("Dio e Zingaro" by La Municipale Balcanica)
- Hi, I'm Jerry James Stone and in today's video
we're gonna cover a lot.
We're gonna talk about the difference between scallions,
also known as green onions, actual spring onions,
chives, and green garlic.
What the heck are these things?
What's the difference between them?
I'm gonna tell you, let's get to it.
Let's just break it down.
The first thing we have is we have our scallions.
That's these babies right here.
They are typically cylindrical.
There's no bulb on the end.
They typically have a little roots on the end.
They have the nice, lushest greens at the top
that you can chop up and put in salads.
So that is an allium fistulosum.
That's a cultivar of the onion family
that's just made to grow in these delicious green onions
that never ever produce a bulb.
The next thing that we have is the spring onion.
That's this right here.
The spring onion is actually a regular common onion
that's been yanked out of the ground a little early.
So it never produces a full bulb.
The benefit of these is that that bulb is really tender.
The flavors are not as potent so it's a little bit lighter,
has some different culinary uses.
You don't wanna use the greens on a spring onion
like you would with a scallion.
So that's a completely different scenario.
So that's the allium cepa, and that's actually
a just regular, common onion.
And spring onions can come in yellow, purple, white,
whatever regular onions come in because like I said,
it's just a harvested bulb
that's been pulled out a little early.
Next we have chives, these are chives, right.
So you've seen these in the store.
Chives, the actual only herb from the onion family,
the allium schoenoprasum does not produce a bulb.
In fact, it's never even sold with one
because there's no culinary use for it.
It's just lopped off and you just get
these tiny little sorta needle-like greens that you can use.
The thing that's great about chives is that, like I said,
they're the only herb from the onion family.
They're much more delicate, they're more of a garnish,
whereas like with scallions you can use them as a garnish
or you can chop them up in a heartier way
to use them, like say in a stir-fry.
Chives are just made for as a garnish.
You wanna put them on salads, on your eggs,
but you definitely don't want to cook them.
With green onions or scallions you can actually do that.
But they're completely different, they're an actual herb
from the onion family.
So I think the most confusion comes between scallions,
green onions, spring onions, and chives.
Now, why is there that confusion?
Well, scallions, also called green onions
can be referred to as spring onions in other countries.
So I think there's some confusion
as to like when people are Googling things or looking
for things and just people use the word interchangeably.
Scallions can commonly be referred to as green onions,
spring onions, salad onions, it has all these names
where it's really just its own thing.
It's just a scallion.
That said, there is the other caveat that sometimes
common onions even before they become a spring onion
are pulled really, really early
so they can actually be sold as scallions, too.
Now, that said, that's not super, super common,
but it's not uncommon, and the difference between that
is the scallion is this onion cultivar
that will never, ever produce a full bulb.
It will only just be this tubular, cylindrical thing.
Spring onions, depending on when you pull the onion,
they can have have the bulb or it cannot
'cause it's gonna eventually grow into a fully mature onion.
So if you pull it when it's still pretty early
before it produces a bulb it can be a little bit
like a scallion and sometimes they're sold that way.
If you wait a little bit longer where the bulb has formed
but not completely matured, it's like this.
It's a spring onion, so it's a little tender.
You can't eat the greens like you would with a scallion.
But it still kind of has a similar shape, right?
And then if it goes to full maturity
it becomes a common onion, so that's the difference
between those three things and why
I think they kinda get confused.
The other thing is green garlic.
So this baby can be a little confusing
if you see it in a store because there's like spring onions,
green garlic, you know, if you go to a farmer's market.
So what the heck is green garlic?
Well, garlic is also still part of the onion family,
but green garlic, like a spring onion, is just pulled early
so it's not a fully-developed garlic bulb.
Like a spring onion it's a little tender on the flavor.
Not as robust, so it can be a really great way
to either get people who maybe don't like garlic,
just like people who don't like onions,
to introduce them to that flavor
or just to use it in different culinary ways.
Both are lovely grilled.
So just to recap, we have scallions, a complete cultivar
of the onion family that never produces a bulb.
We have spring onions which are actually the common onion
that's just pulled early.
So if it's pulled early for a spring onion
that means the bulb has formed, but it's not a full onion.
It's still really, really tender.
You can't use the greens like you can in scallions.
If it's pulled even earlier before the bulb is formed
sometimes it's sort of used interchangeably like a scallion,
but that's less common.
And if you let it go to full maturity
it's gonna be a common onion,
which we all know what that's about.
Then there's the chives, which are the only herb
in the onion family completely separate
from both scallions and spring onions.
They are never cooked.
You only really wanna use them as a garnish.
And then lastly we have green garlic,
which is very similar to spring onions
as they're both pulled early before they reach maturity
and once again, just has those tender flavors.
So if you liked this video, hey, you know what?
Give me a thumbs-up.
Hopefully you learned something.
If there's something you wanna know about,
drop a comment below, and if you like to cook like I do,
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("Dio e Zingaro" by La Municipale Balcanica)
(singer vocalizing)