Onion skin

I’ve been making a lot of fajitas lately, which means I’ve been slicing my fair share of onions. This also means I’ve been crying a lot.

But not for the reason you might think.

The sulphenic acids may make me tear up, sure, but it’s the slimy onion skin between the crunchy layers that makes me flip my culinary shit. If I let an onion sit for a week or two, it invariably develops a gross film, not just on the outer layer, but between every layer.

In a word, ick. I wind up pulling slippery strands out of the skillet and praying I caught them all. When I bite into my tortilla and find a rogue skin, I can’t help but retch every so slightly at this root vegetable version of a loose strand of hair. And we all know how we feel about finding one of those in our Mexican food. Since hairnets don’t exist for onions (yet), I’m going to teach onions a lesson and eat a few leeks until they get their act together and are in season at the farmer’s market.

(photo: srgc.org.uk)