Shallots on a wet vegetable plot. That's your lot Shallots.
Last week I came to the conclusion that if I did not get the shallots out of the ground post haste they might well rot away if the wet weather persisted.I improvised by changing the usual steps in harvesting them. Removed them as quickly as possible and took them home. Now each time the sun shines (which it does in fits and starts) I rush into the shed and put the shallots out to dry. Each time it looks like rain, back in the shed they go. I sorted through the harvested shallots and we are using the ones first that look least likely to store well.
The little shallots we have cooked up and eaten so far have been very small but sweet in flavour. The sweetness is one of the things I like about cooking with shallots.
The ideal dish to cook some of these in will be a Greek style casserole style dish called Stiffado.
Here is a recipe for this type of casserole that uses small onions or shallots - Stiffado.
It is a case of using your acquired knowledge when making decisions like this one to hastily harvest the shallot onions. I would not recommend anyone to follow my lead in this as different parts of the country seem to be having different weather this year. I just know my soil on the allotment well enough to know that the next stage was going to be the shallots rotting down instead of growing larger as they would normally do. I think of this type of action as salvaging and the best you can do given the circumstances.
