Carmelized onions … a staple in so many recipes I make: soups, guacamole, pastas, curries … the list goes on. Many people know how to fry onions, but how to get them that deep rich colour and that exact degree of sweetness?
As this is my blog, I admit to my opinions on the subject: Adding sugar is genuinely cringe-worthy. Olive oil will cause the onions to need too high a temperature to fry and they won’t achieve that brown through-and-through colour. And you have to be bold with the butter. (Do I have to add that margarine just won’t do?).
Give yourself at least an hour of cooking time to make these. They are a sloooow food!
Ingredients:
- 1 large fry-pan
- 5-8 onions (enough chopped onions to fill the pan)
- 1 cup butter (you won’t be using all of it, but you will be adding it in as required).
Directions:
- Chop the onions into small pieces (1 cm squared, at most ).
- On a medium flame, heat up the fry pan.
- Melt about 1/3 c. butter and add in the chopped onions.
- Fry the onions on a medium-low heat, keeping a lid on the fry-pan. Stir frequently.
- Add in more butter as required to keep from sticking.
Low heat and a long cooking time: those are the secrets. It may take up to an hour or more for them to cook.
First off the onions will begin to get transparent, and then they will release the water from inside. They will look very “watery.” Keep frying, stirring every few minutes to keep them from sticking. The water will boil off. As the onions begin to turn golden and then brown, keep stirring to keep them from sticking and burning. If they do begin to stick, add in another 2 tbsp or so of butter and stir again.
About the 30-45 minute point, they will begin to slowly turn brown. Keep going. Add in more butter if they begin to stick. Stir frequently to ensure they don’t burn.
What you will end up with is dark brown, sinfully delicious, extremely concentrated in flavour, and about 1/10th the volume of the onions you started with. Even onion-haters have been known to change their minds.
