Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Herb guide to Branching Onion along with all the Branching Onion containing recipes presented on this site, with 24 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives information about Branching Onion and a listing of all the Branching Onion-based recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Branching Onion as a major herb flavouring.

Branching onions, Allium fistulosum (also known as Welsh onion, bunching onion, long green onion, Japanese bunching onion, bunching shallot, cibol, cives and spring onion) is a species of perennial plant, often considered to be a kind of scallion It is a member of the Amaryllidaceae (Amaryllis) family).

The species is very similar in taste and odour to the related common onion, Allium cepa, and hybrids between the two (tree onions) exist. A. fistulosum, however, does not develop bulbs, and its leaves and scapes are hollow (fistulosum means "hollow"). Larger varieties of A. fistulosum, such as the Japanese negi, resemble the leek, whilst smaller varieties resemble chives. A. fistulosum can multiply by forming perennial evergreen clumps. It is also grown in a bunch as an ornamental plant.

It is native to China, though cultivated in Eurasia and North America (particularly the Caribbean). The epithet 'Welsh' comes from the Anglo-Saxon root wealh- meaning foreign or non native (cf Welsh or Walloon) and survived in Botanical nomenclature to mean the same. A. fistulosum is an ingredient in Asian cuisine, especially in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is particularly important in China, Japan, and Korea, hence one of the English names for this plant, Japanese bunching onion. It is also a key flavouring in French Antillean cuisine where it is known as cive (often mis-translated as 'chives'). In the West, A. fistulosum is primarily used as a scallion or salad onion, but is more widely used in other parts of the world, particularly East Asia. Known as escallion it is an ingredient in Jamaican cuisine and is often added to dry spice mixtures.