Sweet Pickled Onions

James proposed to Lily at a crawfish boil. It happened Saturday, at a friend's backyard in Pearland, surrounded by butcher paper covered in crawfish and corn and potatoes and the specific chaos of a Gulf Coast crawfish boil. James didn't get on one knee — he stood up at the table, covered in crawfish juice and butter, and said, "Lily Tran, I've been wanting to ask you something since the first time your dad let me stand at his smoker." And he pulled out a ring — a simple gold band with an emerald, which is the color of Nigeria and the color of Vietnam and a coincidence that is not a coincidence at all.

Lily said, "Yes." She said it immediately, without pause, without the dramatic hand-over-mouth thing that people do in movies. She said "Yes" the way she does everything: directly, without performance, with absolute certainty. Then she looked at the ring and she looked at James and she kissed him and the entire crawfish boil erupted into cheering and I stood at the edge of the party with a La Croix and thought about a BBQ competition in 2018 where my daughter met a Nigerian-American pitmaster who understood fire, and I thought: I knew. I knew from the first time he brought sparkling water to my house without being asked. I knew from the chin chin and the suya spice and the way he stood at the smoker like it was an altar. I knew.

I called Mai from the car. She said, "Lily is engaged?" I said, "Yes." She said, "To James?" I said, "Yes." She said, "About time." She said, "He's a good cook." This is the Mai approval scale at its zenith. Tyler's engagement got "About time." Emma's got "Good." Lily's got "He's a good cook." In Mai's hierarchy, this is the highest possible rating.

No recipe this week. The crawfish were the recipe. The butter and the spice and the newsprint and the August heat and my daughter's hand with a ring on it. That's the recipe. The rest is details.

I said there was no recipe last week, and I meant it. But Monday came, and I was in the kitchen anyway, and I made these — because when something big happens in your family, your hands need something to do. My mother always kept pickled onions in the refrigerator. So did Lily’s grandmother on her father’s side, though they seasoned them differently. This is mine: sweet, quick, the kind of thing that belongs on everything and costs you almost nothing to make. Consider it the afterglow of a crawfish boil. Consider it the recipe I said I wasn’t going to write.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes + 1 hour resting | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 medium red onions, thinly sliced into rings
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
2 cloves garlic, lightly smashed (optional)

Instructions

Prepare the onions. Peel and thinly slice the red onions into rings or half-moons, as uniform as you can manage. Pack them into a clean pint jar or a heat-safe bowl.
Make the brine. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the apple cider vinegar, warm water, sugar, and salt. Stir and heat just until the sugar and salt dissolve, 3—4 minutes. Do not boil.
Add aromatics. If using, add the red pepper flakes and smashed garlic cloves to the jar with the onions.
Pour and rest. Pour the warm brine over the onions, making sure they are fully submerged. Let cool to room temperature, uncovered, for about 30 minutes, then cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. The onions will turn a bright pink as they sit.
Store and serve. Keep refrigerated in a sealed jar for up to 2 weeks. Serve on tacos, grilled meats, rice bowls, sandwiches, or alongside anything that came off a smoker.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sweet Pickled Onions — The Week After the Ring