Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Do the recipes on this site use the terms interchangeably? I made the Chickpea Piccatta which called for about a cup of shallots. Seems like a lot, but I did it, and the recipe turned out. I still am not sure though if what we call Shallots in Ontario is the same as in the US. They are small, red-ish, strong flavoured onions. Same?

Shallots - small little red onions.
Scallions / Green onions / spring onions - long green things.

Yup, same. Shallots are pretty pungent raw, but they cook down and mellow and are delicious in recipes such as the piccata! Scallions would be too mild.

Yep, it's the same thing. A cup seemed like a lot to me too but as others have said, they cook down and mellow out into delicious tastiness. Scallions/green onions are the long green ones, and I feel like they lose a lot of flavor if you cook them for too long, so personally I don't use them in any soup or sauce that cooks for a long time. I have been known to start off with onions or shallots in a sauce and then add some green onion pieces at the end though. :)

Thanks everyone!

Great question. That always confuses me.

I always categorize shallots as a mix between garlic and onions. Green onions/scalions are great when put on last right before eating. My wife really will eat anything if I put them on it, she loves them.

For the longest time I always got chives and green onions mixed up.

Gorzong.

i would say scallions and green onions are interchangable but i would have said a shallot is a totally different thing.

i mean yes it's an onion relative but it's way bigger than a scallion and it's bulbous rather than long and skinny.

i would use a regular onion in place of a shallot before i would use a scallion.

not sure how much flavor difference there is but they look totally different

Now that the question has been thoroughly answered I would like to say something else:

Each year at my University's library we have an edible book contest. There are always some very good entries that are well made and thought-out. There was this beautiful cake of a beach with the statue of liberty and there were grapes in little, tiny hand-made lawn chairs and it was titled Planet of the Grapes. Hilarious.

But I walked over to the one which was just a scallion that had been painted black.

The Black Scallion.

I still chortle about that, years later.

I will keep you all up to date on the upcoming Edible Book Contest.