Know Your Onions

Playboy's food & drink editor

Nothing shows up cowardice like an onion. Most people know the kind of two-fisted gent who's afraid of no man but who won't eat an onion unless he can go incommunicado for at least twenty-four hours. Nothing whatever disturbs this fire eater except a haunting suspicion that his breath doesn't always resemble a bouquet of hot-house carnations.

When he sits down in a restaurant, the mere words "onion soup" on the menu turn his calm gastric juices into a torrent. His eyes become misty with poignant hunger. Then he thinks of his date later in the evening and he blushes to his roots with embarrassment. Instead of the onion soup he orders creme vichyssoise in which the same quantity of onions ordinarily used in onion soup are masked in a puree of potatoes, cream and chicken broth.

When the waitress isn't looking, he devours a dozen young green scallions violently sprayed with salt. He eats his kidney stew blithely ignorant of the minced onions which have been dissolved in the rich brown gravy. Later, his aplomb is shattered when he realizes that the divine fragrance hovering over the lettuce hearts is the powerful breath of bruised garlic.

Before he goes out on his date that night, he swabs his body with hexachlorophene, scours his teeth and gums, sprays himself with lavender toilet water, gargles, chews a fistful of whole cloves, swallows a bunch of dried parsley, drinks a pint of milk (all of which he is told eliminate an onion breath) and then eats a pound of mints.

Hours later when he finally moves close to his girl on the sofa he keeps the stiffest upper lip imaginable, heroically holding his breath three minutes before and three minutes after his lips have met hers.

He has what French psychologists recognize as the complexe d'oignons. He is absolutely incurable as long as he seeks out the kind of cow-hearted female who encourages his unmanly fears.

His only chance of rehabilitation is to meet one of those natural human beings who likes her steak surrounded with a mountain chain of crisp brown French fried onions and who will not eat grilled calf's liver unless it is lying under a large bed of smothered Spanish onions. Only the sort of lass who is not ashamed to cry when she grates juicy onions into a bowl of potato pancake batter can offer him some hope of salvation. The type of girl who likes to kiss and be kissed will soon convince him that life is not all vanilla and that he should accept the fact that, next to salt, onions are the most important seasoning agent in the world.

Botanically, onions belong to the lily family. The edible bulb has been in the news ever since Satan watched the blowup of a heavy date in a certain garden. An old legend tells how the Devil left the garden after the Fall and stepped outside. Where his right foot landed, onions began to grow. Where his left foot tread, garlic sprang up. For years the building of the pyramids in Egypt was looked upon as a baffling miracle of construction. The explanation is now a simple one. The workmen who labored on the pyramids lived on a diet of raw onions and bread. That classic maestro of stringed instruments, Emperor Nero, could never deny the adequacy of his nickname. They called him Porrophagus after the Roman word porrum meaning leeks, which the famous fleshpot ate so abundantly. Leeks are a dignified relative of the onion, magnificent for soups and stews. The French novelist Balzac who ate onions from morning till night correctly described them as the best kind of brain food, "rendering it subtle and putting to flight base notions and prejudice."

Even some of the old legends about the magical power of onions seem to have some basis in fact. An onion buried in the ground may not remove a wart, but an onion or garlic applied to a wound, scientists now believe, can have definite antiseptic value.

The power of the edible bulb to flavor foods is almost incredible. A few drops of onion juice will liven anything from a pallid cream cheese spread to a curry of lobster. Soups, sauces, stews and stuffings would simply be impossible without onions. They can be used to flavor the most delicate mousse or they can be part of the filling for a huge hero sandwich. Onions can be eaten raw, half cooked or cooked; they can be steamed, boiled, sauted, deep fried, grilled, broiled or baked. Minced onions can stand proudly alongside a bowl of fresh caviar at sixty dollars a pound, or a slab of raw onion can rest astride a two-bit hamburger. Onion can be used as a mere suspicion of flavor or it can rule the roost as in onion soup or Belgian onion pie.

The onion has no poor relatives. Some of the lilaceous clan are not widely known, but all of them are magnificent members of the chorus, from the urbane shallot to the peasanty garlic, from the robust Welsh leek to the delicate feminine chive.

A tearless onion would be a joke. For the very thing in the onion which makes you cry is the same thing that gives the magic bulb its strength and liveliness. When you cut an onion, a volatile oil rises in the air, awakening your nostrils and causing your tear ducts to flow in obeisance. If the onion is one of the medium size varieties grown in Northern (continued on page 49)Onions(continued from page 19) soil, its fragrance is caustic and sharp. If the onion is one of the larger Spanish or Bermuda types grown in a warm climate, it will be juicier, milder and sweeter.

No other creature in the vegetable kingdom reacts as sensitively to fire as an onion. When you put sliced onions in the frying pan with some butter and turn on the fire, they will show no sign of embarrassment. In a few minutes, however, the bold onion rings that caused you to weep will become humble and lose their swaggering shape. If you taste them at this point, they are neither raw nor cooked but limp and expectant like the onions clinging to the sides of a big shad placed in the oven for baking.

As the onions continue to fry they become transluscent, losing their hard white color and turning the palest white gold. They are like the onions you would eat in a dimly lit Chinese restaurant on Grant Street, San Francisco.

The heat goes on. You stir the onions and soon they are a deeper gold, like the onions in a casserole of hot onion soup in a restaurant tucked away in the Montmartre. In a few minutes the edges of the onions turn a modest brown. They are fairly begging for the companionship of a steak or hamburger.

Continue to panfry the onions and they become a deep Latin bronze. The savory onion flavor and aroma has now crept through the whole apartment. It reminds a man of old fashioned roasts in a New England inn, of fried onions in an isolated cabin in Maine and someone hungry and waiting nearby.

