Wild onions and olio evo: our Carnival recipe

The wild onions are now in the middle of their season, yes right now that it’s Carnival.

They are easily found in Apulian markets and vegetables and can be prepared in a thousand ways.

The wild onions are a wild bulb, always protagonist of the peasant peasant cuisine. Once it was a low-cost product, a spontaneous fruit, which was collected and stored in a perforated box covered with earth or sand. It was kept cool in the cellar. For this there are recipes of wild onions for all seasons.

The wild onions at Carnival

At Carnival, it was customary to prepare it paired with cotechino. The “pig rite” was a salient piece of life for the peasants and had just ended. What better opportunity then to taste the cotechino, if not with the wild onions?

Here is the recipe. You can taste them too.

Ingredients:

• Cotechino 500g
• cherry tomatoes 5/6
• hot pepper 1
• wild onions 1 kg
• extra virgin olive oil
• Salt to taste

Here’s how they prepare

Clean the wild onions, cut them in half and place them in a bowl full of water for about 30 minutes (they will lose a bit of bitter). Small tip: do not wash the wild onions before cleaning. During the cleaning phase, they take out a kind of whey which, in contact with water, creates a glue effect, which greatly complicates the cleaning operation.

In a saucepan put the oil and the chilli pepper, brown the cotechino cut into small pieces, then add the tomatoes cut in half. Cook for a few minutes and add the wild onions, two cups of water and salt. Cover and cook for about 30 minutes on low heat, until the wild onions are cooked. If you have to dry add another cup of water, they must be soft and juicy.

And here are your Carnival confetti ready. Then if you do not want all this you can always try our fantastic wild onions in extra virgin olive oil.