Pickled Onions

There's a particular weekend in October when the pickling onions appear at the market and I know what Saturday afternoon is going to look like. A bowl of small, papery onions. A sharp knife. The radio on. A glass of something to make the tedium feel like a ritual rather than a chore. Pickling onions is one of those jobs that has to be done in one sitting, so you may as well settle into it.

I'm not going to pretend the peeling is fun. It isn't. Your hands will smell of onion for two days and you'll wonder, somewhere around the fortieth one, why you started. But there's a reason people have been doing this for generations. A jar of proper pickled onions on the table at Christmas, alongside a wedge of mature cheddar, a slice of cold ham, a hunk of bread, a spoonful of chutney: this is the food that needs no occasion and asks for no fuss. The ploughman's lunch is a quiet kind of perfection, and a good pickled onion is the thing that holds it together.

The trick, if there is one, is patience. Cold vinegar over cold onions, so they stay crunchy. A long brine to firm them up. And then the wait. Six weeks at least, eight if you can manage it. I wrote it down in the notebook the first year I made them: peeled October, opened December, gone by February. They never last as long as you think they will.

A recipe is a conversation, not a contract, so adjust the spices to your taste. More chilli if you like a kick. A bit less sugar if you want them properly sharp. The ratio of vinegar to spice is the foundation; everything else is yours.