My eyes stopped in their tracks as I scanned the webpage of post snippets: ‘What To Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Chopping An Onion‘, the SALON headline read. ‘Embrace lazy cooking to its fullest’ the teaser tempted…
Casio e Pepe: One of the four classic Roman pastas… Here embellished with crumbled
Crispy Bacon – another traditional, bold, umami flavour to sub in for onions!
I knew in that instant that the author of the post was a culinary soulmate. I wanted to meet her, talk to her. Cook with her!
The premise in principle…
Author, SALON Staff Writer Joy Saha was exploring the new social media phenomenon known as ‘lazy cooking’: “The hack itself refers to meals that are prepared with minimal effort, minimal clean up and convenient ingredients that are often readily available in one’s refrigerator and pantry. That definit-ion, however, seems to vary from home cook to home cook.”
The break point, where a recipe leaves the realm of conventional cooking to lounge in the lazysphere, is apparently defined by whether or not you have to chop an onion. No onion required? You’re in!
Onions not mandatory!
Chef Stephen Chavez, Senior Chef-Instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education’s Los Angeles campus, told Saha there are lots of ways to cook without chopping any onions. And that will be a relief to the millions of folks out there who pass up recipe opportunities because they simply can’t stand to chop an onion. The tears, the itching. I amazed my culinary lab instructor by sneezing every time I chopped onions.
But you DO need something to take an onion’s place in most recipes that call for them. Chavez says he relies on a few selected flavours to carry the load when he doesn’t to use actual onions:
Roasted Peppers: For a ‘sweet-savoury’ flavour boost.
Tomato Paste: “It’s sweet and rich in umami — everything you’d get out of an onion.”
Lemon Zest: “If you think your dish is lacking in flavour, don’t try to remedy it with more salt. Simply add a pinch of lemon zest.”
Herbs: Thyme, Tarragon and Rosemary go well in almost any savoury dish.
Spices: Spice blends can be your best buddies when you’re swapping out the onions. Middle Eastern Zatar can provide a special zip. Sumac – an underused spice outside the Near Asian realm – also con-tains zingy, umami secrets.
What about the recipes?
Chavez suggests several easy, inexpensive recipes in which the traditional onions can be replaced by his fave substitutes – to delicious effect!
Scrambled Eggs
“Just make your scrambled eggs basically the way that you normally do. A little bit before the eggs are totally firm, chuck in a little lemon zest,” Chavez says. Works with omelets, too…
Cacio e Pepe
“Pasta is versatile,” Chavez explains. “You can literally put anything you want in it, and it’s going to be fine. Many classic Italian dishes don’t necessarily require onion [anyway].”
Pasta al Pesto
“Blend together garlic, pine nuts, lemon juice, salt and basil in a food processor or blender […] If you don’t have basil, you can make it with parsley, even carrot tops.”
Chicken Piccata
Chicken Piccata is ‘a bright and acidic dish that’s heavy on butter, capers, lemon juice and lemon zest’. “You can even add white wine, artichoke hearts and parsley to the dish, per this recipe,” Saha suggests.
Breaded Chicken Cutlet
Often topped with a zesty tomato sauce, some of which traditionally features onions… This classic spans Europe from top to bottom and side to side. Call it Milanesa, Escalop, Condon Bleu, Schnitzel, Chicken Kiev – even Chicken Fried Steak or Katsu. “All you need with that is a little squeeze of lemon, and it’s incredible to eat!” Chavez says.
My take
Just BTW: Those ‘cutlet’ recipes are just as good with Pork, Beef or Veal – as the vignette above teases…
As for onion ‘substitutes’, you may have some ideas of your own. Or even some ingredients you al-ready use as stand-ins for the ‘Weeping Rose’. I’ve coined that colourful moniker for the onion, as a companion to the popular ‘Stinking Rose’, which devotées use to refer to its cousin, Garlic.
My personal feeling is, we should all experiment with onion alter-egos as part of our culinary edu-cation. Who knows what truly new and exciting flavour discoveries we may make!
~ Maggie J.