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Shallots


ditsydine

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I bought a bag full of shallots at an asian grocery store the other day because it was such a good deal. Now what the hell do I do with them?

I've never had trouble using up shallots. Thai curries, thai condements, thai pickled shallots (see David Thompson), let's see, shallots braised in red wine to go with roasts... Oh, and after searing lamb chops & setting them aside, I like to put butter in the hot pan, add some thinly sliced shallots & sautee until limp, then cracked black pepper and a little red wine & reduce, as a sauce over the chops (This works with minor alterations for any type of meat, pretty much). I can look up more recipes, but honestly I don't think you can ever have enough shallots. They're like more refined onions, basically.

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Store them in a netting-type bag (so the air can circulate around the shallots) in a cool, dry place. The netting-type bag is needed because if you keep them in a plastic bag, for example, they may develope mold and then there goes your great purchase.

As for uses, you can use them in many recipes in place of an onion. They offer a more subtle onion flavor. Use them in any savory dish that starts out with a saute pan & butter....a little garlic tossed in would be great, too. Let your imagination take you from there...

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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I like to make a leafy lettuce salad sprinkled with finely chopped caramelized shallots, crumbled gorganzola cheese and dressed with a vinegrette dressing that includes minced raw shallots. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Cheers,

HC

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What those guys said.

They're a frequent ingredient in sauces (think Bercy and Bernaise).

Here's an example (aka wine reduction sauce): Sauté a chopped shallot or two in butter until transparent, add a cup or three of wine and reduce by three-quarters. Correct seasoning. For a richer sauce, after removing the saucepan from the heat, swirl in some butter cut into small pieces. The white wine version of this (sometimes with a shot of sherry vinegar added at the start) is great with fish, the red wine with lamb and other red meats.

One of my standard variations on that theme: Sauté a rib eye in butter and remove from pan. Salt and pepper generously. Dump most of the fat from the pan and sauté a chopped shallot in the remainder. Add 1/2 cup white wine and reduce until syrupy. Pour over the steak.

Minced shallots are also used to flavour butter, often with chopped herbs.

Let minced shallot marinate for 15 minutes in vinegar or citrus juice, then add olive oil and, if so moved, some fresh herbs for a delicious vinaigrette. The red wine vinegar version is great on green bean and/or tomato salads, the white on leeks vinaigrette (preferably with anchovy filets and seived hard-cooked egg). Both, and sherry vinegar besides, are good on grilled meats; the lemon/orange juice versions are perfect foils for oily fish like salmon.

The next time you roast chopped root veggies, peel a few shallots and add them to the mix.

If your shallots begin to sprout before you get through them, don't despair. Plant them in a shallow pot of earth and place them in a bright window. The shoots are delicious in salads and used as a seasoning like chives.

Edited by carswell (log)
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You can slice them thinly and dry them.

Slice thinly and spread on a cooling rack (one with less than 1/2 inch grid is best) set on a sheet pan and place in your oven if you have a standing pilot.

Otherwise put them in a warm, dry place - if the top of your refrigerator is clear, that is usually a warmer spot.

You can even dry them in an electric oven on the lowest setting (usually 150 to 175 degrees. Just leave the door slightly ajar to allow moisture to escape and turn it off every hour, leave it off an hour then turn it back on.

Check the progress as it doesn't take too long for them to dry to the point where they no longer feel wet on the surface.

At that point you can just leave them on the grid at room temp and they will continue to dry.

If you live in a very humid place, you can use a fan as long as it doesn't move the "chips" around.

They keep very well, if stored in an airtight container.

I sent some to GiftedGourmet for her to try. You might inquire how she used them.

I use them in any recipe that calls for shallots. I simply soak them in a little warm liquid until they are soft enough to chop.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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Make Larb!

I also make a wonderful chicken dish (courtesy of Michael Field's Cooking School). Brown some chicken pieces. While it's browning, peel (but to not slice or chop) about 15 shallots. Remove chicken from pan, brown shallots. Return chicken to pan, put on lid and cook over very low heat until chicken is done. Deglaze pan with some dry white wine or stock. This dish perfumes the house with a most wonderful aroma.

I always have shallots at home. They are dirt cheap at my local Asian markets; considerably higher at the supermarkets.

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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And as mentioned upthread, are very easy to grow in a window box or pots.

If you take a look at my duxelles thread you will see a basket of home-grown shallots, some are very large, much larger than any I have seen in stores. (Like my home-grown ginger, I manage to get things to grow much larger than usual.)

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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lightly coat with olive oil and coarse salt and roast at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or so,

check them to see how they look a nice golden brown is a good color. Put them in rice for a

nice deep flavor, use them in a salad dressing, add to hamburgers, eat just as they are, they're

really good roasted. Oh, keep them whole. a hui ho

"You can't miss with a ham 'n' egger......"

