ALL ABOUT ONIONS

In the mood for some chili? You’re gonna need

three cups of onions, medium dice. Making chicken
stock? Two onions, large chunks, please. And what
about onion soup? Yes, believe it or not, you’ll need
onions for that too.
No matter how you slice ’em, onions are used in a
good 30 to 40 percent of any cook’s savory-dish
repertoire, if not more. They are the first thing you
should learn how to cut when you pick up a knife,
and, at least for me, still one of the most pleasurable
foods to take a sharp blade to.

What color onion should I be using?
There are four basic onion varieties available in
most supermarkets: yellow, white, sweet (Vidalia or
Walla Walla), and red. You may also occasionally
see Spanish onions, which are larger, milder
relatives of yellow onions. Although sweet onions
have about 25 percent more sugar than standard
onions, their flavor difference when raw has more to
do with the amount of tear-inducing lachrymators
they contain (see below). Yellow and white onions
have more of these pungent compounds, but after
cooking, they all but disappear.
For the most part, onions can be used
interchangeably without catastrophic consequences