Spring Onions

These baby onions have many more uses than simple stir-fries. Chop up and use raw in side salads or mash with potato and butter. Sometimes known as salad onions or scallions, they have a more gentle flavour than their fatter parents and were cultivated as long ago as 300BC. Trim off the root and the outer leaves and use the green top, which can be snipped off with scissors into a range of dishes.

Try: lemon Brussels Sprouts with spring onions. Mix the juice and zest of 1 lemon with 1 crushed clove of garlic, 75g butter and 1/2tsp chilli in a bowl. Then, trim 700g Brussels Sprouts and cook in a large pan of boiling water until tender (10-12 minutes). Drain and return to the pan, and add 3 finely chopped spring onions, the lemon mixture and a scattering of pine nuts. Stir well; season with salt and pepper and serve.