Fried Onions
It's all in the onions.
The sauce or gravy as some people call it makes a good curry what it is, whether it is for a vegetarian or non-vegetarian dish. The key ingredient to this sauce is the onion, this could be in various types, from Spanish to spring onions or even pre-prepared fried onions, as in the picture above which can be purchased in specialist south Asian grocers.
Three important things to remember:
1. The quantity of onion, too much and you will make the sauce sweet, if that’s what you like. Though do remember the onions will sweat down to half the size when frying them.
2. Frying and how much oil to use go hand in hand, we all know about the oily curries which taste so good, though believe it or not that's a key to a good curry. Use good quality oil and just enough so the onions can be dissolved in it when frying, you can remove access oil later once you have fried the onions.
3. Once you have the quantities for the onions and oil sorted, start frying them, you want them, what I call golden brown! Not sautéed, not black either, I mean brown, like the fried onions above; I mean all of them, which means constant stirring. Once the onions have browned move on to the next stage by adding the sauce.
My Bang Bang Chicken using fried onions
Tip: Ready prepared fried onions make gorgeous sauces, simply add to hot oil and fry for 1 minute, save all the crying and frying. Remember though they have already been sweated down so use in little amounts.
