Chives

Allium schoenoprasum · Herb

1 variety40 pairings

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) are the smallest and daintiest of the cultivated onions, grown not for a bulb but for their slender, hollow, grass-like leaves, which carry a mild, fresh onion-and-garlic flavour. Snipped raw over eggs, baked potatoes, soured cream and soups, they give a gentle allium lift and a clean green colour without the bite of a raw onion. Their flavour is delicate and volatile, so chives are almost always added raw at the very end; the round, pompom-like purple-pink flower heads are edible too, with a stronger oniony punch.

Picking a good onedrag

Stiff, deep green, just cutYellow, limp, sour at the base

Shop freshThe all-rounder: garnish, dips, compound butter.Everyday best

ColourGreen, the very tips paling

Bend a stalkBends and slowly comes back

Cut endsCut ends dried and sealed pale

Smell at a snapped tubeOnion comes once rubbed between fingers

What to look for, from stiff, deep green, just cut to yellow, limp, sour at the base.

Keeping ittap a band

A domestic fridge holds it about 8× longer than the counter.

Humidity

95–100%

Near-saturated, 95–100%: a bag with a sheet of damp kitchen paper. The tubes are nearly all surface, so dry fridge air limps them in a day.

Airflow

Perforated bag, not sealed

Perforated, never sealed: shut tight the hollow leaves sweat and go slimy at the cut ends; open to the room they dry out and turn papery.

Yellows and drops beside apples

They make almost none but react badly to it: ethylene from apples and bananas yellows the leaves and drops them. Cold blunts it; damage shows from 10 °C up.

Preparing