Onion

pyaz · peyaj

The quiet foundation under nearly every pot.

What it is

The onion is the workhorse base of most savoury cooking across the region — sliced or chopped and cooked slowly until it softens, sweetens and browns, building the body of a gravy before anything else joins it. How far it is taken — pale and soft, or deep golden — sets the character of the dish.

Where it comes from

Onions are grown and eaten across the whole subcontinent and the world; there is nothing rare about them. What varies is technique, from the slow-browned base of a Mughal gravy to the crisp fried birista scattered over a biryani.

What it's called

Onion · pyaz (Hindi) · peyaj (Bengali). Fried-crisp onions are birista or beresta.

In the kitchen

Cooked long and slow, onions are the sweet brown foundation of a curry; fried fast and crisp as birista, they garnish biryani and rich dishes. Raw and sliced thin, they sharpen a plate of kebabs. The single most common technique in the kitchen is simply knowing how brown to take them.

What we know about the claims

Onions bring fibre and some beneficial plant compounds and are an everyday vegetable — no special claim needed beyond that. Note only that some cooking (Jain, certain temple food) avoids them entirely, which is why asafoetida exists.

Choosing and buying

Everywhere, in every shop. Choose firm, dry-skinned onions; red and brown both work, red a little sweeter raw.