For generations we relied on the good old flat-capped honesty of the onion. It was unpretentious, predictable and perfectly content to hide in a bag at the dark recesses of kitchen cupboards until dragged out, to be chopped into the bottom of a mince or fried into submission as the ‘healthy’ garnish in a bapped burger. Onions knew their place.   

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But over the last few months, an allium armada has breached our shores. An aggressive amphibious landing has invaded Middle England’s supermarkets and thus the showier parts of my kitchen units. These are shallots: small pink immigrants arriving in vast, unstoppable numbers. Once a snobbish continental import, confined to French bistros, Gordon Ramsay F-word masterclasses and upper-middle-class Waitrose baskets, the shallot has suddenly become a UK supermarket staple.  

The onion, of course, is a natural-born Brit. The majority are pulled straight from soggy, no-nonsense fields in places like Lincolnshire or Kent. The vast bulk of these new- age shallots, however, originate in the Netherlands or Brittany. Of course they’re not newcomers over there. They’re long-standing culinary cornerstones. In traditional French gourmet lore, you cannot call a sauce a........

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