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Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

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Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did it for a living over a summer. Helper for a Syrian restorant in France. My instruction : - long filament of oignons, all the same size - large amount of olive oil - when it start browning, start moving them. Stop when they are caramélisés. - dump - smoke a cig. - repeat

no drink wine?

Syrian, not French

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#182

My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…

> she claims that virtually all recipe books are made like this Most recipe books have pictures, how are those created then?

Gotta say, not really looking forward to GPT generated recipes rendered by Stable Diffusion.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#183

In the modern age, SEO is partially to blame for inaccurate recipe cook times. At some point Google realized that folks would click on more recipes with shorter times, as people would use that as a metric when cooking. So they would promote quicker recipes. What ended up happening is some recipe developers would try and actually reduce the amount of time their recipe took, and others would just "shorten" prep (or eve…

I’ve seen recipes that completely exclude the prep time, especially when the actual cooking only takes 10-20min.

Yes, let’s just ignore the hour of prep that goes alongside that 10 minutes of cooking.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#184

Recipe writers are still lying about cooking time in 2023. I signed up for a Hello Fresh promo recently to get some new meal ideas, and it's making me feel like the slowest cook on the planet. I reliably exceed their stated prep and cooking times by 100-200%. Tonight's "40 minute" recipe took about 70 minutes, and that was with a family member helping out with some of the prep and cooking. I wonder if they collect an…

My wife and I use the Sorted Sidekick app from the Sorted Food youtube channel. It's the only recipes I tried where the stated cooking time pretty much matches how long it really takes us.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#185
Reminds me of recipes that still mention searing a steak to seal in the juices. [1][2][3]

[1] https://twitter.com/altonbrown/status/1349000588105756675

[2] https://www.seriouseats.com/old-wives-tales-about-cooking-st...

[3] https://www.thekitchn.com/does-searing-meat-really-seal-in-t...

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#186

Recipe writers are still lying about cooking time in 2023. I signed up for a Hello Fresh promo recently to get some new meal ideas, and it's making me feel like the slowest cook on the planet. I reliably exceed their stated prep and cooking times by 100-200%. Tonight's "40 minute" recipe took about 70 minutes, and that was with a family member helping out with some of the prep and cooking. I wonder if they collect an…

Prepping everything can take a lot of time if you are not experienced. Time for things like chopping an onion can vary from 1 minute to 5 very easily.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#187

My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…

I imagine this is like a senior dev who says all they do is copy code from StackOverflow. There’s some amount of good social skills, humility, and expertise that forgets how simple things for them are like rocket science to others.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You named no brands for comparison and ignored a specific call out for comparison. Wanting something to be true doesn't make it true and as a novice cook this was the most obvious time I learned it.

Have you ever used a slow cooker? You seemed obsessed with naming brands and call it a specialized tools makes me think you have never used them. It’s just the simplest tool which actually shines best to be used for everyday general cooking. You know when you don’t have the time to do fancy cooking and just need a tasty home made meal with minimal effort. Yeah, you could probably get better caramelized onions if you…

Theres a specific call out, with an admission of possibly being wrong when presented with evidence. Nobody has presented an amazing recipe or a specifically good device that makes good food.

I own a slow cooker, and it was given to me for free from a friend that had to quickly get rid of all of her personal belongings before being deported. The recipes in it are fine, often times actually very good, but theres also nothing about it that can't just be made better in a dutch oven with an extra hour or so on the stove. But the biggest proponents are the exact people I would not want cooking advice from.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#189

My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…

> she never actually tries her recipes.

Well, that makes two of us, her, and me buying too many recipe books ;)

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#190
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to learn the importance of using the right onion is by making french onion soup with red onions. You'll quickly realize that it belongs straight in the trash.

Do you have a recipe to recommend?

I've very often made it with red onions (or half and half red vs white/yellow). It's delicious and always been a success.

I've used a version of this recipe [0] which explicitly says "red or yellow onions". It's also honest on the cooking time. I'd agree with its main warning, that making your own nice stock from bones really improves the flavour. Doesn't have to be beef stock. But I've also used stock cubes in the past.

[0] https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/french_onion_soup

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