How do I save burnt onions
I was making a dipping sauce for udon noodles and accidentally forgot to reduce the heat of my burner when cooking some onions. Some of the onions got scorched, but a small amount that I figured I could save it and pressed on. This was also the last of the onions I had. I realize the first thing I should have done was switch pans to one that doesn't have all that extra burnt onion on it. So after adding garlic, Ginger, soy sauce and mirin, it still had a large amount of burnt flavor to it. I tried to mask it with a bit of hot sauce, red wine vinegar, curry powder, and honey in that order. In the end I had something that tasted fine, certainty not the original goal though. I was also never able to completely hide the burnt flavor, though I lessened it quite a bit. Is there anything else I could have done other than trashing the onion completely?
Posted Mar 15, 2019, 2:36 AM UTC
You are on the right track with switching pans immediately - even tossing onto a handy plate or other heat accepting surface the minute your nose alerted you would have been a good move. Next look at your scorched product. Most of the time you have spots that are blackened and whole areas that are just fine. If it is all burned, just toss it and make another plan, because you cannot serve charcoal except in an ER with a poison control reason. If just some is charred, get rid of the blackest bits ASAP.
By not panicking (burning happens to everyone) and by reducing the extent that you have to mask, as a home cook dealing with what you have on hand, you can easily salvage a little burning. I love bitter flavors, which is pretty much all that burning brings to the table. Sweet and hot are my favorite foils for bitter. I think you threw too many different flavors at your problem hoping to overpower it, rather than embrace the vagaries of the dish that was in front of you. Had you gone mainly mirin and honey (bitter/sweet) or mainly Sichuan and chili flakes of your preferred persuasion (bitter/hot), I suspect you would have had a better final experience. Sweet and hot are my preferred bitter pairings, but folks should be consciously aware of their own taste preferences so they can respond easily to "little kitchen disasters".