cooking is an art … but when it comes to fried onions …. its a super art !!! You may have read or heard of frying onions till they are golden brown …. sounds easy ..beware its not .. i my self “perfected” this after burning and ruining lots of onions and countless failed attempts.. now that i know how to perfectly brown the onions i thought i should share this with all of the confused souls out like me … so here it goes:
- Take 2 - 3 kilograms of onions ( onions tend to loose a lot of water and shrink while frying and since its very time consuming process..i prefer to fry a big batch and recommend you to do so).
- peel the onions and and slice them ,now slicing the onions especially for frying is another art.The rule for for crisp fried onions is…. “ the thinner , the better “ but the secret is consistency ..whatever thickness or should i say thinness you prefer ..all of the sliced onions should be of the same thinness or thickness .... The reason is that when you fry the onions the thin ones will fry and get burnt while the thick ones will be still raw and pale white .. and that's believe me a culinary disaster ….so make sure the sliced onions are wafer thin and of the same size ..you can achieve this by using slicer or any appliance that could do the slicing.
- Now that the slicing has been done its time to fry the onions ..Take a large nonstick pan or any heavy bottom pan and add oil ( be generous with the oil , for crisp fried onions .. the onions should be fully submerged in oil)
- Heat the oil and add all the onions at once … keep stirring and fry them on high heat till they turn translucent and soft.
- Now reduce flame to low and continue frying them till they start to get a very pleasant reddish brown color or famously known as golden brown.Watch the onions like a hawk at this point and keep stirring all the time since they tend to burn or over fried very easily..and that would ruin whatever dish you are planning to make…
- Take out the fried onions with a slotted spoon from the oil , spread them on a paper towel and let them cool .
- Congratulations … You have mastered the fine art of frying the onions ..
- These fried onions can be used for biryani , qourma, mirchi ka salaan or wherever you need the crisp brown onions.
- Since most of the salaans or curries require fried onion paste .. you can wet grind these fried onions to a paste . i usually freeze the grounded paste into cubes and use accordingly.
- You can also freeze the whole fried onions as it is in zip lock bags and use it to garnish daal, haleem , biryani etc . for that just defrost the frozen fried onions for about 20 minutes or so.
- Ladies again whenever you decide to fry onions .. fry them in a large quantity and freeze them .. believe me it will make cooking your favorite dish a breeze without compromising the taste.
- Since the fried onions leave a brownish residue in the oil … filter the oil and use it as you normally do for everyday cooking .. its even better because this oil will add a nice aroma to your curry that comes from onions being fried in it.