Pattypans Pickled Onions and Pickled Shallots
I have 4kg of pickling onions to prepare and 4.5 kg of Shallots to prepare over the next few days in readiness for Christmas. I am late preparing these this year, but should be just enough time. I spice my own vinegar and then add bay leaves and a home dried chilli to each jar together with some black peppercorns and they are extremely scrummy. Its all rather organic and therapeutic. Sometimes I sweeten them sometimes I don't but they go down very nicely with a lump of cheese and/or a ploughmans. What all those tears you gasp. Now I have found a way round this. I prepare my pickling onions/shallots by putting them into a bucket and then pouring boiling water on until the onions are submerged. I then let them go cold (leave a couple of hours until cold) and then start peeling. Mimimises the crying from the onions and is the best way I have found for peeling them in bulk. I am extremely sensitive to onions at the best of times. ...