Ervin D. Williams 9/1/1921 - 6/8/2004

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All right. What's the difference between a shallot and an onion? Beside the fact that one is smaller than the other. :blink:

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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Shallots have a mild onion/garlic flavor, quite different from an onion alone and not the same as onion with garlic combined.

The flavor is complex and you have to taste one to understand the difference.

The flavor is delicate and yet pronounced.

I have tried to think of a similar example and there really is none. The only one that comes close would be the difference between anise and true licorice. Similar but different.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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Shallots have a mild onion/garlic flavor, quite different from an onion alone and not the same as onion with garlic combined. 

The flavor is complex and you have to taste one to understand the difference. 

The flavor is delicate and yet pronounced. 

I have tried to think of a similar example and there really is none.  The only one that comes close would be the difference between anise and true licorice.  Similar but different.

Thank you. I have shallots so I shall test this! :smile: I never really understood why some recipes called for shallots, now I know!

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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All right.  What's the difference between a shallot and an onion?  Beside the fact that one is smaller than the other.  :blink:

The best way to make a comparison is to try both for yourself. They're both terrific and have their places in delicious cooking in places as distant from one another as France and Malaysia. In Malaysia, there are three types of "onions" that are used very often and prized in cooking: Bawang merah (translation: red onion = shallots, not what we call "red onion" in English), bawang putih (white onion = garlic, not what you might call "white onion" [e.g., baby onions]), and bawang besar (big onion = what we call onion). Of those three, shallots are used most in Malaysian food and are a standard part of the rempah (spicy mixture), which is likely to also include belacan (shrimp paste), fresh or dried chilis, turmeric, and sometimes fresh ginger and garlic -- all pounded in a pestle or pureed in an electric functional equivalent thereof.

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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Shallots have a mild onion/garlic flavor, quite different from an onion alone and not the same as onion with garlic combined. 

The flavor is complex and you have to taste one to understand the difference. 

The flavor is delicate and yet pronounced. 

I have tried to think of a similar example and there really is none.  The only one that comes close would be the difference between anise and true licorice.  Similar but different.

Thank you. I have shallots so I shall test this! :smile: I never really understood why some recipes called for shallots, now I know!

I love shallots, and sometimes use them instead of onions just to give a little more complexity or little something extra to a dish. Sauteed shallots in butter makes a nice pasta sauce just on it's own with a sprinkle of grated cheese, salt and pepper.

It's also great in omelets, sauteed in butter first (see the trend here?) :)

Pam

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Also sauteed in duck fat!!!

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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Shallot confit?

This stuff is great. After following the onion confit thread for a while, I decided to try the shallot. It's great stuff. The stuff that stuck to the side of the crock pot was probably the best -darkly caramelized and slightly crunchy- but it was all very good and definitely had a different flavor than the onions.

But it does cook a lot faster. The first time I tried it I ended up with charred shallots after only 8 or so hours. The same volume of shallots seems to have a vastly lower water content... or something.

If you have enough shallots to fill a crock pot, give the confit a try...

Cooking garlic slowly in the crock pot also gets good results, but again the much lower water content means they are done in 3-5 hours.

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If I'm doing some sort of saute with butter and possibly leaning French, I'm more likely to use shallots than onions. I started my rice pilaf tonight with a shallot saute in butter before adding the rice and chicken stock.

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This has been asked before in a previous discussion, but is there a simple/easy way of peeling shallots? Sometimes they are a royal pain to peel, especially when you get those nested cloves/bulbs and there's suddenly more peel to peel in the middle of them.

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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Blanch with boiling water, then stir, drain, and immerse in cold water to prevent cooking. Drain again, and peel. The skins slip off much more easily.

"A good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." Virginia Woolf

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This has been asked before in a previous discussion, but is there a simple/easy way of peeling shallots?  Sometimes they are a royal pain to peel, especially when you get those nested cloves/bulbs and there's suddenly more peel to peel in the middle of them.

I just use a knife, chop off the ends, then slice in and peel off the first layer, along with the skin. Quick and easy.

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If you still have the shallots, a simple easy way to roast them is by laying them flat on a wide sheet of aluminum foil (after you peel them of course). Season them with kosher salt, cracked black pepper, and then drizzle with olive oil. Seal up the aluminum foil so the shallots and the seasonings are inside. Place on a hot grill or inside an hot oven (450?) for about 15 minutes. You should end up with beautiful roasted shallots.

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Fig and shallot focaccia. Soften/chop figs, slice shallots and add to focaccia dough or use quartered shallots and figs as a topping sprinkled with sea salt and cracked black pepper.

Shelley: Would you like some pie?

Gordon: MASSIVE, MASSIVE QUANTITIES AND A GLASS OF WATER, SWEETHEART. MY SOCKS ARE ON FIRE.

Twin Peaks

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