BRATTLEBORO — The first real snowfall of the season found me gazing out the window at all those white flakes pouring from the sky.
Snow is quite bizarre, really, when you stop to think about it: solid white matter, frozen into perfect crystals, falling from above, and accumulating on the ground, staying frozen for months, piling up into huge clumps when the plow comes. We ski on it and sled down it and tramp it into our houses and love it and curse it. We are very glad to see it go finally, in the spring.
This snowy January day, staying in the kitchen seems like a fine thing to do, because we are indeed very far away from spring.
A few onions in their basket on the counter seem unaware of the season, having ignored the weather and started to sprout. When onions start to send up these lovely green shoots, they are actually producing a new onion plant that will eventually flower and produce seeds.
By this time, a sprouted onion is not very good for cooking, but its root end can be plopped into a pot of earth and its growing green tops used like scallions.
Left to flower, its beauty provides the promise of April. If you are very ambitious, the seeds can be saved and used to produce new onion plants in the spring.
So much savory cooking starts with an onion and some garlic that one cannot imagine cuisine without them. Both are members of the Allium family of plants.
Allium is actually the Latin word for garlic. Garlic is but one of the many edible varieties of this magnificent plant genus, which also includes many types of onion, shallots, scallions, chives, and leeks.
Each offers its own distinctive flavor and character in the kitchen. Yet the behind-the-scenes role of all these alliums as a culinary foundation upon which we build is so ever-present that they are frequently taken for granted.
But like the underappreciated understudy who outshines the diva when given the opportunity, alliums can take the stage all on their own.
* * *
Let's start with onions. There are many varieties, but the largest group, Allium cepa, are the ones we use most of the time. They form single large bulbs that can be red, white, or yellow, and they are sometimes referred to as globe onions.
Onions contain a lot of water and sugar, which makes them great candidates for caramelization but also causes them to spoil easily. They prefer dry, cool, and dark environments, where they will keep for three to four weeks.
In the kitchen, all alliums - onions, especially - love butter, cream, and any type of cheese.
Here is a show-stopper of a recipe that is simple, yet intensely satisfying. With a green salad, this dish serves two as dinner that makes the coldest January day worth every shiver.
Onion Gratin
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In an 8- or 9-inch gratin dish, toss gently:
¶2 large onions, any variety, peeled and quartered
¶3 tablespoons olive oil
¶salt and pepper
Bake until tender, about {3/4} to 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Remove from the oven and raise the temperature to 400 degrees F.
Add:
¶1 cup of heavy cream
to the onions in the dish and top with
¶1 (generous) cup cheese, shredded
Use whatever cheese you happen to have around. Parmesan is perfect, but a local cheddar or something like Spring Brook Farm Tarentaise would also be great. Blue cheese will add its special pungency.
When the oven has preheated, bake the onions for an additional 25 minutes or so, until the whole lovely mess is golden and bubbly.
Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes.
* * *
Shallots, the shyer little sister of the onion, are multiplier onions, meaning they form into clusters of several bulbs that are joined at the roots, like garlic.
The skin of a shallot can be golden, pinkish, or slightly gray, and their chemical compounds make them slightly sweeter, more delicate, and less pungent than onions.
French cuisine favors shallots in vinaigrettes and cooking, but in my kitchen, shallots are all about caramelization and the magic transformation of sugar into something nutty, brown, and mellow.
This recipe serves two as a generous side dish, which can be gussied up by the addition of a few lumps of fresh goat cheese tossed on top when it is first taken out of the oven.
Caramelized Shallots
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Melt in a medium oven-proof sauté pan:
¶{1/2} stick unsalted butter
Add
¶1 pound of shallots, peeled
and sprinkle to coat with
¶2 tablespoons sugar
Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the shallots just begin to brown.
Add, then stir:
¶2 tablespoons good quality red wine vinegar
¶salt and pepper
Bake in the oven for 15 to 30 minutes or until the shallots are tender.
Remove from oven, then sprinkle with:
¶1 tablespoon minced parsley
* * *
Scallions, or green onions, share the hollow stems of globe onions but are harvested before a real bulb forms. Their green stems are chopped along with their tiny white tips and are usually used raw in salsas and Asian cuisine for their color and mild pungency. Who doesn't love a scallion pancake?
Inexpensive and readily available, they can be used to make a flavorful spaghetti dish that is ready in the time it takes to cook the pasta.
