Salmon 104 F Class

Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

Digital scale

Chamber vacuum sealer

Water

White wine vinegar

Sugar

Salt

Black pepper

Coriander seeds

Red onion(s)

Green onion(s)

Dissolve the sugar and salt into the vinegar and then add the remainder of the ingredients. Refrigerate pickling liquid.

Make pickling liquid

Clean and trim baby red onions, then quarter them. Separate the layers of each onion. Sort the red outer petals and the white inner petals into two piles. Finally, peel the membranes off the petals and discard.

NOTE: We use baby red onions in this recipe, but you can use ramps or other alliums.

Prepare onions (or other plant food)

Clean and trim green onions, then slice them lengthwise and remove the cores.

Prepare green onions

Place red onion petals, white onion petals, and green onions into three separate containers. Cover each with pickling brine. 

You can use a chamber sealer for flash-pickling as shown in the video. Alternatively, let the onions sit in the pickling juice for at least 90 minutes before use.

Pickle!

Vacuum infusion is a remarkable way to flash-pickle plant foods like onions or ramps. This technique relies on the ability of a chamber sealer to dramatically reduce the surrounding pressure, which causes a rapid expansion of gases that ruptures the structure of plant tissue. When the surrounding pressure is restored to normal levels, the labyrinth of air-filled spaces collapses. Any surrounding liquid, such as the pickling juice used here, will rush in to fill the void. The result is the nearly instantaneous pickling of plant foods.Curious to learn more? Check out the science of <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/vacuum-compression-of-plant-foods">vacuum compression of plant foods</a>. (You can also quick-pickle in the chamber of a <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/whipping-siphons">whipping siphon</a>. Check out <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/whipping-siphons">our Whipping Siphons class</a> for more information.) If you don’t have a chamber sealer or a whipping siphon, simply let the onions (or other plant food) rest in the pickling brine for 90 minutes or more, as described in Step 4.

Pickled Onions