Background: From late fall to early spring, one of my favorite things to do is forage for wild onions. It’s hard to know what species they are. According to Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine, “There are 14 species and several varieties of wild onions in Texas. Some of the plants we call wild onions are actually wild garlic, but it’s pretty difficult to discern between them.” It might be easier to identify the ones I forage if I could catch them flowering, but they are everywhere one day, then they are gone until the following fall. Anyway, I think they are Allium canadense, which is commonly called “meadow garlic, wild garlic, or wild onion.” Round here, there’s a creek called Onion Creek, so I’m going to call them wild onions. Think of them as a combination of fresh chives, green onions, a tiny white bulb onion, and garlic, I guess. Wild onions grow in much of the U.S. so you can maybe try this move, too.
- Make yourself a digging stick. It should have a flat end like a giant standard screwdriver and another end with a handle where you’ve peeled the bark and chamfered the end.
- Get a bag, basket, or something else to put your onions in.
- Go to where the wild onions grow.
- When you find a clump of onions, insert your digging stick at a 45-degree angle and push down until you can feel the tiny roots breaking. Push down on your stick, pushing the onions up roots and all.
- Knock the dirt off them by gently tapping a bunch on a tree or log.
- Take them home and store them for cleaning or clean them right away and jump to step 11.
- To store in the fridge until cleaning, wet a paper towel and wrap around the white parts (roots and all) of the bunch of onions. Put about a half inch of water in the bottom of a double walled insulated drink tumbler and put the tumbler in the fridge.
- When it’s time to clean, separate them one by one and pinch the papery husk and root off between your thumb and pointer finger. Run your hand down the onion, pulling off any blades that look bruised or crushed and cleaning more dirt off.
- Rinse the whole bunch, shake all excess water off, and wrap again in a dry paper towel.
- Change the water in the tumbler and return the onions to it, and it to the fridge.
- To process them further, cut off the white parts, including the bulb and store separately. Return the green parts to the tumbler and fridge.
- Preserve the green parts by drying them on a rack over a sheet tray in a 250-degree oven.
Why It Works:
- A digging stick should made from a green piece of hardwood with a length that’s about from your elbow to the end of your hand and about the thickness of shovel handle. It will also work as a throwing stick.
- Anything will do but rectangular baskets with a loose-ish weave will allow them to lay flat and some of the dirt to be sifted out as you go.
- Figuring this out is pretty much the whole move.
- If the onions won’t let go, grab them at their base, as far down as you can, and gently wiggle them back and forth.
- Don’t worry about dirt too much.
- You don’t have to clean them right away.
- They will keep like this for at least a week.
- Use your thumbnail to pop the root out.
- The dry paper towel will soak up the extra water coming off the onions after the rinse and release it back to them in the fridge as they need it.
- The water in the bottom seems to keep them alive-ish for a while.
- The green and white parts can have different applications. I like to cook with the white parts and dry and cut or crumble the green parts like dried chives.
- Drying changes the flavor, and I like both the raw and dried flavor. So I always keep some of each.
Mods:
- Chop the fine green parts and mix into sour cream. This will preserve them and it’s a great first step toward ranch dressing or a wild onion dip.
- Chop the white parts and sauté in butter. Pour the butter in a glass storage container and use as a finishing butter.
- Pickle the white parts in a salt and vinegar brine.