towel and that should take the unpleasant rawness away.

vidalias have really nothing but a weak watered down flavor. Yes they are sweet, but not the nutty sweetness you get when onions are caramelized.

We agree to disagree here.
Im not going to engage in any insults about "whether anyones tastebuds are burnt out"


One can eat a vidalia like an apple, theres so little of the mercaptans in it. Its not that they are High in sugars, they are low in the basic "oniony" flavorants (the mercaptans and thiols), so all we have left are the sugars.

A real onion is a lot more complex of a flavor and, if you try to caramelize a vidalia, they are insipid mushy bleccchhh.

IMHO

AHHH VACAVILLE, the land of onions and the freshest artichokes in the US.
There used to be a rock shop on the back way up to UCal Davis that went by Vacaville and the Airbase. I could get any specimen from anywhere in the world (as long as we could wash the cat pee offn it, the oner of the rock shop kept a million cats and it would gag you qhen you walked in the place)

Vacaville, part of my way from Humboldt County to Sacramento sometimes.

Me with my very attenuated sense of smell? I don't smell onion fields or garlic fields or any fields, including stockyards, which I've been in a few times on film shoots. I can smell ginger in my kitchen. I can smell some cheeses. Onions in my kitchen make me sneeze once in a while, don't smell them or if I do it's just a kind of warmth emanating from the pot, not just plain air. I can taste them, as noted by my ravings.

Well. I passed it in the supermarket and couldn't let the opportunity pass me by. I guess this is tonight's dinner. I apologize in advance:

Rectum?? I think you need an acquired taste for that....
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White bean salad with red peppers and lots of garlic with baguette.