They Call Me Miss Pickle

Sometime between me living on college cafeteria food and me falling so in love with food that I started a food blog, I made the decision to learn how to cook.


I kid you not, the process began with me manipulating Knorr packaged dinners, think a small step above Kraft Mac n Cheese, but eventually I moved on to just using the sauce packets that were sold separately and mixing them into other ingredients.


Strangely, this taught me more than you would think about cooking: like how different liquids changed the flavor and consistency of the sauce, what shape I liked various veggies cut to, and how to stagger the addition of ingredients without turning half to mush while leaving the other half raw.

As I dragged my friends through this process I managed to pick up a mish-mash of passed down advice which included how to soak onions:


'Why would we do that?'

"I dunno, it's how my mom does it, I think it's Romanian..."

Sold.


For that dinner we took our chopped up Vidalia onions and tossed them into a bowl of water with a little pinch of salt and waited.  A few minutes later the water had passed through each piece, taking with it the sharp onion burn and the dramatic crunch, but leaving behind the mellow sweetness and a pleasant crunch.


Since then, whether it's labeled as soaked, a quick and dirty pickle, or macerated, I've discovered that this is a pretty common means for manipulating veggies that have too much bite or too much crunch without actually bringing them under heat (yay Summer-friendly recipes).  In the case of onions, this process will make them less spicy and more flavorful while still allowing them to bring that desired crunch to a dish.  Read: your breath won't smell half as bad if you soak onions before bringing them to work for lunch.


Happy soaking!

Soaked Onions and Other Stuff

Ingredients

• Vegetables, thinly sliced or chopped
• Vinegar, warm water, or boiled water to cover
• 1/2 - 1 t salt

Combine

1. Stir together the salt and liquid until the salt is dissolved.
2. Add in the veggies.
3. Let soak for 15 minutes or longer before enjoying!

Some Suggestions:

• Beets: use half boiled water and half white vinegar for the liquid and 1-2 t of salt. Soak for 2-3 days before enjoying.
• Carrots, radish, or fennel: use half boiled water and half vinegar with 1/2 t of salt. Soak overnight before enjoying.
• Vidalia onions:  Use warm water and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt, and let soak for 15 minutes.  For more flavor use balsamic vinegar (or half water, half vinegar) and 1/2 of salt, and let soak for 30 minutes.
• Shallots: use red wine vinegar for the liquid and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  Soak for 15 minutes.
• Garlic: use half warm water and half white vinegar with 1 teaspoon of salt.  Let soak for at least 15 minutes.
• Hot peppers (like jalapeños): use lime juice for the liquid and 1/2 t of salt.  Soak for 30 minutes.