Know your Onions

If you don't know how to brown onions you will never get the authentic taste of Indian food.All the cook books say ' Saute  onions till lightly golden' or even 'pink'. Forget it. Eat onions thus made and in no time at all you will feel like a bloated buoy floating on a wild wild sea.

Here is how to go about it.The first thing is to take a heavy bottomed pan. Stainless steel is  not the best for this.An aluminium or thick cast iron kadhai or wok shaped pan is the best. Heat it well and add the onions dry. NO OIL!

Let the onions sweat on a medium fire till very soft and mushy and brown. Stir from time to time.This will take all of 15 minutes and there is no way you can rush this process unless you add a lot of oil.To get really caramelised they will take 30 minutes.Then they get a wonderful rich taste and colour which forms the basis of a good curry.

(If you must have oil or ghee (clarified butter) you can use a tablespoon or two for up to 4 large onions.)

To speed up cooking time get going with all the other preparations- chopping the other vegetables, marinating or browning the meat, making the ginger garlic paste or any other paste required, getting the masalas together and so on while the onions get brown.

Comments

[uma ranganathan]

Very good tips on simple cooking. Shall forward it to interested friends. I didn't know about chucking onions into the frying pan...dry!

[mohra gavankar]

What a fabulous page! Wish I was there to sample not just the food - but also the atmosphere, the smells, see the colors of the outfits and just enjoy the moment in the warm sun.

Keep sending recipes - we will try them and let you know our results.

[Mahendra Sinh]

Happy serendipity you might call it, running into your excellent site-
Cook's Cottage! Very sensitively written, it has unusual tit bits of
flavours of Indian cuisine which is very informative and makes very
interesting reading. I look forward to more such wonderful nuggets of
food stories and recipes on your site.

But I am not too sure of one of your postings, "Know your onions". You
are advocating the use of no oil or very little oil for onions in a
dish. This is a good case for healthy eating. Healthy yes, but I am
afraid the onions we know, will never taste the same! For centuries,
cooks have incorporated onions in various forms and most of these
treatments involved sautéing them till they are pink and translucent;
browned at the edges; lightly browned and fried golden-brown and
caramelised crisp. The Moguls borrowed a great deal from very evolved
culinary traditions of Persia and this treatment of onions most likely
came that way.

Onions are treated the way you suggest very commonly in many a Karnatak
and Tamilian cusines particularly in the Chettinad cooking where
chopped onions are sautéed along with garlic, ginger and other whole
spices in a very little oil and slightly browned and later pulverised.
But the treatment is sophisticated and not just cooking the onions
without oil. The results are heavenly but that's a different story, a
different thing, different taste all together.

By cooking onions without oil on a hot tava alone can never give them
those heavenly aromas of browned or caramelised onions that bring magic
to so many dishes from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Not only the onions
themselves but equally important is the role played by the oil or the
Ghee in which they have been fried. The Ghee acquires a delicious
aroma from the onions. Imagine a Roganjosh or a Dum or a Biryani or a
Pulao without those golden onions sitting on top or incorporated into
the masala! Even our humble Pohe, a breakfast favourite from Madhya
Pradesh and Maharashtra will be incomplete without browned onions in
it!

Substitution can always be incorporated but than the taste is obviously
sacrificed. There can be no substitutes for something which is the
main driving flavour like the taste of fried onions in a Biryani or
Pulao. Onions without oil will be a substitute Biryani, a compromise
something like a "Tomato Omelette" which is made without eggs that vegetarian restaurant have on their menu! But then this is not an Omlette!

Mahendra Sinh, Mumbai.

[deccanheffalump]

Thanks for your comments Mahen.I guess there is no real substitute for fried onions.I am looking mainly at the health angle here.

[Courtney]

This is an excellent post that every cook should read. It's even poetic:
"...bloated buoy floating on a wild wild sea."
-- That line alone deserves a standing ovation! We at Naughty Curry may be linking to this write-up sometime soon...

[Courtney]

This is an excellent post that every cook should read. It's even poetic:
"...bloated buoy floating on a wild wild sea."
-- That line alone deserves a standing ovation! We at Naughty Curry may be linking to this write-up sometime soon...

[deccanheffalump]

Thanks for that comment Courtney.Its a lot of fun writing about food as you have noticed!

[Ann NIcklin]

I am so glad to have found your web site, I'll be back for more info on all things cooking. LUV your onions !! HEE HEE!