Flavorful Red Onions

The Perfect Complement to Red Onions
(at least the one that often comes out of my kitchen...yum!)

The red onion (or purple onion, as I prefer to call it sometimes, because of its lively purple color, which is also my favorite color, by the way) is my most favorite onion of all the varieties of onions available out there. Red onions can be eaten raw or cooked and either way they never disappoint. And unlike other onions, red onions are more palatable and even delicious when eaten raw. They are mildly sweet and aromatic (at least to me), and they make the perfect condiment to almost any dish, as long as you don't mind the onion breath that you'll be left with afterward. I enjoy adding thin slices of red onions to salads, burgers (of course!!), pizza (always!) and the occasional hot dogs or any other dish that I find too bland for my taste. When I want to cook something quickly and I have no other interesting vegetables to cook with, I always have my red onions available, ready to be sliced and diced and blended with any of my spontaneous and quirky dishes that I come up with when I am really starving and have little time to cook or prepare (or too lazy to). I always, always have red onions in my kitchen, in addition to garlic and shallots. But my favorite, definitely most favorite, way of pairing red onions is with smoked salmon/lox. That is not to say that I have supplies of smoked salmon/lox that are readily available in my kitchen all the time, I don't, because those packages of smoked salmon can be quite expensive. But during the rare occasions that we eat them, they always taste heavenly, only because I always prepare them with thin slices of raw red onions marinated with olive oil and fresh ground black peppers, capers, a sprinkle of fresh lemon juice and then serve on crackers or small pieces of toasts and garnish with dills.


I also use slices of red onions to garnish my cheese platter and cold dish platters when we have companies over for our little soirees that we occasionally have (always simple, nothing complicated).


When I don't feel like cooking anything (since I am not a great cook to begin with), and we want something easy and quick and fun, we just put together all the ingredients I mentioned above and enjoy....! It's more like jigsaw puzzle than culinary, really, but the results are always yummy, thanks to the great red onions, the tastiest onion of all onions!!
I had smoked salmon with red onions marinated in olive oil and pepper and dill and capers for dinner today because I just did not feel like cooking. Plus, it's healthy (I think)!

Red Onions rock in my kitchen!