Haven’t started a day like this in a while, with tears streaming down my face from chopping nine pungent onions. It takes a little discipline to come back to this after time away!
Why so many onions at once? Well, I’m making three curries today, to drop off to the Shef people to see if they want to take me on as one of their certified home chefs. I’m definitely not planning to do a lot of this kind of cooking, but I’d like to have the option of doing a Sri Lankan home delivery pop-up once a month, perhaps, and this is the first step in that process.
And while I could certainly chop 3 onions, sauté them, make the first curry, then go on to chop the next 3 onions, since all of these recipes will be using my standard master seasoned onions base, it’s more efficient and time-saving to do all 9 onions at once. The volume takes a little longer to chop and sauté than 3 would, but it definitely saves time over doing 3 separate batches, and there’s no loss in taste quality. Onion + mustard seed + cumin seed + ginger + garlic + vegetable oil.
NOTE: If you’re going to do this, an extra-wide large sauté pan will help you cook the onions evenly and reasonably quickly.
Next step — dividing them into three batches, and seasoning them differently going forward.
