Three warming onion recipes

Onions are a constant. They’re also humble – we rarely cook them just for themselves. Dishes are built on them. In Europe, many French recipes start with a mirepoix – diced onions, celery and carrots; Spanish ones with a sofrito of onion, garlic and tomatoes cooked in olive oil. In Cajun cooking, you start with the ‘holy trinity’ of onions, celery and green peppers. Onions eventually become a background in which you can barely discern their presence, but you’ll know if you leave them out. You feel their absence. There is no centre to your soups, your stock tastes feeble. Onions are modest but they’re also at the core of so many dishes.

I was in Shetland – where the growing of vegetables is taken seriously because it’s difficult – a couple of years ago and visited a crofter (she’s 84 and gets around on a quad bike), well known for her self-sufficiency. In her garden there were green cabbages tinged with mauve, five different varieties of potato, cauliflower, broccoli and kale, but no onions. ‘I just don’t like them,’ she said briskly. ‘I know when onions have gone into a dish as they’re so strong.’ She could be what’s known as a ‘super taster’: flavours are more intense to her. I would no sooner stop using onions than I would stop eating bread and butter.

In his book Odes to Common Things, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote, ‘I have praised everything that exists, but to me, onion, you are more beautiful than a bird… the fragrance of the earth lives in your crystalline nature.’ This could be as much to do with how you feel when you’re cooking onions as what they bring to a dish.

Have you done that thing, stood in your kitchen chopping an onion while the pressures of the day recede? The peace sneaks up on you. ‘Chop an onion’ is often how a dish begins. Every cook experiences the quiet anticipation of a new dish starting to form when they chop an onion, and a sense of continuity too. After difficult periods – getting divorced, having a sick child and anxious stays in hospital – I have found my way back to myself by chopping an onion. I feel I have done it every day of my life – this ordinary activity is at my centre.

Onions are not straightforward to cook. You must pay attention. I was making the German dish below a few days ago and cooked my onions so slowly they collapsed. They were too soft and too pale. They’d lost their structure. It helps to keep a visual picture of what you’re trying to achieve – chopped onions that become soft but not coloured, caramelised onions that are dark and sweet, fried onions as brown as tobacco.

I first noticed how onions behave in the Wimpy in my hometown. They were fried on a flat griddle and moved around with something that resembled a wallpaper scraper. This produced a mixture of frizzled golden-brown onions, a few small raw bits and tiny pieces that were scorched, but not so badly you wanted to spit them out. They were what you get if you don’t have time to pay attention. They seemed perfect for a burger.

The kind of onions you end up with depends on the heat under your pan, the fat you use, whether you’ve added salt or not (salt draws water out) and whether the pan is covered. Onions don’t have to be cooked, of course. Slices so fine they add just a whisper of their flavour are perfect on smoked salmon, and I can eat slice after slice of black bread with raw onions, a combination that is earthy, sweet and sharp. Onions are basic but fundamental. I love them for all the ways they can be.