Ingredients · Spice

Shallot

Allium cepa · Amaryllidaceae (amaryllis family)

Shallot
A milder, sweeter onion — and, as of 2010, formally not a separate species at all. Taxonomists decided the difference from the common onion was too small to justify one, so the shallot is now a cultivar group of Allium cepa. Four products carry it, all of them Southeast Asian curry powders, which is exactly where it belongs: shallot rather than onion is the allium of Thai, Lao and Indonesian cooking.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partBulb
KindSpice
CaffeineCaffeine-free
TasteOnion-like but milder and sweeter, with less sulphurous bite

How to use it

In curry pastes, where it is pounded with chile, lemongrass and galangal. Fried crisp as a garnish. Dried shallot rehydrates in any wet dish. It is milder than onion, so use rather more of it than you would think.

With food

Lemongrass and galangal. Chile and garlic. Fish sauce. Coconut milk. Butter and wine, in the French direction. Vinegar.

With spices

Garlic, lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime leaf. Chile. Coriander root. Black pepper.

With tea

Not a tea ingredient.

Its story

Where it comes from

Named for the ancient city of Ascalon — Latin Ascalōnia caepa, the Ascalonian onion, which gave Old French eschalotte and from there both shallot and scallion. Until 2010 it carried its own species name, Allium ascalonicum. Our lot names no origin.

What happened

The shallot's most visible role outside Europe is a garnish: bawang goreng, crispy deep-fried shallots, scattered over almost everything in Indonesian cooking. Across Southeast Asia shallots and garlic together are the elementary aromatics, the way onion and garlic are in Europe, and they go into curry pastes pounded rather than chopped. The city it is named for, Ascalon on the Levantine coast, also gave its name to the scallion — two different alliums, one place.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

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