# How to prepare a shallot

## The essentials

The shallot is finer and milder than the onion. It is used mostly raw or barely cooked: vinaigrettes, sauces, beurre blanc, and to flavour a stir-fry without the strong taste of onion.

## Choosing it

Firm, dry, with no shoot. The small ones are often milder.

## Preparing it

Cut the top, leave the root, cut in half from top to bottom and take the thin skin off. It is smaller than the onion, hold it well with the claw grip.

## Cutting it for the dish

- Finely diced, for a vinaigrette, a sauce or oysters.
- Sliced, to melt in butter at the start of a sauce.

## How long it takes

One minute.

## Storing it

Like the onion: somewhere dry and away from light, several weeks. Cut, in the fridge in a container, two days.

## Make it tonight

The page "Homemade vinaigrette": a finely diced shallot in it, and it changes everything.

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Source : disheazy, https://disheazy.com/bases/how-to-prepare-a-shallot
