CHOOSING ONION
- A good range all year round
- Stored onions should be hard and the skin should rustle
- Fresh onion should feel springy
- Look for hard, springy garlic
- The tops are good for flavor
Because onion stores well, it’s available all year round. The exception can be in early spring when stored onions are past their best and the fresh ones haven’t been harvested yet.
The range is growing
Onions in supermarkets are embarking on the same journey as the tomato. There are more and more varieties to choose from. See this as a plus and try them out.
Buying local
Check your local season for onions and buy them if you can. At other times of the year they will be imported. Seasons for onions, leeks and spring onions will be different.
Hard with a papery skin
The all-year-round onion you pick up in the supermarket should be hard and the skin should be dry and rustle, like paper. Onions should have the tops on.
Keep the tops on
When onions have been harvested, they should be allowed to die with their tops on. This is the best way of developing the flavors in the onion itself, without air or other unwanted substances penetrating in. Fresh onions with the green tops left on are always a good choice. They need to look attractive and crisp, roughly like freshly cut, healthy flowers.
The top is the best bit of the onion.
– Joel Aronsson, Fäviken, Krakas, and other restaurants
The art of choosing garlic
- Squeeze garlic in the shop (no matter what anyone says). Bad garlic – dried out or rotten – will collapse when you touch it. A fresh clove of garlic is hard and springy.
- It’s good if the peel around the cloves (which looks a bit like paper) is a pinkish color.
Garlic with the tops on
Garlic also develops milder, better tasting flavors if left to dry with the tops on. If you usually buy plaits of garlic on your holiday in the Mediterranean, carry on doing that. Gourmet Joel Aronsson thinks that the cut garlic you buy in the supermarket smells wrong.
New Zealand onions
Some people think that New Zealand has the best onions in the world because of the growing climate and the soil conditions. In the summer months onions from New Zealand even find their way to Europe.