onion paste

[anvi]

I wonder if any of you have had a similar experience.Often when i make a paste of onions in a blender,it gets very bitter.The first time this happened,i did not even realise it and proceeded to fry it in oil,add the usual masalas etc and made a gravy.But when we ate it,the gravy was positively bitter.After that,everytime i made the onion paste,i would first taste it raw and throw out the whole lot if it were bitter.All this was very wasteful,not to mention irritating.After that i started either grating the onions,or chopping them very fine and than proceeding to fry in oil,but when i needed a really smooth gravy,i had to put the whole thing in a blender after it was done or use my stick blender.The cleaning was painful,because the paste would be oily after having been roasted in oil.All in all very cumbersome!

Of late ,this does not happen,and also if i process the onions in a food processor as opposed to a blender,it seems to help too.

Wanted to know if any of you folks had encountered the same problem and if you have any solution for it.

thanks

[Chris Amirault]

Is it always just onions, or do you throw in a few garlic cloves? Burnt garlic is mighty bitter.... If my guess is wrong, though, I'll be very interested in responses here.

[anvi]

Thanks for a fast response.I do add garlic cloves sometimes ,i have tried without too,but the paste is bitter as soon as i blend it.The wierd thing is,that when i chop them fine,or grate them,they dont turn bitter .Maybe they get over processed in the blender,which makes them bitter?But then, this did not happen earlier...when i was in India.Its only when i moved here to the U.S that this happened. Back home,I would put onions,garlic, ginger,at times whole spices and grind the lot in a blender with no resulting bitterness.

I have noticed though, that it happens more with yellow onions than red.And also if i fry/roast the paste in a lot of oil ,until it gets properly brown than towards the end the bitterness is reduced.However if i donot roast it for a long time,than the resultant gravy is not fit to eat!

[liv4fud]

hope I am not too late in replying before your next gravy

the thing that turns the onions bitter is the presence of the root which supposedly has a lot of onion flavor accompanies with mighty bitterness and the 'making-the-cook-cry' property.

quarter the onion and cut off the center portion (like deseeding a quartered apple) but only on the root end. it would visibly (taste-wise) reduce the bitterness (most of the times eliminating it). also yellow - which are usually cheaper in midwest - have a greater tendency of bitterness than the red.

another usual suspect is garlic grown old i.e. has greenish tinge in the center. but I am guessing you are heavily concentrating on the onion for this one

[anvi]

liv4fud,

thanks for the info.I had never thought about this.but then,why does the same thing not happen when i chop the onions or grate them? The root is still there.Also i remember microwaving the paste once to see if that would help,and the whole thing turned green..isnt that wierd?

The best part is that for some wierd reason it doesnt happen now,it happened all the while a couple of years ago. so do not worry about being late with your response.Its just that i thought i might find an answer here,among all the highly informed folks.

[Milagai]

possibilities:

1. grinding onions in the blender does a lot of cell damage

compared to even the finest hand-chopping. so the

whatever-they-are compounds in the onion need much longer

cooking time to get rid of the harsh raw taste.

longer cooking on lower heat.

2. i've had better luck slicing onions in a mandoline.

they come out paper-thin, so cook quickly. but

they are not ground up so the harshness is much less.

3. variety of onion? yellow onions are worse in this respect....

milagai

[anvi]

Thanks Milagai,This does explain my question .Now,please tell me how you guys get around to making a smooth gravy with onion paste as a base.Do you chop/slice/grate the onions and than roast and then blend as opposed to putting it raw in the blender ?Or is there another solution.

[liv4fud]

Thanks Milagai,This does explain  my question .Now,please tell me how you guys get around to making a smooth gravy with onion paste as a base.Do you chop/slice/grate the onions  and than roast  and then blend as opposed to putting it raw in the blender ?Or is there another solution.

←

i m staging at a caterer's place and they have a very very talented head chef

he had suggested the cooking first and blending later part

so does rupenrao in his recipes (he does visit this forum - so hope he puts his $0.02 in)

however, at the caterer's place, they always blend the gravy raw and then cook it.

and they do it across the board for all the dishes like that

[waaza]

the bitterness is caused by the natural defences of the onion, and is a consequence of being wounded (cut, macerated, etc.). Enzymes released in response to wounding produce sulphuric acid-like chemicals, which when dissloved in water (from the onion or the eye!) cause the bitterness and irritation. As someone has already mentioned, cutting causes less damage than macerating, so less bitterness is produced. Being an enzyme moderated mechanism, it is time and concentration dependant, so the less time and the less water present, the less the bitterness. Therefore, cut the onion quickly and fry at once, then macerate. Do not remove the root bit, it contains more of the flavour. Do not use water ladened large onions.

HTH

cheers

Waaza

[muichoi]

I don't know about the US, but english onions are totally unsuitable for grinding raw-when this is required, simply cook the punctured onions whole in the microwave, then proceed as before.This works perfectly.