Spaghetti with Scallions
Cook according to package directions:
¶approximately 4 ounces of dry spaghetti
While the pasta is cooking, heat in a sauté pan:
¶{1/4} cup olive oil
Cook over medium heat until the vegetables are soft, about 4-5 minutes:
¶2 bunches of scallions, cleaned and chopped
¶1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
¶{1/4} cup white wine
Add:
¶{1/4} cup chicken or vegetable stock
¶2 tablespoons unsalted butter
¶1 teaspoon of lemon zest
¶salt and pepper to taste
Cook, stirring occasionally for a few minutes until the mixture is creamy and slightly reduced.
Toss with the cooked spaghetti:
¶Parmesan cheese (enough to make you happy).
Serves two as dinner.
* * *
Though we tend to think of chives as herbs, they are in fact the smallest and most delicate of the edible alliums and the only member of the genus that is native to North America. Available all winter in stores, they are easily grown in pots through the season.
Chives have a bright distinctive pungency that pairs well with eggs. Used here with ricotta to provide extra creaminess, chives elevate the humble scrambled egg to a position of elegance on the table.
Scrambled Eggs with Chives and Ricotta
Using a dinner fork, whisk:
¶4 fresh local large eggs
¶1 tablespoon chives, minced with a very sharp knife
¶salt and pepper to taste
Melt in a medium skillet over medium-low heat:
¶1 tablespoon of unsalted butter
Add the eggs and cook gently, turning frequently with a spatula, until they are almost cooked but still soft and curdy. This takes about 2 minutes or so.
Remove from the heat and immediately add:
¶{1/2} cup fresh ricotta cheese
Stir very gently until the cheese is distributed but not totally mixed in. You want little clumps of ricotta throughout the eggs.
Serves two as a light supper with some thick buttered toast.
* * *
Rare is the kitchen without garlic. All over the world, this little bulb is a fundamental building block of cuisine.
When buying garlic, look for bulbs that are firm to the touch and have no telltale bruising. When using individual garlic cloves, halve them lengthwise and remove any tiny beginnings of greenish sprouts you might find in their interior. These sprouts tend to be very bitter and can ruin the lovely flavor of the rest of the clove.
Garlic hates high heat and loves slow cooking, where its bite is softened into something mysterious and mellow. This soup recipe calls for 40 cloves, but the cooking method transforms them into delicious mild sweetness.
Garlic Soup
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Toss in a small baking dish:
¶26 unpeeled cloves of garlic
¶2 tablespoons olive oil
¶salt and pepper
Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes until cloves are tender and golden. Remove from oven and cool until easily handled. Squeeze garlic from cloves and reserve.
Sauté in a medium pan over medium heat until soft:
¶{1/4} stick of unsalted butter
¶2{1/4} cups of sliced onions
Add the reserved roasted garlic and:
¶18 garlic cloves, raw and peeled
Cook for 3 minutes. Add:
¶3{1/2} cups of chicken or vegetable stock
¶2 teaspoons of finely chopped fresh thyme
Simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and, using an immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth.
Add:
¶{1/2} cup heavy cream
Reheat until warm. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust accordingly.
Serves four, or two with leftovers.
* * *
We now come to what I consider the ultimate in alliums: leeks.
Leeks do not form a a bulb like an onion, but they produce a long cylinder of leaves that have an oniony flavor that is sweet and mild.
They are grown in deep trenches that leave them with lots of dirt in between their many-layered leaves, and they need to be washed thoroughly before using.
My all-time favorite recipe for leeks is more suited to summer than the snowy days of January, but it is so fantastic that I just have to include it here.
Extra-sharp Leeks Vinaigrette
Bring a pot of water to a boil.
Secure with kitchen string, reuniting the halves:
¶5 medium leeks, white and light green parts only, roots trimmed, halved lengthwise and rinsed
Simmer until fork-tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and unbundle the leeks. Let cool.
Whisk:
¶5 tablespoons hot Dijon mustard
¶1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
¶{1/2} tablespoon red wine vinegar
Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in:
¶{1/2} cup extra-virgin olive oil
Season with:
¶{1/4} teaspoon kosher salt
¶freshly ground black pepper to taste
Slice each leek half lengthwise into thirds. Toss with vinaigrette, to taste. Serves two to four depending on your addiction to alliums.
* * *
In winter when the sun rises late and sets early and the snow never seems to end, the comforts of the kitchen are especially welcome. William Matthews, an American poet who died in 1997, once wrote, “How easily happiness begins by dicing onions.”
I could not agree more.