Hi greencoburn, just boil the onions. I've tried it once & found it a complete waste of time. I'll give it a couple of hours initial boil for around 3kg chopped onion on a typical home hob.
Some people fry their spices/garlic/ginger/tomatoes(puree) in oil before adding to the gravy which again I don't bother with.
Im going to try a around 2 kg version of jb's base today because I'm familiar with his posts over the years, but normally I make base gravies up as I go along. I don't measure anything anymore when doing this
Regards
ELW

I tried frying onion 1 time only too.

Quite a surprise as for none curry I see caramelising as key to taste in any onion based recipe.

I guess in short I rely on bunjarra at dish frying to get an extra lift. 

I've recently not been adding water at all (only oil). I don't really as yet know if this beats the standard method (simmer only) or not. Gut feeling is not

I feel getting the rest of the base right and subsequent steps have bigger impact.

I feel might be wrongly confusing 2 completely different methods or reactions. The caramelisation for none curry is at high heat it tastes nothing like the simmered onion in oil only base.

Given the impact of the garlic tarka in base then maybe more mileage could be gained from onion. 

Interesting - can't decide and feel a side by side would be needed. It's a long way down the todo list though. 

Just made Garlic Chicken Tikka Jaipuri - my garlic-laden variation of Panpot's Ashoka Jaipuri - with 2 tbsps of the Ashoka bunjarra. An excellent dish made all the better for the inclusion of the caramelised onion sauce.

I use it in other dishes too, like a Dopiaza, to enrichen the flavour. Highly recommended!

It was also the first supplementary question that Camellia Panjabi asked me after her initial question of "How do you make a curry" ?  Once I had explained that I used the BIR technique of making a base in advance, with onions, ginger, garlic and water, she immediately followed up with "and do you fry the onions first, until they are brown ?".  I begin to think I should !

** Phil.

i think the 2 types need to be separated out.

there's what i call a hot dog onion - what i use for general cooking - this is hot fried with minimal water and eventually min 30 mins turns dark. i've tried this in base 1 time only and saw no difference.

there is also in the mix - the traditional curry which is not BIR and for sure hot dark caramelized onion is part of the flavour.

the BIR base onion never really losses its water during the cook and does not fry. i was surprised when i cooked base without water ie oil only. the end result from what i can detect is no difference (in terms of the onion) - it looks and tastes the same. i have been getting much sweater base "onion" but as yet not sure if its just down to the longer simmer.

in short i believe frying onion for BIR base is waste of time. using bunjarra is completely different and for me the BIR way.

the other issue to keep in mind is that what is added to base is added to every dish and flexibility at dish frying is needed to ensure every dish dont tast same.

like all in BIR the only way is to try it for yourself and see if it makes a difference.

as said previously this is a tricky subject - the difference i see at dish fry on high heat i feel is partly down to caramelisation and scraping this back into the curry. given this you would think caramelising at the base stage would be of help. its not a step change in practice though. i guess down to the fact that other ingredients are probably more important - the balance and depth of spice.

it remains unresolved for me.