In the last decade, they’ve become easier to find in Australia. Their colour varies from yellow to pinky grey to an eye-catching deep crimson. They are clumpier and fiddlier to peel, but the extra sweat is worth it. Cuter still are the petite Asian shallots. Long and tapered, they’re daintily pretty. Most common in Australia are the French red eschallot. Unlike shallots, an onion grows as a single bulb. Shallots grow like garlic, with clusters of offsets genetically identical to their mother bulb, whereas onions are a loner bulb, and easier to grow from seed.Īn onion. But, surprisingly, they’re more closely related to garlic than onions. Shallots are in the allium family ( Allium cepa, if we’re being pedantic) and look very much like onions. Shallots when you require finesse, onions when you need weight.
Use shallots raw in a salad and they will sing harmoniously with your other veg use onions when making a stew. There’s a place for shallots, and a place for onions. “Everything in its place and a place for everything,” is what mise en place means, and that’s the motto for all self-respecting cooks and chefs. Some of the world’s greatest dishes have onions as a starting point. Randy Moon, one of the “Four Horsemen” behind my favourite wine bar in NYC (with a killer menu, too) says onions are a crucial base note to dishes that require a long cooking time. Shallots are more delicate and aromatically perfumed, much sweeter to eat raw. It’s still going to make your eyes water, but it is not as pungent. If you sniff a shallot, however, I could understand that. No one in their right mind would sniff a raw onion and call it fragrant. I should have realised something was up, as the literal translation is “fragrant”. In Thai, shallots were referred to as hohm. I grew up thinking shallots and onions were the same, too.
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