You Need to Fry Some Onions
Caramelized onions are the most famous type of boiled onion. It makes sense because they are delicious. But there is a whole range of flavors of boiled onions that can be enjoyed. Soft baked , quick sautéed, even sautéed , every cooking method has something to offer. If you haven’t tried fried onions yet, you must add them to your repertoire.
Sizzling onions are not fried, but cooked in oil. In fact, they are completely immersed in it. Onions can be left whole — especially small ones like pearl onions — or sliced or diced into your favorite onion shape. (I like to cut an onion into eight pieces, from root to tip, to make onion petals.) Once you’ve cut to your liking, all you have to do is put them in a saucepan, coat them completely with neutral oil (or olive oil if you must), then set the pot to the lowest burner setting possible.
Then you wait.
The onion will begin to sizzle slowly, emitting tiny traces of bubbles with a slight whisper. It is important that you do not increase the temperature; the goal is to slowly, gently cook the onions until they are soft in the mouth. You want to be able to butter them up with a butter knife. As with onion caramelization, there is no rush here. Just let them evaporate until they become transparent and lose their rigidity in their little cell walls.
Once they are soft and cooked, fish them out of the pan and arrange on plates. They make a sweet and hearty side dish, but they also look great on toast with plenty of butter and coarse salt. Once you’ve removed the onion from the oil, filter it – you’ve just made onion oil, which makes an incredible dressing, bread dipping oil, and egg fat (assuming you can afford the eggs).