Every week in Genius Recipes—often with your help!—Food52 Creative Director and lifelong Genius-hunter Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that will change the way you cook.
If you think of scallions strictly as a garnish or seasoning, you’re in for a rather life-changing surprise.
Because, once you know their secret, you’ll be able to cook them as a fresh, sweet green vegetable to pour, still-sizzling, next to creamy beans or crisp chicken or scrambled eggs—in five minutes, barely having lifted a knife, with just one other ingredient at hand.
Your new 5-minute side dish.Photo by Kristen Miglore
I first lit on this recipe when we started quarantining at home in March, when everything about our new reality was leaving me frazzled and lost. Re-reading Edna Lewis’s breakout 1974 cookbook The Taste of Country Cooking before bed each night was a balm. (1)
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“I will pick up fresh scallions from the green market this weekend but I know I won't be able to control myself. I am going to finish the scallions with Maldon salt.”
Her voice is graceful and clear as she describes the happy rhythms of life in the small farming community where she grew up, Freetown, Virginia—so named by her grandfather and two others who founded it, newly free from chattel slavery. Every recipe and menu in the book, both for celebratory feasts and everyday suppers, is tied to the season, and whatever had been growing and hatching and curing.
Her Skillet Scallions, which appear as part of the menu called “An Early Summer Dinner”—with sautéed veal kidney, spoon bread, salad of Simpson lettuce and young beet tops, strawberries and cream, and sponge cake—stuck in my mind, in part because of its ease and rare honoring of scallions in their whole form. But perhaps even more because of Edna Lewis’ definitive final sentence: “No salt or pepper will be needed.”
Piled in a skillet with only foaming butter and the water still clinging from rinsing, the scallions quickly steam and soften, losing their sharp funk and leaving behind a mellow sweetness that’s so fully flavored as to not need anything else.
No fine-chopping here—two swipes with the knife and you're done.
“In my opinion, they are an underused vegetable and taste almost as good today as they did years ago,” she wrote in a later recipe for Creamed Scallions in her following cookbook In Pursuit of Flavor. So, if you haven’t yet, you may want to start regrowing your scallions now.
Of course, as you work these into your own rhythms, you could play around with any seasoning you like—a sprinkle of lemon juice, a pinch of ground chile, a few slices of ginger. Or throw them into the skillet after having seared other things like steak or chicken thighs, as I’ve started to do to save washing a pan.
But you needn’t and I hope that, at least the first few times, you won’t, to understand the simplicity that Edna Lewis wanted us to taste.
Got a genius recipe to share—from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Perhaps something perfect for beginners? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at genius@food52.com.
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I'm an ex-economist, lifelong-Californian who moved to New York to work in food media in 2007, before returning to the land of Dutch Crunch bread and tri-tip barbecues in 2020. Dodgy career choices aside, I can't help but apply the rational tendencies of my former life to things like: recipe tweaking, digging up obscure facts about pizza, and deciding how many pastries to put in my purse for "later."
I know every mother has done this, but it makes me SOOO nervous to see the baby in one arm where there's so much heat and flame. One little leap or reaching out -- yikes. Maybe it's just that I am/was too clumsy to ever try that. Kristen is adept at everything!
The first time I had cooked scallions was when my Mexican buddy put them on the BBQ grill. He had soaked them and to my total surprise he put several bunches on the hot grill (and salted them). I will surely try at home now thanks to reading here.
While the production quality of these at-home videos is obviously not quite as high as the ones you shot at Food 52 headquarters, I think I may actually like them better. Just something very genuine about them. Seeing you work through the recipes at home makes them feel much more real world and approachable. Kudos to you folks! Curious: What Lavalier microphone are you using now? Is it wireless? That definitely helps improve the sound. And what lens does your husband have on his phone?
Thanks so much, J-Lon. I'm checking with our video team on the brand of the lavalier but the thing that looks like a lens is actually a Rode VideoMic (a backup microphone).
Made these last night as a side for grilled Moroccan spiced chicken.....Wonderful and sooo easy! As a salt lover, I have to admit that although I liked it without salt, it was even better finished with a little Maldon sea salt!
Made these tonight with some wonderful Farmers Market beauties! What a delightful surprise--the onions were sweet, earthy, buttery, full of flavor and texture and not a bit "onion-y". Just a beautiful color on the plate with a delicious steak, and rosemary roasted sweet potatoes on the side. Great summer meal--yum!
I had an extra bunch of green onions, needed a home, tried, it great......some part stringy after peeling, but bought fresh today, for a new batch. I was skeptical, like I was with the eggs/ghee and pita, but super awesome! Really try these, I haven't been not happy yet!
I really like your weekly videos, simple and tasty. Your little one is very lucky to taste scallions cooked this way. You put a smile on my face every week ! Have a great day !
This may be the perfect recipe for the green onions in my garden. Despite the author's admonition I will be adding salt and pepper, maybe even a little soysauce and Korean red pepper, yum!
What a beautiful baby. So lovely to see you sharing her with us. You look like a wonderful mother. Love the video. Sure the scallions are great too, but not the star of the show.
I cooked this tonight along with yakitori style chicken skewers and brown rice. The scallions were the perfect side. Cooked exactly by the recipe. Simple and delicious.
I keep thinking when I watch your videos how lucky your husband is to have you. : ) You're a wonderful cook. You focus on the simple things and you cook with love. I bet this recipe would work with garlic scapes too. I will pick up fresh scallions from the green market this weekend but I know I won't be able to control myself. I am going to finish the scallions with Maldon salt.
This looks delicious. In the summer I’m always looking for dishes that won’t heat up the kitchen too much. Does anyone know if these could be made ahead of time for a potluck? How would they taste at room temperature?
Hi Janet, I'm sorry for the delay, and I'm not sure—as it cools, any lingering butter will firm up a bit, so I might consider using olive (or another oil) if serving them at cooler room temperatures, which will change the flavor a bit but would still be lovely.
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