Spice up Your Life With Pickled Tajin Onions
Quick pickles are essentially a sunny seasoning: they are bright, fun, and no one ever gets mad to see them. I think this is especially true of pickled red onions, which enhances everything it touches and asks so little of you in return. If you can mix chopped onions with seasoned vinegar, you will be rewarded with a versatile seasoning that can be kept in the refrigerator for weeks or even months.
But as I recently learned, the king of cold pickles can be simplified even further. All you really need for pickling vegetables is acid and salt; everything else, like sugar or herbs, is a bonus. You know it’s mostly salt and granular lime juice, with delicious spices as a bonus? Tazhin . In theory, you could make a lightly spicy, lime-tinged pickled onion with just two ingredients: onion and tagine. In practice, it is more of a three-component brine; I add sugar because I think pickled onions need it, but if you’re avoiding sugar, don’t be shy about it. Either way, don’t mess with boiling vinegar or any other pickle solution, because the onions are pickled in their own liquid. The result is as bright and crisp as you’d expect from pickled red onions, but much richer and more flavorful. It’s as if someone took the iconic chili and lime scent of tajine and the tangy sweetness of red onions, mixed them together, and turned the intensity control to its limits. To make the tajin ions to your liking, you will need one medium-sized red onion, two to three tablespoons of tagine, and an extra teaspoon of sugar. Slice the onion thinly into any shape you like – I’m the crescent moon girl – then sprinkle the seasoning on top and massage until the onion is a little softer. (You can also add a little olive oil and / or a little lime zest here, but this is not necessary.) Try and adjust the seasoning as needed. They can be eaten right away, but resting in the refrigerator overnight turns them into something like pickled onion candies:
I’m struggling to come up with a dish that couldn’t be improved by sprinkling a little hot red onion: nacho and tacos are a given, but they’ll enhance everything from scrambled eggs to a plate of plain white rice. … I put them on fries and tacos for my avocado breakfast and it was as wonderful as it sounds.