• Peel your onions and slice in thick rings around the smooth side of the onion.

  Do not slice on the sides where the ends are or you won't have rings and your onion will fall apart. You want these rings to be about 1.5 centimetres thick. You should get 4 or 5 rings from one onion.
• Pre heat a large, non stick saucepan on a medium/high heat and lay your rings perfectly down without over-lapping. Be careful with them as the idea is to keep them as much in a ring as possible throughout the cooking process for presentation purposes.

  If you're not bothered about keeping your onion rings in on piece, then by all means you can break your onion rings up, or even slice them. It all depends on what purpose you are cooking them for.
• Now let them fry for a good five minutes on medium/high heat. Don't worry about burning or sticking right now because you need them to colour and release natural juices for flavour.

  Crack some black pepper over the top of your onions, along with drizzling your balsamic and tamari sauce on them too.

  You should hold off on adding extra salt at this point as both your tamari sauce and vegetable stock will already be salty. Add more at the end if you need to.
• Once your onions are on their way to getting brown on the underside you can add some splashes of hot water. The pan may smoke and sizzle, but this is good.

  Let the onions cook for a further few minutes until properly browned and caramelised. Keep adding splashes of hot water to prevent sticking.

  Don't be worried if your onions burn a little as it all adds to flavour!
• Now very carefully turn your onions over with a fish slice being careful not to break them up if possible. Repeat the same protocol for this side of your onions too, but without the balsamic or tamari.
• Once you onions are pretty much cooked, you can add your stock mixed with thickener to the pan (if using). Just drizzle it around the edges and sides of your onions as opposed to on the top, then very gently mix and turn your onions again to make sure that your gravy is evenly distributed.

  Your jus should start to thicken and become gravy-like. If it becomes too thick, then simply add more water to thin. At this point your onions may slightly break up, but if you've been careful then the damage should be minimal.

To make the Jus (Gravy)

• Mix small amount of your stock slowly to your thickening agent to form a paste first. Mix well and slowly add more stock until it is mixed well with no lumps. This works best with cold stock, or not too hot at least.