SNS,

much appreciate your thoughts.

i've ditched the 3 hr boil for the mo.

i'm going to repeat your experiment to make sure my onions are ok. then i'm going to expand (to use my 4 hobs) to include say :

a) SNS spec
b) SNS spec + salt
c) boil in oil
d) SNS spec + salt + cardamom seed

will report back.

results are in.

i found this onion cooking "basics" very good in terms of learning and would say a very good lead-in to BIR cooking.

i made 5 onion batches to SNS's spec (200gm peeled in 400ml water but boiled for 1 hr):

a) small onions (typ dia 1")
b) large onions (typ dia 3")
c) large onions boiled in 300 ml sunflower oil
d) large onions + 1 tps salt
e) large onions + 3 off cardamom

observations:

1) the onion liquid tastes very sweet (best in the large onions)
2) the onion itself when cooked just in water does not taste sweet
3) both the salt & the cardamom increased the perception of sweetness in the onion itself
4) the onions cooked in oil tasted the sweetest
5) 290ml of oil was reclaimed (so not much absorbed)


conclusions:
1) i loose the sweetness when the cooked onions & cooked water are blended
2) in future when making bases i will use more salt and add cardamom
3) the boiled onion even with salt & cardamom does not alone give the sweetness I crave
4) the fried onion may give the sweetness I crave (I would need to try it in a base)

I hope I find the jaggery in my local Asian supermarket as boiling onions in oil does not gel well with me in terms of how I perceived BIR?s make bases.

forgot the pics of the onions

from top left clockwise: reclaimed oil, with salt, with cardamom, large onions, small onions, boiled in oil

SNS,

both small (class 2) & large (class 1) bought from ASDA - english cooking onions

NB

i've got 1 large onion left - will boil it all evening (say 3 to 5 hrs) until either the onion flesh is sweet or i'm sure it's not going to sweeten any further.

Quote from: Bobby Bhuna on May 20, 2008, 09:06 AM
Hahaha, awesome. Such dedication to the cause. Great experiment Jerry! ;D

Seconded, it's these sort of experiments that make this forum so great, thanks for sharing