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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)

#241

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rutierut wrote: post #151
isaacfrond wrote: post #131

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…

Maybe this is just my experience, but I've almost never seen a recipe book where the recipes are not accompanied by pictures of the result?

I think the thing here might be "of the results".

Here's my grandma's recipe for flapjacks ... accompanied by a picture of flapjacks ... the recipe I made up, the picture was from a stock photo site (best place to get pictures of gravy! /jk) ...

For me that revelation explains a lot.

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

#242

Post by com2kid »

sublinear wrote: post #84
yamtaddle wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tablespoon of olive oil is to kickstart the process, after that enough fat will render out of the meat to keep it going. Agreed on meat, but I consistently see way-too-small amounts of oil suggested for cooking veggies, too. It's like every recipe writer online got together and decided that 1) they must specify oil quantities for those steps, but 2) the quantity must never exceed one tablespoon.

Vegetables can release a lot of water. The amount and how much it affects the other ingredients varies significantly on which you put in, in what order, how much, and in what size of pan. If the pan is crowded, has high walls, or a lid, that can also affect how much water stays in the pan. I can't think of any situation where I would want more than a literal tablespoon of oil for cooking the first veggies thrown in (…

> I can't think of any situation where I would want more than a literal tablespoon of oil for cooking the first veggies thrown in (usually onion).

I have a few recipes that call for browning onions in a cup (or more!) of ghee.

Works wonderfully. Still takes forever.

There are many ways to brown onions, all of them suck. I tried the "boil in water first" method while back, that works OK ish.

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

#243

Post by eru »

isaacfrond wrote: post #131

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…

That sounds convincing enough. But how do they make the pictures that come with many recipes, then?

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

#244

Post by thomasfromcdnjs »

extortionist wrote: post #220
AlotOfReading wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first step in carmelization is to remove most of that water so the onions can reach maillard reaction temps. Try doing it without oil and an equivalent amount of water instead. It's much more temperamental.

America's Test Kitchen actually does suggest adding water to reduce the amount of time needed for caramelization--and not an equivalent amount of water, but much more than the amount of oil you'd use. The idea is that adding water, raising it to a boil, and covering the pan reduces the amount of time needed to raise the temperature of the onions to the caramelization point, more than offsetting the amount of time nee…

I've got my own invented version of this style. I will boil them in a cm of water or something at the perfect time it evaporates I then add the oil.

I don't like them like the Americans do but there is lots of to play with it. (I've even started boiling onions whole before I use them in a bunch of other dishes)

Highly recommend it.

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

#246

Post by jterrys »

isaacfrond wrote: post #131

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'm not really surprised. There's a youtube channel called Chef Jean Pierre. He is a retired Chef that used to run a restaurant since the 1970s, has cookbooks, was featured on PBS, etc. (Some say he has a more colorful past with his cooking school/restaurant business in Florida, but I don't know much).

Either way. He's got the consistently longest cooking videos on youtube. He explains that long videos don't do well. But it takes time to cook. Sometimes a long time. And he's a professional chef. So he goes very fast. All in order to make videos shorter so the audience doesn't turn away. Even with prep time where everything is arranged before filming, it will take him something like 20-30 minutes to finish one recipe. But his cooking is consistent, you watch him caramelize onions, you watch him multitask. Once again, he's very fast, but still, it's just not that fast to cook.

Audiences want fast. "quick 10 minute recipes" are all the fad. Equivalent to bite size twitter feeds and tik tok videos even though cooking can take a long time. But that's what the audience wants, and that's what the audience gets.

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

#247

Post by eru »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #128
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #118

For the same reason devs lie about installing arch linux without any problem. When you are good at something, you don't realize how much you do anymore. This article is unrelated, but has a good explananation of the problem in one section : Why not tell people to simply use x https://bitecode.substack.com/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simpl...

This is different. If you learn enough about Linux, you can install Arch in 15-20minutes no problem. Especially since learning about Linux means reinstalling your OS many times until you finally learn how to keep it clean and rescue it from any situation. You are not going to be able to cook chicken in 3-4minutes per side like so many recipes claim. It's just not possible to have a good outside temperature and a good…

> Especially since learning about Linux means reinstalling your OS many times until you finally learn how to keep it clean and rescue it from any situation.

Surely, you are dramatizing a bit here. Or are you assuming that everyone shares the same need to fiddle with everything?

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

#248

Post by alkonaut »

I think a) because adding a 20 minute step to a recipe makes it unappealing so calling it 10 makes the recipe more popular, but more importantly b) because what they mean is "make them transparent and possibly slightly brown" which you can sort of do in 10. No one cared that this isn't really caramelizing. Very few recipes really need caramelized onions. They're a sweet mess. Basically I think recipe writers just like to throw around terms too loosely to make their recipes sound fancy when what the 99% of recipes including fried onions needs is "lightly fried, transparent looking onions".

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

#249

Post by OJFord »

rutierut wrote: post #151
isaacfrond wrote: post #131

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…

Maybe this is just my experience, but I've almost never seen a recipe book where the recipes are not accompanied by pictures of the result?

Even in Delia's course - she has a good reputation for testing & refining etc. over time, not a TV personality with questionable time/skill in kitchen - the photos & making of those dishes to photograph are credited to someone else.

(And sometimes they do clearly vary from the recipe - like clearly not the called-for cheese, or without the described scattering of something over the top or whatever. Which I think's mostly fine or even good, but occasionally I think 'what do you mean by x' and either can't tell from the photo, or have to remind myself that that's only someone else's interpretation anyway.)

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

#250

Post by LukeShu »

rutierut wrote: post #151
isaacfrond wrote: post #131

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…

Maybe this is just my experience, but I've almost never seen a recipe book where the recipes are not accompanied by pictures of the result?

I've almost never seen a recipe book that didn't have at least one recipe where some aspect of the picture didn't blatantly contradict the recipe; i.e. it was just a stock photo.
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