Homemade “Cronions” – a tasty condiment for pylsur

This is an accompanying recipe to go along with the pylsur post for Iceland.  The main info is all located there, so head over that way for the thorough rundown.

What we’re making here is a crunchy deep fried onion topping to go with our pylsa or just about anywhere else you want crunchy onions (burgers, casseroles, french fries, salads, everywhere!).  To start off with, let’s talk about the real Cronions. You can see what they look like here on Flickr (photo by Robyn Lee).  Cronions are Iceland’s French’s Fried Onions – those crispy delicious morsels of onion that you usually only have on top of green bean casserole once a year at Thanksgiving.  

So do you need to make them at home?  Short answer: no you don’t, you can easily buy them of minimal cost.  But I still wanted to make them myself to see what could be done at home and you might want to as well since it is so easy.

As tasty as the pre-made kind is, we don’t think that you need the flour, sweeteners, and other extras that come as part of the package.  Just fried onions are all you need. With that, we came up with our stripped-down essential version.

Oh, and before we forget, one more benefit of frying them up yourself is that you can control how dark your fried onions get.  We like letting the natural sugars develop and let ours get quite caramelized as you can see in the pictures. Now, let’s get cooking!

Tasting and lessons learned

These things are super simple to make and tasty as heck – almost don’t need a recipe.  The first time I made them, I used beef tallow that I had rendered and they made delicious “Cronions.” However, I found that once they cooled, the beef fat solidified and the texture became unpleasant unless I got them hot again.  Because of that, I recommend using an unsaturated fat to keep the texture nice for the bits you don’t eat immediately. I see on the French’s label that they use palm oil, so that might be a good way to go.

Eat ‘em up!