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I always say if you want to seem like a genius in the kitchen just sauté some onions
I usually start my meals by sauteing onions and without fail whoever is in the house will say “Ooo, that smells good what is it?”
Literally just onions
Saute onions and garlic, then decide what you’re making for dinner
Garlic makes your meal taste thicc. Trying to force myself into a lite and airy phase. Not sure why… think I’m just wanting to lose weight, not as if that’s how foods work though. Garlic isn’t fattening haha
Garlic makes your meal taste thicc. Trying to force myself into a lite and airy phase.
Try making toum.
Saute carrots, onions, and celery. Everyone will think you’re making something incredible. And, fortunately, you’ll have the base to follow through, if you so desire.
I do need more dishes in the back of my pocket that start with mirepoix. If y’all got favs, pop a holler.
Got me thinking it’s time for chicken pot pie again…
I use it for a lot of stuff. I roast pork on top of mirepoix, I make soups with it, pasta dishes, I make it alone with lots of butter and herbs and then blend it and use it as a rich sauce, I don’t blend it and then serve it as a side with chicken and fish (adding rice is an option here), add bell peppers and make gumbo, use it as a base for braising basically anything… I do truly just start a mirepoix when I don’t know what to make, then, once it’s started, I dig around for other ingredients. It’s so forgiving and really just makes almost anything more savory and flavorful.
The last time I made it (Saturday), I ended up transferring it to a roasting pan, then roasted pork. I took off the pork when it was done, then while it rested, I deglaced the pan with white wine, put a portion into a pot, added ketchup, vinegar, etc. and used an immersion blender to make a bbq-style mirepoix sauce. Shredded the pork and made pulled pork. It was a huge hit with the family. I know mirepoix-bbq sauce sounds a little weird, but it was incredibly good.
It’s an very versatile base, which, I think, is why different food cultures all have a version of it. And you can do a lot of different things with the same base just by changing the technique. Smaller or larger chop, longer or shorter sautee, add ingredients to change the character (classically, tomato paste to make a pinçage, but you can also swap it to a Holy Trinity or sofrito very easily), and so on. It’s a great thing to play around with.
This is inspiring! I’ll have to give some of these a go.
Thanks for the thoughtful write up. 😊 Already excited to get a bit more adventurous with it!
Haha, I can cook but I don’t really know what I am doing. It usually starts with some oil and garlic or onions in a pan, then I figure out what to actually cook. But if someone walks in at just that step they think you’re some culinary genious.
Haha, I can cook but I don’t really know what I am doing.
Bruh, don’t sell yourself short. If you know how to just throw shit into a pan and have it come out both edible and tasty (or even only the first one), you have a decent idea of what you’re doing.
Being able to do that is a skill that takes work, and is something my wife has worked hard to develop. He k, just knowing what spices go well together or with what meats is a skill in and of itself.
That’s probably why they call it an aromatic.
Best way to stop a small argument? Saute onions in olive oil then add some garlic. Guarantee a head will poke around a door frame and all arguments melt away.
So how do you do it?
I’m asking because I learned not a long time ago to somewhat heavily salt the onions beforehand (in olive oil ofc) and it’s great. Burst for some minute or three, keep hot while stirring til done (hard, melted, …).
I don’t put garlic in it though, I’d put that in the rest of the food if I do.
I made a big batch yesterday (4 large onions).
Butter and olive oil. Add onions. I add water at the beginning so I don’t have to pay as much attention as the beginning. Once the onions are soft, turn it low and take your time. Only stir occasionally.
I used the instant pot yesterday and it was super easy.
4 large onions
So, like, 6 tablespoons of caramelised onion?
3 if you are lucky
Yeah in normal countries but in America they have huge onions
Also high-sugar varieties like Vidalia and Candy onions. Don’t knock us for our onions - at least our onion farmers aren’t dropping bombs on brown people.
Yeah it wasn’t meant to be a knock, just an observation about onion size really. I haven’t tried them enough times to judge if I think they’re good or bad. But they’re definitely big!
The larger the onion, the more water is in it and the less it tastes, from my experience.
