3 type of onions commonly use in cooking

Onions is the basis of everyday cooking; it is a must-have ingredient.

In the market in Malaysia, there are shallots, red onion and yellow onion. These three onions are usually are different in terms of size, colour, smell and flavour.

These onion are usually paired with garlic to enhance the taste of cooking.

Onions that commonly used in kitchen and store in basket — Three common onion use in cooking; shallots, red onion and yellow onion.

Shallots

Shallots is known as bawang merah kecil in Malay which means small red onion. It has strong taste, thus used as elementary spice.

Shallots are pound with additional ingredients to make paste, enhance taste and flavour of savoury dishes.

Shallots can be sliced finely and fried until golden brown, to make crispy shallot or bawang goreng. These crispy fried shallots common as garnish in soup noodles or condiment in porridge.

The shallots can last for months if keep in a cool and dry place.

Red onion

The red onions are bigger in size than shallots. The slice onion produced papery sweet flavour coming from the juice. The red onion can be cook or eaten raw.

The raw sliced onion can be mixed with selected salads such as lettuce, tomato cherry for healthy snack.

In addition, the raw sliced onion together with chilies and soy sauce is a perfect combination to make dip eat with grilled fish.

While the cooked red onion can be use as sautéing ingredients to make curry and soup.

Yellow onion

In Malay, yellow onion is better known as bawang besar Holland. The taste of the yellow onion is a bit mild compare to the red onion.

They are characterised by brown skin with greenish white flesh. The taste of the flesh is a bit sweet.

The diced yellow onion is used as sautéing ingredients to make sauce for pasta and garnishing for Laksa Johor.

The function of the yellow onion in Laksa Johor is almost similar to other vegetables that used in the dish.

Garlic

In Malaysia, the garlic is sold loose. In Malay cooking, the quantity of garlic that used is less than the quantity of shallot.

We either use garlic as paste for sambal or to fried kuew teow. The ratio for garlic to shallots usually 1:3.

This means we used less to make a recipe. Even though so, it is a must have ingredients in a Malay recipe.

Updated and checked by Halaman Sihat on 23th June 2024.