Stirr thoroughly to mix in the cream and butter. We're aiming for a glossy, pale brown (darkening on standing) turbid mixture.
Unlike most chemistry, tasting and smelling the reaction mixture is strongly suggested.
Now is the time to add in more capsaicin or sodium chloride to your preference.
The mixture is now returned to a low oven for another 20 minutes.
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For the next step, I'm dividing out the mixture into a smaller pot, to allow space for further reactants.
Then add in rather a lot of butter and cream.
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Getting back to the #KitchenChemistry after a day off. The lenti-onion-tomato-garlic-ginger concoction has rested to infuse and slowly react. Now it's time to resuspend the solids and stir over a low heat for another hour.
Add approximately 400ml of water at this point.
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After stiring well, the whole thing goes into the oven at 180C for 3 hours. Checking periodically and adding water to keep the reaction fluid.
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More garlic and ginger and spices added.
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Once fully combined and the smell from the spice is detectable, it's time to move everything to the largest reaction vessel we have, as we will be adding a tube of tomato puree and three cans of chopped tomatoes.
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While those onions cool (we only have one pot big enough for this reaction) we prepare the next reaction. We're going to use hot water to hydrolyse lectins in the lentils to something less toxic, and also soften the lentils.
Add a couple of good tablespoons of ginger to the cooking solution.
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Success!

A kilo, give or take of Brown Onion Tar.

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About 90 minutes into the reaction. Mostly we have been drying the reactants so far, now we're progressing to the Maillard Reaction step which will give us our lovely tasty tar.
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Cooking all the onions EVAR to make black dhal.
Starting with 5kg of chopped onions.
Cook under gentle reflux until a brown tar forms.
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