I never realized Americans had particularly big onions, but a lot of them are bigger than my fist and definitely full of flavor. Now something like a shallot is small and delicious but it’s a different flavor.
Maybe: it does seem like the larger onions tend to be the sweeter varieties. That’s great though, when one slice covers your entire burger, and you get the satisfying crunch of a nice thick slice of onion without all the bitterness.
That being said, Ive tried caramelizing red onions instead off the more standard yellow, and I’m not sure the final result is any different
Really I just lightly spray some canola oil in the pan and add sliced onions and heat.
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Sauteed onions in olive oil for 10 minutes is delicious, but it’s not caramelized onions. They’re talking about something completely different.
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I like to add them to mac and cheese
Ooh sauté, well lah-de-dah Mr Frenchman!
Remember, it takes at least 45 minutes to caramelize an onion. If you’re doing it for less than 45 minutes, then you’re just cooking it.
45 minus to fully caramelize.
If you don’t want them that dark you don’t have to cook them that long.
Sure, you can use non-caramelized onions. You just won’t get that sweetness.
Just add more sugar.
What kind of hooligan adds sugar
Saves times and gives the sweet taste. If someone doesn’t want to do it for 45 minutes then yeah
But it keeps the the sour and bitter tastes in. Caramelizing replaces most of those with sweet.
Sour and bitter can be good though. I love fresh onion as is. I ghetto caramelize it a bit to make it more palatable to my girlfriend though. For that you don’t need to do a proper caramelization, getting the process going and adding a bit of sugar is enough.
I love to add vinegar too though. Vinegar, a bit of sugar, a bit of salt, some time on the pan, delish.
I honestly add a touch of brown sugar and I guess I’ve been doing it wrong according to these comments.
I know you’re joking, but the only way I can see it taking that long is if you put whole onions into an oven set to 180° to 200° F.
In a frying pan, one can easily caramelize an entire large frying pan of onions in about 30 minutes, or even faster if you decide to use physics to your advantage, and add a small amount of water to your pan and caramelize your pan of onions within 14 minutes. This is an advanced technique that requires some experience to try to use. Much like making a Dark Roux in 15 minutes.
I’m absolutely not joking. If you’re cooking it for less than 45 minutes, you’re not caramelizing the onions. Frequent stirring, adding water, whatever, you can get the color and texture of caramelization, but not the flavor.
I spent a couple of years making slightly disappointing meals because I was focused on the color and texture of my onions instead of the flavor. When I finally took the time to fully caramelize them again, I remembered what I had been missing.
Try it and taste the difference if you don’t believe me.
put whole onions into an oven set to 180° to 200° F.
Wait, would that work?
Might need it to be a bit higher than that, but I know one can caramelize onions slowly in an oven. Just not sure what temp is needed
I know it’s not exactly the same as a low temp for a while. But you can get pretty good results with a high temp, just need to deglaze more frequently, usually with water until they’re almost done. Then wine and/or balsamic is good.
… That explains a lot
Little Anon Starting Early
I have a 3 year old nephew and if you gave him a caramel onion like that I think he’d either eat it happily or ask for a plain onion instead. That kid loves himself some onions.
The only thing I get from that story is that adults and peer pressure sucks. Eat that candied onion and enjoy it as much as you want, fuck those those stupid “grown-ups”.
30 minutes
https://youtu.be/Ovqhzil3wJw?feature=shared
We start our caramelized onions in a covered nonstick skillet over high heat with ¾ of cup water. The water and steam help the onions quickly soften. Then we remove the lid, lower the heat to medium-high, and press the softened onions into the bottom and sides of the skillet to allow for maximum contact with the hot pan. Instead of finishing with sugar or honey as many recipes call for, we add baking soda, which speeds up the reaction that converts flavorless inulin (a polysaccharide present in onions) to fructose.
My face smells like onions for 3 days straight after cooking something with onions for more than 20 minutes. It should be much more terrible to have just onions in the pan
That’s a non-starter then. Nothing is worth a 3 day onion facial.
I’m sorry you feel that way.
What I wouldn’t give for one of those!
Now I want to try some apples and onions with a caramel glaze.
