2019-11-24: Caramelized Onions

I only learned how to make good caramelized onions in the last 12 months when watching a YouTube video. Somehow I thought for most of my cooking life that I knew how to make fried onions despite never being totally happy with my results. Fried onions are used for example as a topping for German (Swabian) Spätzle (spatzli, spaetzle, spatzli). My mom always fried the onions with relatively lots of heat and sometimes the onions where coated with a little flour. But my efforts were never close to even that version. About 4 years ago I once tried a recipe from the Modern Cuisine book that advocated to "make" a large batch of super caramelized onions in a pressure cooker with zero effort. The result was a "brown onion-soup". It did not resemble fried onions and I did not like the result at all (probably I made a mistake when I followed that recipe). Beyond that I never really encountered a "good" recipe how to make caramelized onions. I guess I never picked up a good basic cookbook that described how to make them properly and all other cookbooks assumed that their readers knew how to caramelize onions. Things only changed when I entered a YouTube search for "caramelized onions" and saw Azlin Bloor in her YouTube video literally caramelize some onions for 40 minutes. Until then it never dawned on me that this was how caramelized onions were made and that it took this long. Ever since, I am routinely making them that way (if I have time), because they add a super-duper flavor to lots of dishes. So lets start.

I peeled 2 medium to large onions, cut them in half top to bottom and then to taste in smaller and wider strips again lengthwise top to bottom  (it is also possible to cut them into rings or half-moons). I heated up a mixture of oil and butter in my non-stick pan on medium heat (or maybe a little bit less than medium heat) and added the onion strips. I also sprinkled a pinch of salt across the onions to draw some of their juices. And then I caramelized/fried the onions for about 35 to 40 minutes at more or less the same heat level. Every 2 to 4 minutes I turned the onions with a spatula (and maybe more often towards the end). The other trick I learned from the YouTube was to add a table-spoon or two or three of water every so often from about 15 to 20 minutes into the cooking process to avoid that the onions burn and dissolve any juices/sugars from the bottom of the pan and mix the liquid back into the onions when turning them with a spatula.

The onions about 5 to 8 minutes into the cooking process.

The onions about 20 minutes into the cooking process.

The onions about 35 minutes into the cooking process when finished.