ESTHER'S VEG BOX CHALLENGE ONIONS

Not sure what to do with your surplus veg? Each month, our deputy food editor Esther Clark creates three recipes from her veg box staples

- Esther Clark

In 2020, veg box subscriptions were more popular than ever before. During the week that the first national lockdown was announced, one unnamed veg box company saw an influx of 10 times their average daily order volume, resulting in its website shutting down for three weeks. With more and more of us receiving these boxes every month, I’ll explore the veg I usually have in excess thanks to my own veg box subscription, and show you how to transform it.

This month, I’m talking all things onion. There are almost always a few onions in my veg box, and after pulling out all my other goodies, they’re left at the bottom, rolling around in all their golden glory. But what do you do when you have a few too many? Onions are the base to so many recipes but are often underrated as headline veg. They’re actually highly versatile and love salty flavours. They’re best, in my opinion when charred or slow-cooked to release their rich caramel flavours.

One of the most useful things I learnt at cookery school was how to cook an onion properly. If you’re making the base of a sauce or soup, you should cook onions slowly over low heat for at least 10 minutes, or until softened and translucent. Or, to extract as much flavour from them as possible when cooking a dhal, curry or Middle Eastern dish, fry your onions in a mixture of oil and butter over medium-low heat for around 20 minutes, until they turn golden and jammy.

On the next page, you’ll find three of my favourite ways to make onions special – these recipes are as far from a sloppy French onion soup as you can get.