Category: snackPrice: 35p, about $5 in the US. Ingredients: Plain Silverskin Onions: silverskin onions, water, spirit vinegar, acetic acid, flavorings, preservatives Traditional Malt Vinegar Onions: silverskin onions, water, spirit vinegar, sugar, acetic acid, salt, barley malt extract, flavoring, preservatives Pickled onions seem to be a very British thing. They have barely heard of pickled cucumbers, but they eat pickled onions like there's no tomorrow. I used to work for a horrible company in Seattle and one of the other unfortunate souls who worked there was an English guy and he used to bribe the Canadian guy to bring him "real English pickled onions" when he went to Canada. The ones he's referring to are the ones packed in brown malt vinegar. My husband prefers the ones in clear brine, but no one ever called him normal or average. I decided to try both. Both onions smelled very vinegary and sour right when I opened the jars. The silverskins were a sharper and clearer smell of both vinegar and onions. The brown ones had a more muted and sweet smell, with less harsh oniony-ness. I tried the silverskins first. They tasted as sharp and sour as they smelled. It's like a hit of vinegar that goes all the way into your sinuses. It was surprisingly strong, and didn't have much onion flavor under the powerful vinegar. They were almost identical to the cocktail onions sold in the US, which I should have guessed, since my husband finished off most of a jar of cocktail onions at our wedding. The brown ones were milder and sweeter. They didn't pack quite as much of a vinegar punch. Still much more sour than I'm used to. In the end, I didn't hate them, but I also don't imagine myself tucking into a big jar of them as a snack. I think maybe pickled onions are kind of a guy thing. Also, a few months after writing this, I discovered that pickled onions are pretty good in sloppy joes. Sounds weird, but if you chop them up and cook them in, the vinegar and onions blend in beautifully. If you'd like to try that, English Tea Store has a nice selection of pickled onions for sale in the US.
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Alana Muir © 2006