I love cooking, and most dishes I cook contain some kind of onions or garlic in varying amounts. Unfortunately, my partner doesn’t handle them well, so I want to replace them as much as I can.
Leek is one decent alternative to onions, and I’ve recently discovered Asafoetida, a spice that creates an oniony flavor. But onions are also important for texture, especially in saucy dishes, and both leek and spices replace that poorly. Fennel works sometimes but alters the taste.
Garlic generally seems hard to replace, although I’ve had some success with only slightly squashing the cloves and fishing them out before serving.
Anyway, I’m looking for suggestions. Anybody know any good alternatives, any cool tips or tricks I could try?
Edit: To clarify, the issue is that my partner can’t digest them properly and they cause pain (likely a mild food allergy). The flavor is not an issue, and we both enjoy the stuff that we cook apart from this issue.
Lots of good ideas in here, thanks! The processing of the onions unfortunately doesn’t matter much (fresh onions are worse, but even sauteed or thoroughly cooked cause issues). Red onions and shallots, too. Spring onions is a bit better but not great. Leek is good.
Cabbages et al. seem like a good option for the texture, I’ll try that!
We already cook a lot of Asian food that is lighter in terms of onions and garlic (Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese), but some of our favourite cusines do use them a lot.
I too have trouble with onions, but thankfully not garlic. I can safely use onion powder and even small amounts of dried minced onion from the spice aisle without causing a disturbance. I can eat foods cooked with onions and just pick the onions out. But strangely the delightful onion broth served at teppanyaki restaurants will destroy me.