Might work with pork chops.
It would absolutely work with pork chops. It’s even better with a walnut crust.
Now I want to try thin sliced apples in with my onions when I caramelize them for added sweetness.
I don’t know about caramel glaze, but you might want to try apple and or onion chutney.
Can’t speak for caramel, but they’re excellent with potatoes, butternut squash, browned butter and sage.
Who up caramelizing they onions
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Y’all, pinch of baking soda and you’ll have caramelized onions in no time flat. It’s amazing.
Wait now, what? I wish to know more.
Yep, it’s jump starting a process key to flavors we all like called the Maillard Reaction
E: guess I’m technically correct about baking soda speeding up caramelization, but not in regards to what the Maillard reaction has to do with caramelizing. Whoops.
Maillard browning is not caramelization. Maillard is an insanely complex mess of different chemical reactions involving proteins, while caramelization is just sugar and heat.
Alkalinity speeds up the Maillard reaction significantly. Baking soda. Magic.
I agree, but the comment above recommends using it to caramelize onions. Maillard reactions can happen to onions for sure but the result of that is not caramelized onions.
Not to say baking soda couldn’t help, I don’t know the exact chemistry behind this stuff, but I do know that onion + maillard reaction does not yield caramelized onions
Huh, I guess I’d never really looked into the chemistry behind the distinction (which is strange because i am a chemist that loves food), but Maillard reactions involve the proteins, while caramelization involves the sugars. Though both are examples of nonenzymatic browning.
The good news is that the wiki page for caramelization says that either acidic or basic conditions speed up the caramelization processes, so i think we’re good to go in either front!
Yeah, that’s interesting. It’s right in the name, too. You are caramelizing the sugars, not the proteins.
So the baking soda does speed up what little maillard is going on, so it browns faster, but it doesn’t caramelize faster.
TIL!
I usually do overnight large batch caramelizing so it hasn’t mattered. Big bag of onion cubes in the freezer so I never do it in a pan.
On that note, try adding a little splash of balsamic vinegar to caramelized onions 👌👌
Oh shit. That is so cool! I knew lye was used in making pretzels, but i didn’t know it was to get the Maillard browning to happen faster. The wiki page says that one way to reduce the formation of acrylamide, a carcinogen, is by adding carbon dioxide, which
is actually released when baking soda is dissolved in waterwill be released during cooking (edit: see reply chain below for discussion on this point)… IDK for sure if it’s enough to really help, but I’m gonna just roll with it and say it is because delicious food is delicious.Baking powder releases carbon dioxide. Baking soda just creates aqueous bicarb ions and a more basic solution (which is the key to a faster reaction).
Heating a solution of aqueous bicarbonate will release carbon dioxide, too. But since we have delicious onions and stuff in there too, let’s walk through my thought process: Baking powder is baking soda + weak acid + cornstarch (to prevent premature reaction). Since the speed-up for the Maillard reaction works by deprotonating amino groups to make them more nucleophilic, the acid-base reaction that releases CO2 when using baking powder will still occur with just baking soda + food (ie: the protiens in the food are acting as the acid). You’re probably right that using baking powder would produce more CO2, or at least produce it faster, but reducing carcinogenic side products for Maillard reactions via CO2 is a low-priority concern for me anyway. Just a fun curiousity that occured to me when reading the wiki page!
Sorry if my carbon dioxide subscripts don’t work. I don’t think my client supports all the fancy markdown, but i tried my best.
Unless your cooking Italian. I had an Italian tell me once, it’s either garlic or onions but not both together
It’s weird, I watch a lot of Youtube videos about street food vendors in India and sometimes they brag about not using garlic or onions in their offerings. I don’t get how that could possibly be a selling point.
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Ah, interesting.
Interesting. So chives and Society Garlic would be okay for them then?
Also, I’m curious what their take would be on digging up a garlic bulb and taking most of the pieces for cooking, but then planting the rest back out as individual plants.
It took me like at least an hour the other night for french onion soup.
no I don’t think you have to fuck them
🤣
🧅
on a stick. caramel onion on a stick.
Crispy onions are next level, have nothing on caramelized
