Raw green onions are spicy, but heated green onions are sweet. Why is this? More specifically; what change in the raw green onion's organic chemicals makes it no longer spicy when the green onions are slightly burnt, and is there some chemical change in the burnt green onions that also make it sweeter, or is it just the removal of the spicy compound?
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1 Answer
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Onions caramelize, becoming sweet as various complex saccharides are broken down to more "tasty" sugars. For instance, in onions, green (scallions), yellow, red or other, chains of fructose are broken into fructose monomer and dissolved in the onion's water (~90% by mass), making the sweet taste accessible to the taste buds. Caramelizing also produces many complex changes in other chemicals, too.
In addition, onion and its relatives contain strong-tasting, strong-smelling, and even lachrymatory compounds, such as syn-propanethial S-oxide. Since these are volatile and not too stable, caramelizing onions for half and hour or more destroys or evaporates them, leaving the pure melt-in-the-mouth caramelized onions.
Sorry, my mouth is watering and I must leave to get a napkin...
answered Jul 5, 2023 at 5:17
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4$\begingroup$ I have authentically been drawn to emotional tears at the smell of frying and caramelizing onions. Well written and useful answer, danke! $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 5, 2023 at 14:23
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22$\begingroup$ (+1) And garlic is an allicin wonderland, as a colleague used to say! $\endgroup$– Ed VCommented Jul 5, 2023 at 14:29
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2$\begingroup$ This is a wonderful answer, and it is a delight to know that mere LLMs (such as ChatGPT) cannot threaten the intellectual capacity of human scientists and lifelong learners. Thank you so much! $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 7, 2023 at 21:22