Crispy onions

Lest I forget, I want to record my recent discoveries regarding crispy onion shreds. These are one of the most terrific condiments known to humankind -- deep brown (but not burnt!) crackling slivers of onion, the not-so-distant but greatly superior cousin of the "French fried onion rings" in a can that are the key ingredient in so many casseroles also starring cream-of-mushroom soup. This is not to say that I don't like those critters, in their place. But these onions turn plain dishes fancy, taste drop-dead wonderful, and are much easier to make than I feared. Because they involve frying, though, it is best to make them in quantity. Here's how I do it, with strategies pieced together from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking, John Thorne's Pot on the Fire, and my own fevered brow.

INGREDIENTS
3 medium onions, cut in half and sliced absolutely as thin as possible (thinner!)
olive oil to come up 1 1/2" in a wok or heavy pot

OPTIONAL, BUT NICE
1/2 t. turmeric and
2 t. salt dissolved in
2 T. water

TO DO
The onions fry up more crisply if you can get rid of some of the moisture first. Madhur Jaffrey says that Iranian cooks spread their onions out on towels and let them dry out overnight; I don't have the patience, so I used a hair dryer (!) to get them dryish, instead. You can also toss them with salt, let them rest while they weep out some moisture and then roll them up in towels and squeeze to get rid of all the moisture you can. In that case, omit the salt from the turmeric water.

Set a sieve over a largeish bowl and lay out paper towels or coffee filters for draining the onions upon when the time comes.

Heat the oil over medium-high heat until it begins to shimmer. Tip in the onions and give them a stir. If you're using it, dip your fingers into the turmeric mixture and sprinkle over the onions, until you have used up most of the liquid. Stir some more. Don't be impatient; it will take a few minutes for the magic to happen, but when it does, it all goes quite quickly, so pay attention.

First they will wilt, then turn straw colored and limp, and then rapidly turn crisp and brown. When they are a reddish brown throughout, but nowhere black, turn off the heat and pour the contents of the pot into the sieve. You'll save the oniony oil for other purposes (DON'T, for the love of plumbing, pour it down the drain) -- you can use it once or twice more for frying onions, and anywhere else you would want onion flavor with your olive oil. From the sieve, spread the onions over the paper and let them drain for about 15 minutes. Once they have cooled, they should be very crispy. Store them in a tightly closed glass jar. They keep for several days, except that you will eat them first.

PS. I don't know why adding the turmeric liquid doesn't make the oil spatter horribly--maybe it's because the oil isn't too hot just then, because you've just added all the onions, or maybe because there's already extra water in the oil, being released from the onions? But it didn't spatter, at least for me.

Posted by redfox at December 30, 2002 06:36 PM (recipes)

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