multifarious missives: Ode to Shallots

Ok, just kidding. I'm not going to attempt to write a lyric poem about how delightful shallots are.. but they ARE pretty much my new favorite ingredient to cook with.

Here's a couple next to a clove of garlic for size comparison.
Shallots do come in small, medium and jumbo sizes,
but since I only cook for two, I buy the little ones

Hehe.. Perhaps you have perceived -from the multiple posts about random foods- that I am quite a fan of cooking. Sometimes I toss around the idea of turning my blog into a cooking blog; there are so many great recipes out there to try and food is (generally) very photogenic, and I do like taking pictures! I think it could be a fun focus. But then, it is also true that my life is far more complex and diverse than the meals that I prepare, so my blog will continue to be filled with random and varied events and projects including, but not limited to, food. It's far more interesting that way!

Anyway, back to shallots.

I first became aware of their existence a few months ago, as I was trying out a new fish recipe. (In an attempt to eat more health-consciously, we try to have fish three to four times a month at our house) Previous to being married, I did have a fair amount of cooking experience, however, cooking fish was not something I'd ever tried, so there has been a little bit of a learning curve.

Historically, I've not been a big fish eater, though the majority of my experience with fish was limited to fish sticks; not quite the same. So, I had to start from scratch when deciding what kind to cook; with fresh fish the options are IMMENSE and I hadn't heard of most of them; I hardly knew where to begin!

(from http://www.wholey.com/fishfilets.html)

Initially, I kept things very conservative. Some light, online research indicated that Tilapia was a "mild" fish, so I figured it would be safe to experiment with. With Tilapia we had reasonable results, so then I tried some Catfish (a "stronger" flavored fish). Eventually I worked my way up to braving Salmon (apparently a "strongly" flavored fish); one of my coworkers suggested a recipe for a Balsamic Glaze for salmon; I really liked it! I've gotten pretty good at making it too!

However, since we do have fish fairly frequently, I didn't want to settle on just one or two recipes; that'd be boring. So, having determined that I do, indeed, like fish -especially salmon- AND that I could, indeed, successfully cook it, I began to feel brave enough to experiment.

As I was questing for new and tasty fish recipes, in one of my many cookbooks, I came across a Basil Cream Sauce for Salmon. At first glance it sounded very promising, except it called for this unfamiliar thing - shallots. I did a little research, sounded like a mild onion - not too scary, and since I was experimenting anyway, why not try this new ingredient too?

(from http://www.ehow.com/how_4785667_eat-healthy-vegetarian-diet.html)

It's always exciting to go to the store to look for a particular item that I've never seen in real life and am only kind of certain of what it is. There's always a nagging worry in the back of my mind of "what if"? What if they don't carry it? What if it doesn't look like the pictures from the Google image search and I can't find it? What if I don't actually like how it tastes?? However, the folks at my local market are very helpful and, once I finally asked for help after I couldn't find them myself, they were able to take me right to the shallots and I went home to make dinner.

The end result was that I found I really like shallots. They're sort of a blend between onion and garlic (both flavors I really like), only milder. And they're small; my local market doesn't seem to carry anything but jumbo onions, and too much of that is definitely a bad thing. Plus, cutting up shallots -unlike onions- doesn't leave me sniffling in the kitchen. It's win win! So, now, I pretty much use them in place of fresh onions. They're good in all sorts of things!

They're delightful in potato soup: