Caramelized onions add a deep, rich and sweet taste to almost any dish. Although the process is time consuming, it is very simple and the result is worth the time. Onions are naturally sweet; and caramel comes from the simple cooking of sugar and when you slowly cook the onion for a long period of time, the natural sugars in the onion caramelize, which makes the result intense and wonderfully aromatic.
Choose the onions. Use yellow onions, but white or red will also work. Start with chopped onions and olive oil in a pan at medium high heat (if you decide to caramelize in butter, add olive oil or regular oil because the butter has a lower burning point).
You will need a large pan so that the onion has room to cook and caramelize. Also, make sure you have a lot of chopped onions. It will shrink significantly when caramelized. On the other hand, if you put too much onion in the pan, you will end up steaming it and it will release water. Eventually, it will caramelize - but it will take much longer to do so.
Do not cut onions into small pieces, because they will burn very quickly and stick to the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle a little salt. This will extract the moisture. As it cooks, it will first become soft and then juicy. Then, enjoy the process and stir periodically until the onion turns brown or caramelizes, which will make it sweet and tasty. This will take about 10 to 15 minutes.
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