Fried Shallots!

Stay clear of the store bought ones. and it’s disappointing to see so many restaurants use those. because they are not nice. not nice at all.

Making your own definitely takes effort but they are so sweet and delicious whereas i don’t think the store bought ones add much flavour except a chewy texture that gets stuck in your teeth. They also give you a chance to make onion oil.

I blogged a while back about my 3 onion oil – and that was great – that’s really just for the flavoured oil whereas this is for both the onions and the oil.

Just use as much shallots as you have. Now.. shallots mean a lot of different ingredients in different places.

What you want for this are small red onions. (image taken from how stuff works).

 
Then slice it thinly just like in the picture. not diced, you also can’t use a food processor for this. This is really where all the work is.

With onions i had, i made about a rice bowl full and all i got at the end was half a pasta sauce jar of product.

Choose any oil you want. Not olive oil though. i dunno why. i don’t think it would work. would it?

Anyways, i used peanut oil. Add loads of it, especially if you’re in it for the oil. Add a good amount, onions absorb the oil and you still need oil to deep fry the onions. I think i used approximately 2 cups of oil or more.

Directions

So, i used a wok since it is safer as well with the amount of oil.

Heat the oil, not too hot, just warm cause the temperature here is very very important. You need the colour to be perfect. It burns easily.

 
Onions in. At this stage, just maintain a medium low fire and stir periodically.

Always keep an eye on the colour.

If you wanna play it safe, as soon as you get some onions browning, turn the fire down to low.

Keep stirring.

When a majority of them are a light golden brown, switch off the fire. and let it stand while still stirring it periodically. When the oil cools slightly and you feel that the colour isn’t right, just put it back on the heat and continue cooking for a while.

Don’t cook till it becomes the final product. The onions will continue cooking. Always stop shy of the perfect shade of golden brown so there’s no need to fish the onions out and handle the hot oil.

This is perfect. You can see that the oil is not bubbling or foaming so the heat had been switched off for the residual heat to do its work.

 
I am extremely proud of this batch. I did it once last year and it burned slightly. so i’m very very happy with this round’s final product.

I store this in a used pasta sauce glass jar. With the oil and onions together. The onions don’t go all soft and soggy. and i believe it helps to infuse the oil even more. I just keep it in a cupboard where it’s dark. My grandmother didn’t keep hers in the fridge, so i don’t see the need to. just remember to always use clean spoons so that there’s no contamination.

We just tried this one day during dinner – over our laska. The sweetness of the onions with the spicy coconut soup. Nothing better. :)