By Niveditha Kalyanaraman
December 3rd, 2023
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The humble onion is as indispensable to the culinary arts as butter or eggs—or for that matter, knives or plates. It's the rare food that can be sweet, savory, pungent and aromatic all at the same time, but that's what onions do. In a real sense, onions are what makes food "food"—going beyond mere sustenance and making it enjoyable. Making it taste good. Here are 7 types of onions and their uses.
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Yellow onions are suitable for any conceivable use, other than perhaps as a garnish for your martini. Its heavy brown parchment skin surrounds ivory white flesh with a strong, sulphury, pungent flavor and aroma. If a recipe says onion without specifying what type, it's assumed to be a yellow onion.
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Larger and slightly flatter than yellow onions, with lighter colored, less opaque skin, sweet onions contain extra sugar, making them good for caramelizing. Their larger size and sweeter flavor make them ideal for making onion rings.
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White onions have a papery white skin, and their flavor is milder and sweeter than yellow onions, making them good for serving raw in fresh salsa or homemade guacamole.
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Sweet and mild enough to be eaten raw, both the exterior skin and the flesh of red onions are a deep magenta color, which makes them particularly good additions to salads or anywhere else a splash of color will enhance the appearance of the dish.
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Shallots are small, brown-skinned onions with purplish flesh, and their bulbs are made up of multiple lobes. They impart a very intense flavor, and because they're smaller, composed of thinner layers, they can be minced very finely and used in salad dressings and sauces.
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Green onions are immature onions that have not yet formed a bulb, or only partially. The entire plant is usually used, including the tall green shoots, and they make a wonderful garnish for soups, omelets, tacos, as well as color and crunch.
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Shaped like overgrown scallions, leeks are lovely in soups and sauces.
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