All of these stages take place every time onions go into the frying pan, and they are a miracle of culinary transformation.

When you buy onions, look for a dry crackly outer skin. If the onion neck feels wet, the onion is becoming senile. It will soon rot. Good onions are free from sprouts, as smooth as an eighteen-year-old cheek, firm to the touch. Onions range anywhere in size from the tiny white "picklers" to huge Spanish onions fifteen inches in diameter. Onions may be red, purple, white or yellow. The red and purple skin onions are wonderful for Italian dishes and for gumbo. The white silver onions are used for creamed whole onions. For all other purposes yellow skinned onions are the best.

To peel onions easily drop them into scalding hot water for about a half minute. The stubborn skins will then become docile. When peeling an onion, don't cut too deeply into the root end. This is the shaggy dark end of the bulb, the core from which the onion is built up in concentric circles. Onions and union are both derived from the same word. If you cut too deeply into the root end when peeling the onion, the "union" will break apart when you cut the onion later.

If you're peeling onions for a large party and you find yourself going into a cloudburst of tears, there is only one thing you can do. Walk away. Then when you return, hold the whole onions under cold running water before cutting them and you'll prevent some of the sobbing. Old superstitions about holding your jaws wide open or putting a crust of bread in your mouth won't keep you from weeping, since the onion's volatile oil continues to rise in the air and causes your tear ducts to pull their Niagara act. There is an onion chopper on the market, a glass enclosed affair which will keep you from sobbing. It's good for chopping onions but a nuisance to clean, and it can't be used for peeling onions, slicing them, dicing them or making onion rings.

It has become fashionable these days to list Onion Soup on restaurant menus as French Onion Soup. The French do love the soup and have loved it for centuries, but it is equally well enjoyed by the Italians and Spaniards. As a matter of fact, Italian chefs are greater purists than the French as far as onion soup is concerned. It's the simplest soup in the world, consisting of browned onions and stock. Many French cooks, however, are guilty of adding flour to the onions after the onions are panfried. The soup then turns a cloudy dark brown like the color of a chestnut. Italian chefs of the better sort do not add flour, and the soup remains transparent gold.

Most Italian chefs also want their onion soup not only to be boiling hot when it is brought to the table but spike it liberally with crushed whole pepper. They know that a good onion soup should almost shock you with its distinctive flavor. The soup should not be offensively strong, but it must be peppery, alive and brimming with energetic goodness.

On top the soup there should be cheese croutons. These are thin slices of French or Italian bread (the very narrow long loaves, sometimes called flutes) browned and sprinkled with grated cheese, paprika and oil.

When you–that is, both of you– are hungry and tired after the long weekend in the country and are wearied of long formal dinners, serve hot onion soup with cheese croutons:

Onion soup for two

Peel and cut two Spanish onions into rings or long thin strips. Chop one clove of garlic extremely fine. Put the onions and garlic in a soup pot with two tablespoons butter. Place over a moderate flame and saute until the onions are a deep yellow–not brown. Stir frequently to keep the onions from browning.

Add 3 cups chicken broth or 3 cups of boiling water and 3 bouillon cubes. Add 1/4 teaspoon crushed whole peppercorns and 1/8 teaspoon worcestershire sauce. Simmer slowly 20 minutes.

While the soup is simmering, toast 4 thin slices of French or Italian bread, using the broiler flame as a toaster. Sprinkle the untoasted side generously with grated Parmesan or Romano cheese. Sprinkle lightly with salad oil. Dust lightly with paprika. Place the cheese side of the bread under the broiler flame (concluded on page 53)Onions(continued from page 49) and broil until the cheese browns lightly.

Season the soup to taste. The cheese croutons may be passed with the soup at the table together with additional grated cheese. The soup may also be poured into an earthen casserole and five or six croutons floated on top, the whole placed in the oven and baked to form a complete crust over the bubbling pool of onions. Pass additional cheese at the table. As a postscript to the onion soup, eat a fresh apple or blueberry tart with iced coffee or demi tasse.

French fried onions for four

When a huge sirloin steak charred on the outside and rare inside is brought triumphantly to the table, it's naturally the center of attention. There are few side dishes that fellows will notice–except one: a platter of light huge crisp French fried onion rings.

French fried onions, unlike French fried potatoes, cannot merely be dropped into deep fat and cooked. They must first be coated with a thin layer of flour. To make the flour stick and to give the onions their proper flavor of mild sweetness, dip the onion rings in milk before coating them with flour.

Peel 2 large Spanish or Bermuda onions. Holding the onion firmly in the left hand cut crosswise slices about 1/8 inch thick. Separate sections of the slices to make onion rings. Put a cup of milk in a large bowl. Dip the onion rings in the milk. Drain the onions.

In a large paper bag put 1/2 cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon paprika. Put the onions in the bag. Close the bag and shake vigorously to coat all the onion rings. Remove the onion rings from the bag and shake off excess flour. Fry a small amount at a time in a kettle of deep fat until the onions turn golden brown.

To keep the onion rings from being greasy, fry them in fat of the right temperature, 390 degrees F. If you own one of the new electric, thermostatically controlled deep fryers, you will have no problem in controlling the fat temperature. Otherwise you can clip a fat thermometer to the side of the kettle to indicate the temperature. Lacking the thermometer, you should heat the fat until the first wisp of smoke appears – at that time it will be the proper cooking temperature. Don't fill the frying kettle more than one-third full with fat. Don't overload the frying basket. Lower the frying basket with the onions slowly into the fat. Be prepared to with-draw it if the bubbles rise too high. When the onions are finished, drain them on absorbent paper and spray them generously with salt.

Serve French fried onions with anything from hamburger to filet mignon. Serve them in big man-sized mounds. Send them coasting down with Pilsner glasses frothing with the coldest beer in your refrigerator.