A couple of announcements then on to our top story!
Just a reminder that the garlic planting party is on for Saturday October 8th from 1:00 until done. Put it on your calendar before something else fills in the currently empty space. Space is limited to only the number of people who can fit on a 20 acre parcel so now is the time to commit!
Still taking back pint-size clamshells.
And we can always use help from those with time on their hands.
This Week’s Top Story
Let’s talk about alliums, the stinky cousins in the vegetable world. Alliums include onions, garlic, shallots, chives and leeks. Much like our stinky human cousins, Alliums produce a sulfurous compound that give them that oniony/garlicy smell/flavor. And to be more precise, it is our stinky female cousins who smell the most like onions! But I digress.
We started out this season by giving out scallions in the spring. Scallions are onions that are bred not to form bulbs. They just form a tall, lanky plant that many of us call green onions. Once we were through the scallions we switched over to our sweet onions. There seems to be a misunderstanding in the culinary world about sweet onions. Many sources divide the onions into sweet or pungent based on their color. Even Wikipedia makes this mistake. The color of the onion is immaterial as to whether it is a sweet onion or a pungent onion — otherwise known as a storage onion. There are sweet red, yellow and white onions. There are also red and yellow storage onions. There may be white storage onions as well but we don’t grow them. What makes a good storage onion is its plethora of sulfurous compounds that helps the onion resist rotting. It also helps if the neck of the onion is small and tight so that it is less susceptible to bacteria entering the bulb. So storage onions have a lot of sulfur. Sweet onions less so. But the color only indicates what color it is.
Some people believe that sweet onions have sugar and storage onions don’t and that is why they are sweet. Au contraire mon frère! Storage onions have sugar as well. But the increased sulfurous compounds overwhelm the taste sense and people don’t notice the sweetness. But, when you cook the onions the compounds break down and the sweetness comes out and caramelizes. In addition, when you cook onions high in these sulfurous compounds they form another compound that tastes like meat broth. The more sulfurous compounds the more meaty the cooked onion flavor. That is why you are better off using storage onions for making French onion soup. Sacré bleu!
The reason I am bringing all this up now is that we are switching away from the sweet onions and moving into the shallots, storage onions and leeks. And since there is a difference in the uses of these items I felt it was best to give you a heads-up. Sweet onions work well for both raw dishes and cooked dishes. Storage onions are best for cooking. So any onions you receive from this point forward consider using for cooking (though if we have some sweet onions in the pick-up tent we will label them as sweet onions).
This week we will be giving out a new shallot called “Crème brûlée”. It has a “sugar profile well suited for caramelizing” according to the seed catalog. It doesn’t look like a normal onion bulb — it is a shallot which would explain why — so you will be able to tell the difference. Many “chefs” claim shallots have a more mild, delicate flavor. Many chefs are wrong — at least when it comes to the shallots we grow. Once cooked this is true but raw their flavor is far sharper than onions — especially sweet onions. They are high in sulfurous compounds which is why they store so long! I would not suggest using a shallot in place of an onion when preparing a salad. However I have found when mixing with vinegar the pungent flavor lessens so shallots can be used for dressings or vinaigrettes. I think they are best used in dishes where you want the shallot’s subtle flavor and not as part of a cacophony of flavors. For example, using a shallot in chili wouldn’t be particularly special compared to an onion. There are just too many other flavors. However as a base for a cream sauce or even sauteed their flavor is sublime.
If you have leftover sweet onions I would recommend you keep the two types of onions separate so that you can identify which is which (again, don’t use color as your marker). Use the sweet onions sooner — they don’t keep as long — and for raw dishes. Save the storage onions and shallots for later — they store for many months, your mileage may vary — or for use in cooked dishes.
What will we have this week?
The zucchinis are finally winding down as are the cucumbers. The beans however are still going strong! New this week are winter squash! We will definitely give out acorn squash and maybe spaghetti. Also this week we’ll have a potato variety called Kennebec. It is a all-purpose potato with thin skin and nice flavor. We’ll also have tomatoes, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, peppers, some eggplants, the shallots mentioned above, some broccoli, a few cabbages, and maybe a few other odds and ends.
It is also a ‘Shroom and Flower week!
Recipe of the Week
With the cool weather forecasted later in the week I suggest you roast the squash in the oven with your preferred protein. Then, if so inclined, make cookies or muffins while the oven is hot. Many recipes suggest adding brown sugar to the squash. I think it is better suited for cookies or muffins. I find the squash is plenty sweet enough without added sugar, but maybe you have different sweet sensing levels.
Joke of the Week
What kind of vegetable do you get when an elephant walks through your garden?
Squash
As always, do not hesitate to contact me with questions, comments, suggestions, jokes, etc.