I have been fascinated by how the caramelisation of some vegetables enhances their taste. This happens with onions, carrots and especially shallots. I have roasted onions with other vegetables or with meat in the oven. I have often noticed how on roasting a sweet onion juice leaks out and then burns onto the roast pan; need to figure out how to capture it.
My tapas book describes how to caramelise shallots. Basically you take 100 g sugar and some lemon juice and heat it in a pan to start to caramelise the sugar. You then add the shallots and add a further 300 ml water and allow the mixture to reduce in the pan.
I did not have any shallots but had some big onions. At about 1/3 kilo each I thought they were a similar mass to about 10 little shallots. I thought it would be worth trying to caramelise with honey rather than sugar; this was due to my train of thought on mustard and honey and another train of thought was the fact that honey was used rather than sugar in the middle ages, just like parsnip instead of potato.
On previous occasions I have tried adding a honey glaze to things like roast salmon, but with mixed results. This is an area where I need to develop my technique.
I followed the same procedure as in the tapas book but with a good 100 g of honey. Technically it worked, it took a while for the onions to caramelise slowly. However the end result tasted too strongly of honey. I had overlooked the strong distinctiveness of the honey taste.
So third experiment, partly successful. So overall a 50% success rate.
Everybody was fed enough, there was a large pile of pots and dishes 
and no clouds of smoke in the kitchen. Definitely worth trying a few things.
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2007-07-07 @ 21:44