Question
Rosie AIELLO
Chef Dan, when peeling an onion, do you only peel the skin or do you ever remove the first layer of the onion too? I find that sometimes that first layer seems a bit "tough."
Answer
So that's an interesting question and that kind of depends on, uh, how, where you're getting your onions from. Um, so the, typically in a grocery store when you're buying onions, uh, they have gone through a drying process, so they'll pick the onions and they'll hang them up much like garlic to be able to get a really fine dry skin on the outside, which actually helps protect the onion and helps 'em last longer. It's one of the reasons that onions are so prolifically used in so many different cultures because they last a long time because they come in a little package of a dried skin on the outside. So if you actually are using an onion like that from the grocery store, you're more often than not always going to have the dried skin on the outside. If you buy an onion directly from a farmer or a farmer's market, you might not always have that dried skin on the outside because they didn't go through the drying process. Now, most times you can just remove the outer layer of that onion, it'll be fine, but sometimes when you're buying one from a grocery store, they've been drying so long that not only just one layer will be dried out, but a couple layers of the skin will be dried out as well. So you're right in saying that sometimes the second layer of an onion is also a little bit tough, just like in garlic, um, where garlic has many layers that have been dried out, the onion can go through the same process. So if you are finding the second layer's a little bit tough, definitely peel that away to be able to get to the really sweet inside of that as well too. Um, you know, I, I always save those skins and put them into a stock bag, um, to save for stock later so it works out. So I'm using the entire onion anyways. But yeah, you are right in that, that sometimes the second layer can be a little bit tough at the same time.
