Epic Rant: Layers of Deceit

[ecowper]

The author is spot on correct. All those recipes you find on the internet all tell you that you can brown onions in 10 minutes (you can’t), toast caraway or cumin or sesame seeds in 1 minute (no), and so on. The author’s rant is epic, well worth the read.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/05/how-to-cook-onions-why-recipe-writers-lie-and-lie-about-how-long-they-take-to-caramelize.html

[Jerod Broussard]

You may not be able to brown onions in 10 minutes, but you sure can blacken them up with high enough heat and some butter from the get-go.

[ecowper]

tmaan235 your farts don’t smell like flowers?

[JimLinebarger]

ecowper is skunkweed a flower?

[Troutman]

I heard old Panhead John secretly wears Barbie dresses too.

[58limited]

He said what we were all thinking

I've often wanted to ask one of these recipe writers how they were able to manipulate the laws of physics in their kitchen in order to caramelize, not burn, onions in 10 minutes.

[Oak Smoke]

The two things that I make that require the most patience are caramelized onions and a dark roux. If you rush either you’re risking starting over. fzxdoc has a recipe for caramelized onions that works great. I need to find it again and save it.

[Oak Smoke]

fzxdoc Thank you! I’ll be making your French onion soup as soon as it gets nice and cool here.

[bbqLuv]

Fast way to brown onions: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ImzHlWdalhc

fzxdoc For French Onion soup, I use Lipton's. Open the pouch, put it in a pot, and add hot water. I also add it to sour cream and make onion dip--so good.

[SheilaAnn]

I’m doing onions tomorrow for FOS. At LEAST 4 hours.

[STEbbq]

Is the reason why writers lie is because they don’t want to print a hour-long recipe when folks want sub-30 minutes recipes? It would have been fun if he pinned down some of the worst offenders and asked why and asked a follow-up or two but instead he just proved them wrong and left it at that.

This also answers one of those nagging questions I had when my onions wouldn’t caramelize in the stated 10 minutes!

I don’t have a good example handy but I wonder if people are expecting the onions to caramelize by the time the food is served. I seem to remember many recipes start with caramelizing the onions in 10 minutes, add a bunch more ingredients and usually meat, and then serve say 30 minutes later. Wouldn’t the onions be caramelized by the time the food hits the fork? I don’t know!

[ecowper]

I think part of it is what you say, they don't want to create 60 minute recipes when everyone wants weeknight dinner in 30 minutes. The other part, I believe, is that all these people creating online recipes are copying and pasting from each other and not really testing it.

[WayneT]

If experienced chefs are the ones writing these recipes, then I agree, something is amiss. If these are home, cooks writing these recipes, then why would they care how long it took for any step in the recipe? If, the recipe editors aren’t professional cooks who want to sell a recipe, a website, or a cookbook, then that’s an explanation I can buy. I can easily imagine an editor, telling a writer, “no one wants a two hour long recipe!”

[tmaan235]

Ok, Ok, Ok, Obviously all ya all are using the wrong onions. What the recipe writers are missing is stating you need to use movie onions. All you need to do is show them to a hot pan and they instantly reduce to perfectly carmelized onions... They're being nice by telling you it takes 10 minutes, see? Been using them for years, in fact, Festival has them on special right now. 2lb for 7 dreambucks.

[Mosca]

tmaan235 Yep. I don’t see those times now, either. Oak Smoke Right, according to the recipes all the rouxs take a minute or so, and there isn’t a difference between light, golden and dark rouxs any more.

Pretty much every single time I’m making a meal, I think to myself, “It’s not a race.”

[Oak Smoke]

Well said!

[tmaan235]

What Oak Smoke said!!!
And Mosca, I don't know anyone that can't tell the difference between 15 min roux and 1 hour roux depending on cook...These must be movie tasters methinks.

[DavidNorcross]

If I am in a hurry it is 10 minutes. If I want to caramelize correctly it is surely 30 to 45 minutes. Good article.

[Jfrosty27]

Great article. It’s so true. All recipes these days are full of crap. As someone said above, they’re all trying to be the quick, under 30 min., whip it together after work dinner savior. Horse hockey.

[randy.56]

Agree with this guy and all you all. It's not just onions, Sunday having the family over for slider's and fries, got the turkey pot going, oil is at 350, on the bag of frozen crinkle fries, it said 8 min, bull, at 8 min, they were not near done. Seems it always take much longer than the recipes call for.

[ssandy_561]

I have cooked fries in my younger days in a commercial deep fryer where the temperature of the oil does not drop when you put your food in it. That never happens at home. I get about a 50° drop (sometime more) in my oil temperature when deep frying at home. I’ve started getting my cooking oil 25° higher than called for to compensate for the drop. It does cook them quicker but still not as fast as the package states.

[FireMan]

Ahem, can you say “let your steak rest for ten minutes”.
Yes the world is filled with people runnin around filled with and spillin dumb, unfounded, thoughtless information. All cuz they heard it somewhere.

