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Similarly: Why do drum teachers and instructional videos lie about how to hold drumsticks? I was told for years to hold them at the balance point. This is wrong! You generally hold them a few inches lower than the balance point which allows you bounce the stick loosely in your hand so that it rotates in the air around the balance point.
Sifting flour. Sautéing spices “to release the flavor” and then adding them to stew where they’ll simmer for an hour or more. Pretending “restaurant quality” is anything besides twice as much butter and salt as you’d dare use at home. “One tablespoon of olive oil” to brown absurd amounts of meat at high heat. Once you start recognizing recipe BS, you see it everywhere.
The butter 'trick' is just browning the butter (which happens faster than onions) to add deep color and extra flavor to sauteed onions. For some bizarre reason the author interpreted this as blasting onions and olive oil at high heat until they were a charred mess, and then goes on to blame recipe writers for why they can't seem to cook onions. What a strange article.
If it's just browning the butter, it's not really caramelizing the onions. I could get brown onions with any number of coloring agents, but it's not the same thing.
Separating those from the clear golden liquid is how you make ghee.
Again, times given are stupid ridiculous.
Sifting flour. Sautéing spices “to release the flavor” and then adding them to stew where they’ll simmer for an hour or more. Pretending “restaurant quality” is anything besides twice as much butter and salt as you’d dare use at home. “One tablespoon of olive oil” to brown absurd amounts of meat at high heat. Once you start recognizing recipe BS, you see it everywhere.
The tablespoon of olive oil is to kickstart the process, after that enough fat will render out of the meat to keep it going.
They lie about making a roux, too. The key to making a dark roux, as is used in Cajun cooking, is stirring, scraping, and homogeneity. You can crank the heat on high and stir for about 10-15 minutes, or you can keep it over medium and stir for an hour. If you stir like you're supposed to, you can get the same roux in less than half the time. A good wooden spoon (soft enough to scrape the bottom of the pot) that can g…
For the times I don't, there's Nutribullet.
Sifting flour. Sautéing spices “to release the flavor” and then adding them to stew where they’ll simmer for an hour or more. Pretending “restaurant quality” is anything besides twice as much butter and salt as you’d dare use at home. “One tablespoon of olive oil” to brown absurd amounts of meat at high heat. Once you start recognizing recipe BS, you see it everywhere.
They lie about making a roux, too. The key to making a dark roux, as is used in Cajun cooking, is stirring, scraping, and homogeneity. You can crank the heat on high and stir for about 10-15 minutes, or you can keep it over medium and stir for an hour. If you stir like you're supposed to, you can get the same roux in less than half the time. A good wooden spoon (soft enough to scrape the bottom of the pot) that can g…
And yeah, the key really is stirring constantly, and riding the stove knob to keep the heat right.
My stupid thing that I do that sometimes burns it is stopping stirring when I turn off the heat when I'm done. Pan is still hot enough to burn it, if you don't get it out of there, or add vegetables quickly.
Sifting flour. Sautéing spices “to release the flavor” and then adding them to stew where they’ll simmer for an hour or more. Pretending “restaurant quality” is anything besides twice as much butter and salt as you’d dare use at home. “One tablespoon of olive oil” to brown absurd amounts of meat at high heat. Once you start recognizing recipe BS, you see it everywhere.
You can conceivably get a Maillard reaction with toasting some spices (e.g. cumin seed) where you wouldn’t just by throwing them in a stew. But I agree with your overall point. The 1-2 tbsp olive oil is -everywhere-. Also, better to use canola oil for browning meat.