How to Reduce the Pungency of Onions
If you’re anything like me, you don’t mind onions in your salads or even sandwiches, in fact you actually like them very much. Problem is, they can be awfully pungent. I make lots of salads with red onions (there’s even a Sicilian orange and red onion salad that’s one of my absolute favorites), however, when I serve them I notice that unless I soak them ahead of time, guests will almost always skirt them to the side of their plate either in fear of the inevitable burst of onion juice in their mouths or they’ve taken one bite and said to themselves, “I’ll pass on that”.
So, the best thing to do is cut them thinly and soak in water for about 20-30 minutes. Some say do it for less than that, and if you’re in a rush I’m sure five minutes earlier won’t be a problem, but what soaking in water does is to basically make them a little more mild on the tongue (hence the fact that these in the photos are not cut so thinly). You don’t have to go through this if you’re actually cooking the onions, just for those raw meals you may want to go down a whole lot easier.
You can also just do this if you want to prevent from crying when cutting onions (which only happens to me when I’m not wearing my contacts- guess they protect my eyes from the vapors), although I don’t do this much because it’s a pain to dry them if you’re going to cook them next, otherwise they’ll turn most dishes soggy.
Well, that was a veer off topic…
Oh, and yes- it’s the same for yellow and white onions. Just in case you were going to ask.
Do you have any tricks for reducing the pungency of onions in raw dishes?