Know Your Onions

This might turn out to be more interesting than I first thought. To know your onions is an idiom which means to be knowledgeable about a subject (not necessarily onion-related). As it happens, there is an almost exact equivalent in French, occupez-vous de vos oignons, which means something entirely different, namely 'mind your own business'. Curious, n'est ce pas? We shall return to things French later.

What do we know about onions - apart from the fact they have many layers, can make your eyes water and smell great when being fried? Well, they are bulbs of the lily family (allium cepa to be precise); their cultivation as an edible vegetable probably started in Asia Minor about 7,000 years ago; and there are now many varieties of the mighty onion being grown and enjoyed around the world: red, white, yellow, Bermuda, Cipollini, Egyptian, Maui, Spanish, Vidalia, Walla Walla, as well as chives, garlic, leeks, scallions and shallots.  The biggest producer (by tonnage) of onions is China, followed more surprisingly by Mali, Niger, Japan and Tunisia.

The mighty onion

The onion was revered by the ancient Egyptians who saw its construction, those concentric layers within layers, as being symbolic of eternal life and onions have been found in many Egyptian burial sites. The Greeks and then the Romans believed strongly in the homeopathic qualities of the onion. Its shape has been incorporated into the domes found gracing both Orthodox and Islamic architecture across eastern Europe and the middle east. And its efficacy (in the form of garlic) against the powers of darkness - aka vampires - is well documented (LOL).

Most varieties of onion are 90% water, have an intense flavour and are very low in calories, making them ideal constituents of many dishes including salads, sauces and stews. Dopiaza, famous from curry-house menus (and originating from Afghanistan before finding lasting favour in Indian and Persian cooking), means literally twice onions and can be interpreted either as onions cooked two ways or onions used 2:1 in ratio to any other component of the dish (be that meat or potatoes).

Onions also have interesting phytochemical properties, enzymes which act as a defence if the bulb is damaged. The most commonly observed is the onion's ability to reduce the peeler to tears. When onion cells are damaged, they produce alliinases which generate sulfenic acid that in turn oxidises to release a gas irritating to the eyes. One tip to reduce the effect is to peel and slice onions under cold water. Another is to wear goggles. Mess tent troops in the second world war whose task it was to peel hundreds of onions on a regular basis used to do so wearing gas masks!

Allied troops peeling onions the painless way, Tobruk 1941

Raw onions have also been known to cause asthma, dermatitis, conjunctivitis and anaphylactic shock. The little fellas really don't want to be eaten! However, the cooking process denatures those allergic properties so that very few people ever suffer an adverse reaction to cooked onions, which both smell and taste wonderful.

Digressing ever so slightly, my parents gave me for my 7th birthday a hardback copy of Kenneth Graham's The Wind In The Willows, with colour-plate illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Of course the book is a classic and the illustrations are superb (though sadly Rackham died before its publication). One plate that greatly impressed me as a 7 year old was that of Mole taunting the rabbits in their burrows as he sauntered past.

To the best of my knowledge I've never tasted onion sauce, even though as you may have gathered I am very fond of onions. Therefore, I have made it my duty to discover what onion sauce is and how to make it. This is what I've learned. There appear to be two main ways to make onion sauce, a bland and simple three-step English method and a complex, sexy eight-step French method.

For bland onion sauce proceed as follows. 1) Peel a large onion and chop it into pieces before boiling in water for 15 minutes until slightly soft. 2) Melt butter in a pan and add cornflour before stirring milk into the paste to make a white sauce. 3) Drain the onions and add them to the sauce, mixing well over a medium heat along with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over rabbit! Marks: 5 out of 10.

For sexy onion sauce proceed as follows: 1) Peel a large onion and chop into pieces and boil for 2 minutes until blanched. 2) Make a roux by melting butter in a pan and adding plain flour. 3) Warm milk in a pan containing a whole peeled onion studded with cloves until nearly boiling. 4) Drain the onions and cook in a pan of butter with a spoonful of sugar added until they are glazed but not caramelized. 5) Pour the milk through a sieve into the roux to make a béchamel sauce. 6) Add the glazed onions and cook until the sauce starts to thicken. 7) Puree the entire contents by forcing through a sieve into a clean pan. 8) Add two spoonfuls of crème fraiche and heat again until all the cream is emulsified and the sauce is reduced to a silky but pourable texture. Serve with grilled poultry and mangetout.  Marks: 10 out of 10.

The French version is also known as Sauce Soubise after the aristocratic gourmet credited with devising it in the 18th century, one Charles de Rohan, Marshall of France and Prince of Soubise.

I like to keep challenging myself and so this week, armed with that wealth of culinary research, I'm going to attempt a first for me - the writing of a 'recipe' poem... or is it?

Sauce Soubise
Take one bronzed and burnished onion
and with a sharp blade undress it thus:
slit longitudinally through the outer husk
unlayering dry case within papery case
until your eyes smart at the reveal,
a bulbous near-luminescent pearl.

With the same sharp blade, deft strokes
should slice and dice the pungent flesh,
then work the whole into a sweat
with a little olive oil over a medium heat.
A wok serves best, no corner left to hide in.
When all is lightly glazed, set it to rest.

Melt butter in a pan, mix flour to paste
and flood it with the right amount
of full fat milk to constitute the base.
Fold in the onion, stir with flair and think
of the gourmandising aristocrat who first
devised such luxury in the teeth of revolution.

Sieve to a puree, add fresh cream, then heat
and whisk this sauce Soubise to a silken gleam.
Although no citizens' consistory shadows
your door to drag you to the guillotine
for such excess, plate up a symbolic portion
to appease the iron constitution of history.

Thanks for reading. Have a good week, S ;-)