Chives

All members of the onion family have different but complementary flavours and chives are no exception. This is the onion perhaps best suited to accompany cheese.

Flowering chive plants	Garlic chives	Chopped chive leaves

Species:	Allium schoenoprasum.
Origin:	Probably Central Asia.
Source:	Today, the plant grows practically everywhere in Europe, even at high altitude.
Used Part:	The long, tube-shaped leaves which are used fresh (or deep-frozen).
Family:	Alliaceae (onion family).
Effect:	Similar to onion, but substantially less dominant and more subtle.
Etymology:	The English chive derives from Latin cepa "onion" via Middle English cyve or cheve, loaned from Old French cive. The singular "chive" is used for the plant, whereas the spice is usually referred to as plural form "chives".
	The botanical species name schoenoprasum means "rush-like leek" from Greek schoinos "rush" and prason "leek". For the etymology of botanical genus name allium, see Garlic.
	In many languages, chives are denoted as a "grassy" variant of their larger relatives, leek, onion and garlic. Examples are Swedish gräslök, Norwegian grasløk and Finnish ruohosipuli. Similar are Catalan all junciforme "rush-shaped garlic" and Arabic waraq basal "onion-leaf". Other languages use geographical epithets, e.g. Bulgarian luk Sibirski "Siberian onion" or Turkish Frenk soğanı "French onion".
	In the Romance languages the names of chives are often diminutives meaning "little onion", e.g. French civette, Spanish cebollana, Italian erba cipollina and Portuguese cebolinha. German schnittlauch contains the verbal stem schneid meaning "cut", because, unlike onion and garlic, chives are harvested by cutting the leaves. The name has entered some Slavonic languages (Czech šnytlík and Russian shnit-luk).
Uses:	The subtle and pleasant taste of chives makes them an extremely popular culinary ingredient of Central and Western European cuisines. Fresh chives, finely chopped, are frequently sprinkled over soups, vegetable stews and sauces and dishes based on egg or yoghurt greatly profit from the addition of chives. Boiling, frying or baking destroys most of the fine aroma of chives.
	Although more often used alone than combined with other fresh herbs, a mixture with chervil, tarragon and parsley works well and is known in French cuisine as fines herbes. The mixture is frequently suggested for subtly-flavoured cold and warm dishes such as salads, scrambled eggs, fish and poultry. Less recommendable is the combination of chives with garlic, which overpowers the delicate aroma of the chives. Better suited is bear's garlic with its significantly less dominant fragrance.
	In the mountain climate of the Alps, chive is one of the few herbs that can be grown locally and it enjoys significant popularity. Black rye bread with butter and chopped chives tastes excellent with Tyrolean butter.
	Another field of application for chives is cheese, especially cottage cheese and other very mild varieties. Cottage cheese flavoured with chives and optionally other fresh herbs is a popular spring dish in Central Europe. The spice is normally used fresh because it loses all its flavour by drying.
	Related species are used in the cuisines of China, Tibet and parts of South-East Asia but are mostly unavailable in the West. Chives make a good substitute for these and are often asked for in Western cookbooks.
	In Chinese cooking, flat leaves of Himalayan garlic chives a. tuberosum are often employed in the same way as chives in European cooking. In Nepal, the chive relative a. wallichii known as jimbu "Himalaya onion" is often used for cooking, especially for flavouring dhal. Uniquely, jimbu is usually employed as dried leaves fried in ghee to develop their flavour.