The Veggie
They’re versatile and welcome in all sorts of dishes, like quick stir-fried noodles, toasted sesame waffles and a platter of roasted spring vegetables.
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A friend and I periodically send each other videos of ourselves unpacking from trips to the grocery store. “Welcome back to my channel,” they always jokingly begin. “Today we’re unboxing my Trader Joe’s haul.”
Like influencers, we hold up each item to the camera — one hand behind it to focus the lens — and talk about our cooking plans for it. “Oh, you’re going to love this,” we’ll say, and it’s just a bag of oranges. “Cabbage, because always.”
On Sunday, as I languished on the floor of her living room, my friend brought over a package. Her C.S.A. had arrived. A haul, live! Out came broccoli, mushrooms, potatoes, reminders of cooler seasons. Then, finally, a totem of spring. “That looks like a leek,” I said. But it was not. Sturdy and imposing, the biggest scallions I’d ever seen emerged from the box.
“Of all the alliums, scallions can be the hardest to categorize,” wrote Melissa Clark in this great alliums explainer back in 2021. Scallions (or green onions) are distinct from leeks and spring onions (which are simply young common onions), milder in flavor and arguably the most versatile.
Andy Baraghani’s kuku sabzi, an herb and scallion frittata, calls for two whole bunches of scallions, their herbal, oniony notes playing nicely with tons of cilantro, parsley and dill. And they serve double duty in Alexa Weibel’s chopped salad with jalapeño-ranch dressing, which divvies up one bunch across the lip-smacking dressing and the salad itself.
I love, too, how Hetty Lui McKinnon treats them in her recipe for ramen with charred scallions, green beans and chile oil — “as you would a bunch of greens,” she writes. Hetty cuts them into little Lincoln logs, and in hot oil they sputter about, becoming fragrant and sweeter.
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