Pieces of Anna: Miracle (re)growth in the kitchen

April 24, 2012

Miracle (re)growth in the kitchen

I had read somewhere (probably on Pinterest) that if you chop up the green parts of spring onions, but leave the white parts intact, you can regrow the green parts simply by placing the remainder of the onions into some water and leaving them alone for some time. Someone even claimed that you can do this repeatedly! Needless to say, I was a bit skeptical about this miracle re-growth, but I decided to do a little science experiment anyway, just to test it out.

After making a salad one day, I was left with the white parts of five spring onions. The onions came with their roots mostly chopped off, but some roots remained attached, which gave me hope. Here is the "before":

Spring onions, before.

I put the glass with the onions on the window sill that got the most sunshine during the day and left them alone for eight days. I didn't even bother changing the water. At first, there was no noticeable growth. But after a few days, some new green tips began to appear. It was working after all! But the growth was so slow, I thought that there was no way any significant amount of onion would re-grow in a reasonable amount of time. Turns out I was wrong. Once the green shoots started sprouting, they continued growing at a faster pace every day. Here they are, eight days later, tall and green:

Spring onions, eight days later.

It was truly a miracle in the kitchen! Of course, no science experiment is complete until you ~~eat it~~ test it. (Ok, seriously now, kids. Don't eat your real science experiments!) Sure, the onions looked real and quite green, but would they still taste like onions? I had to find out. I took a couple of my miracle spring onions and chopped up the green parts into a salad. They tasted like onions, alright! If anything, the onion-y taste was even stronger than in the original spring onions. As I was chopping them up, I also noticed that the onions developed some gnarly looking roots.