A quiet tray of shallots — cool and dry, not in the fridge

A net of shallots is already home — and the hand pushes it into the fridge “to last longer”. Easy to get wrong: by the week the skin wets, a sprout pushes, the smell of a damp shelf. I tip them onto a quiet tray or into a basket in the cool — dry, dark, not in a bag with the onions under the sink.

A quiet tray of shallots — cool and dry, not in the fridge. Mushrooms I don’t soak is another note; onions not under the sink its own; onions and garlic another story. Here it’s the shallots after the shop themselves: air, dryness, a tray — not a lecture about “French cooking”.

If already soft or mouldy — bin, not “still into a sauce”. A cut shallot — only into the cold, like half an onion. I’m not reviewing a new variety with a tasting in this note — it’s about the net that already sits in our kitchen.

I don’t need shallots that sweat in the fridge and then taste bitter. I need a tray from which tomorrow’s sauce smells of sweet heat. At yours do shallots lie dry in the cool — or already wet in a bag in the door?