2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Onions are one of the most popular vegetable crops grown in almost every vegetable garden, because without it it is absolutely impossible to imagine most of the everyday and festive dishes. At the same time, different varieties of onions can boast of a completely different taste. So what determines the pungency of this piquant vegetable?
What is the reason for the sharpness of the onion?
First of all, the pungency of this popular vegetable depends on the volume of essential oils it contains, as well as on their quality. To be more precise, the main role is played by the sulfur-containing glycosides that are part of these essential oils. It is generally accepted that sweet onions are sweet precisely because they contain more sugar than their bitter counterparts. In reality, everything is quite the opposite - there is much less sugar in sweet onions than in spicy ones. Less essential oils in it and affecting its pungency.
Onion varieties groups
Botanists classify all onion varieties as spicy, sweet, and semi-sweet. To classify a particular variety as one or another group, you should pay attention to the ratio of sucrose and monosaccharides. Onions are considered sweet if this indicator is less than 1, semi-sweet if it is in the range from 1 to 2, and pungent if it is more than 2. As for the volume of essential oils, in sweet varieties it is in the range from 10 to 20 mg%, in semi-sweet - from 15 to 40 mg%, and in acute - from 26 to 130 mg%.
Do growing conditions affect the pungency of onions?
Growing conditions directly affect the ratio of sugars in this healthy vegetable. Semi-sweet varieties can be easily made spicy by increasing the amount of mineral fertilizers applied to the soil - in this case, the ratio of sucrose to monosaccharides in onions doubles. If you grow the local Yalta onion on irrigation in the Crimea, it will be sweet, and when grown in the Khibiny by means of seedlings, this same variety is characterized by a pungent taste. Roughly the same differences can be observed when grown on dry land. And the geographical position of the site to a large extent affects the budding of the bulbs, as well as their density.
Affects the pungency index and the soil on which the onion is grown. For example, if this crop is planted in peat soil, then it will be more saturated with valuable essential oils than its relatives growing on sandy loam soils or on loam.
What else influences the pungency?
Different layers of bulbs also differ in the content of essential oils - most of all they can be found closer to the center. This is very easy to test empirically by tasting the onion - the juicy and rather thick upper scales invariably turn out to be less sharp.
The storage characteristics of the onion can also affect its sharpness. If the thermometer in the store shows negative temperatures, then after some time the volumes of essential oils in the collected onion heads can double or even triple.
By the way, spicy onion varieties can boast of much better preservation than their sweet relatives - the fact is that the essential oils that cause their pungency are also endowed with excellent disinfecting properties (there are much more phytoncides in them than in all other varieties), that is, they are quite quickly kill pathogenic microbes. Thus, it turns out that spicy varieties will be much healthier for human health.
How to reduce the sharpness of a harvested onion?
In order to reduce the severity of the onions collected for eating, they are either scalded with boiling water, or cut into rings and marinated in vinegar. So there is always an opportunity to choose the method that suits you best!
Recommended:
What Is Onion Peel Good For?
Many of us consider onion husks to be the most common waste and completely ruthlessly send them to the trash can. But in fact, onion peels are a valuable raw material for solving a wide variety of problems! It makes a good fertilizer, and it can help cope with some diseases and gluttonous pests! And onion peel is also an excellent dye, as well as a valuable assistant for health promotion and cosmetology
Turfy Onion
Sod onion (lat.Allium caespitosum) - a representative of the Onion genus of the Onion family. It is a native of Kazakhstan, in its natural form it is also found on the territory of the Russian Federation. Typical habitats are sands. Characteristics of culture Sod onion is a perennial herb with an unexpressed bulb.
Red Onion
Red onion (lat.Allium cepa) Is a vegetable plant belonging to the very spicy Onion family. Red onions are also called "Yalta" or "Crimean". Description The fruits of the red onion are covered with a rather pretty reddish-purple skin, under which a juicy pulp is hidden, colored in violet-whitish shades.
Oblique Onion
Oblique onion (lat.Allium obliquum) - a representative of the Onion genus of the Onion family. It is represented by perennial herbaceous plants. Under natural conditions, it grows in the European part of Russia, Central Asia, Mongolia, China and Romania.
Round-headed Onion
Round-headed onion (lat.Allium sphaerocephalon) - a representative of the Onion genus of the Onion family. A perennial herb used in garden landscaping. Natural area - Western Asia, North Africa and Europe. Typical dreams are steppes, slopes and hills.