[tmaan235]

I knew there was a reason I like you, think I found it
Can't make a proper reverse sear 2" thick ribeye without a 10 min rest when it hits 124......

[Craigar]

I like the "10 minutes or until golden brown." That's how they cover their butts. Speaking of butts, we could rewrite our pork butt recipes to "smoke at 250° for 10 minutes or until you reach an internal temp of 205°."

[tmaan235]

Does that mean that a properly cooked brisket can be obtained in 45 min? What about the stall

[KimO]

I also have to double (at least) the prep time the recipes say, though that is probably because I am new to the amount of this I now need to chop, slice and dice! I am much slower than most!

[tmaan235]

Oh KIm, it's not you, I would do the 18 to 20 family thanksgiving dinners and had to start at 7 am to hit the table at 4pm and only hit that twice Do it right a bedamned the time sir!

[KimO]

tmaan235, I admire anyone who can put together a thanksgiving dinner and get it done at any time of day! :-)

[ecowper]

tmaan235 KimO my very first holiday dinner was in 1989. My grandmother taught me. It took me probably 25 years after that to get it anywhere to close as good as Grandma did it.

[Uncle Bob]

How big is "one clove of garlic", or an onion, or................................

[Murdy]

Or even a "medium" onion for that matter?

[FireMan]

Yup, a medium onion is probably the favorite amongst the experts.

[SheilaAnn]

I actually saw a recipe where the writer called out an onion as “baseball size”. I thought to myself, “self! I can respect this because it’s realistic!”

Or just shows to go ya…. weigh everything. (Ducking)

[fzxdoc]

I liked the line in the article that said something like "the best way to caramelize onions is yesterday". So true.

Caramelized onions are a real treat for the palate, and they shouldn't be rushed. Which is why I make caramelized onions in the Crock Pot using a method modified from America's Test Kitchen.

I double my recipe, which initially fills my 8 Quart Crock Pot (the onions cook down), and which makes 8 cups of caramelized onions. I portion them out in 1 cup batches before freezing, and use them for pizza, French onion soup, burger toppings etc.

It's so much easier to grab a small bag of already deliciously-caramelized onions from the freezer and microwave them for a bit before using them in the recipe I'm working on.

Here's a link to making Caramelized Onions in the Slow Cooker, bundled with one for French Onion Soup:

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/forum/the-pit-mastery-program/soup-chili-and-stew/625090-french-onion-soup-made-with-slow-cooker-caramelized-onions#post625090

Kathryn

[Craigar]

fzxdoc Thank you for reposting, Kathryn!

[Mosca]

I also have to double (at least) the prep time the recipes say, though that is probably because I am new to the amount of this I now need to chop, slice and dice! I am much slower than most!

It’s got nothing to do with you being new, and you probably aren’t any slower than anyone else.

Pick any stew or braising recipe, including pot roast, coq au vin, bourguinon, etc; you’ll see something like a total time of 3 1/2 hours, with a braise of 3 hours. So, in half an hour you’re going to get all your mise en place set up, clean your herbs, peel and chop the vegetables, cube the meat, sear it, and get everything into the pot and into the oven? I don’t care if you’re Gordon Ramsay, that’s not happening.

It takes me half an hour to collect everything I’m going to need, let alone prep it. I actually paid attention last night: I chopped some peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and garlic, sautéed them in oil, added a can of cannellini beans, and made some spaghetti. I topped it all with Rana brand pesto. (An INCREDIBLE product. Costco sells it as Kirkland.) I walked into the kitchen at 4PM, and we were eating at around 6. There was a 30 minute delay because I had to start the pasta all over because there were bugs in the box (it was an old box of noodles); subtract that, and it was still 1:30 for a really simple sauté and spin meal.

(Gratuitous photo posted here for effect.)



Could I have done it faster? Sure, but I’ll answer that with a question: WHY? There’s no hurry. The train isn’t coming. There isn’t a room full of paying customers anxiously tapping their silverware and asking for more water.

I get into the moment. I enjoy the process. I try to be deliberate, and think about the steps and how everything goes together. I usually focus on knife skills: not speed, but on consistency, on consistent size and shape. I might try to see how finely I can mince an onion, or how thinly I can slice a tomato. Or get those carrot rounds to all be 1/8”.

It’s all very zen to me. I cook to relax, not to win.

[fzxdoc]

Well said.

That looks delicious, BTW. It's the perfect example of why I should still keep canned beans on the shelf despite the fact that I'm a Rancho Gordo dried bean devotee.

Glad you gave the buggy pasta the heave ho, though. Good thing you noticed them!

Kathryn

[Mosca]

Yeah. This past spring I’d dumped all the “pandemic pasta” from a couple years earlier. The one box I had, the exp date was 10/24, but the weevils must have invaded it anyhow. It was pretty obvious: dump pasta into boiling water, see little black bugs. Swear, dump water and repeat.

All the other pasta is in sealed plastic packages, so at least that is safe. And bucatini is really delightful in this application, so it all worked out.

[WayneT]

Yes, well said, Tom. I’m the poster child for ‘slow food’ but it’s not part of the trendy movement.