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Big Onions


Fat Guy

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From the standpoint of convenience, the bigger the onion the better. Less waste, less work. Putting aside for now the question of tiny onions, which are a special category, is there any reason when purchasing onions not to choose the largest ones possible? In other words, do big onions taste any different from their medium-sized counterparts, or are the medium-sized ones just the rejects that get sent to regular consumers (restaurants always seem to get sacks of uniformly gigantic ones)?

This is on my mind because I just worked on some smallish onions in a grab-bag full of differently sized ones and it was annoying.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I can think of two reasons of why I prefer a small onion from time to time. First, I may not have a need for all that onion in a big one. I recognize that I may not pull that half onion out of the fridge for future use, so I'll just use a smaller onion.

Second, the size of the dice, when I typically cut an onion, comes out smaller with a small onion. The "rings" of a large onion are usually thicker, and the size of the dice is dependent on the ring size (unless I want to take extra time to mince the onion).

Dean McCord

VarmintBites

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I find medium-sized onions no worse in flavor than big onions, and since I'm usually cooking for two, a medium onion is often the right amount. When we have people over--and once we have kids--sure, I'll always spring for the big onions.

Oh, and sure, I could refrigerate the leftover half a large onion, but the idea of pulling a single onion out of the root cellar (i.e., the cabinet under the microwave) and using the whole thing appeals to me.

Matthew Amster-Burton, aka "mamster"

Author, Hungry Monkey, coming in May

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I live alone and cook for myself. Often a large onion is just too much for what I need. For instance if I want a slice of onion for a burger I'm not going to pull out a huge spanish onion, take one thin slice and feed the rest to my compost heap.

=Mark

Give a man a fish, he eats for a Day.

Teach a man to fish, he eats for Life.

Teach a man to sell fish, he eats Steak

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Based on absolutely no scientific proof, I always buy large onions because I think they are generally milder than their smaller counterparts. (Sometimes that assumption is correct. ) At any given time, you can find a portion of white, yellow and/or red onions in my veggie compartment, wrapped securely in saran and offending no-one. I have no problem removing a single slice, but agree that you have to work a little harder to get tiny dice.

(The same is true of green, red and chile peppers. I keep them on hand even if I only want a small portion for a dish.)

eGullet member #80.

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Speaking of big onions, one of my favorite chicken recipes is a Louisiana-Cajun dish called "Chicken a la Gros Oignon." First you make smothered chicken, and when the chicken pieces are tender, you push them to one side of the pan, let drippings cook down, and then stir-fry a thinly sliced great big Spanish onion cut in thin wedges, until it's starting to brown, stir well to mix chicken pieces with onions and let cook together for a few minutes. It's really satisfying. You can add andouille sausage to it or you can make it with a cut-up rabbit instead of the chicken.

We had some big beautiful walla walla onions at the market today.

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We do much of our vegetable shopping in Chinatown. I hardly ever see anything but large and larger onions. I suspect it's an eye to economy that is the reason, but it may also be a greater use of onions in the cuisine.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

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Steve, restaurants order some produce by size, depending on what they need. As you stated, large (referred to as "jumbo", in purveyor-speak) onions are easier to work with for general purposes, so we usually order large. As to the difference in taste, I believe Margeret is correct that a larger onion is milder. A related example would be elephant garlic, which is milder than regular, smaller garlic.

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