How Big is An Onion?

The recipes is simple. A self-described ‘killer dhal’ from Anna Jones. The ingredients list is fairly long, but nothing unusual or complicated to the process. I’ve made the dish a number of times from my original copy of the book in the UK. This time, I’m in my Beijing kitchen. As I start to pull the dish together, finely chopping the onion, garlic and ginger, it strikes me that something’s not quite right.

The recipe calls for 1 red onion, 2 cloves of garlic and a thumb-size piece of ginger. On my chopping board is a mountain of cubed purple-flecked onion. There’s a mound of garlic too. I check the recipe again: 1 red onion.

It’s been a few years since I’ve lived in the UK (well more than a few: eight), but I think back to the aisles of Asda and Sainsbury’s. How big is an onion? It was about five for a quid packed up in netting. Each onion could fit snugly inside a tennis ball. But my Chinese onions sitting on the kitchen work surface? They’re more like large shot puts.

In China, everything is bigger: watermelons the size of car tyres and leeks as long as horse-riding whips.

This causes a bit of a problem when following recipes. I cook a lot from British cookbooks - Diana, Anna, Nigel and Jamie all regulars in my kitchen - but of course, they are often writing for a British audience with British supermarket produce in mind. The recipes need to be adapted for China - the onions and garlic certainly halved, the chilis and ginger reduced because of their strength and pumpkins roasted differently because of their water content, and fruit is so sweet, sugar is never needed.

As any good cook knows, a recipe is only ever a guide and cooking is about using your senses more than anything - smelling, tasting, listening, seeing and touching every step of the way until you feel the dish is right and complete. Note to self then: don’t cook on autopilot. Turn the podcast off and focus on what you’re actually doing.