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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)

#531

Post by pteraspidomorph »

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…

My tricks:

- Don't just read one recipe. Read three, see what they have in common and what seems off in each of them.

- Keep a dossier of your hybrid or modified recipes. Annotate the recipe with any changes you made.

- If the end result isn't great, what went wrong? Annotate the recipe with any changes you think you should make next time you try it.

These become easier the more experienced you are, of course.

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

#532

Post by brookst »

ilyt wrote: post #337
GuB-42 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A timer can never replace the knowledge of how something is supposed to look, feel, and smell when it's done or not. I tend to disagree on that one, unless you are particularly experienced, or naturally gifted, measuring tools (timers, scales, thermometers,...) will give you the best results. At least for me, that's the case. And if you can't follow a recipe to the letter, without knowledge of how things are suppos…

> I tend to disagree on that one, unless you are particularly experienced, or naturally gifted, measuring tools (timers, scales, thermometers,...) will give you the best results. At least for me, that's the case. Both. Have both. Ingredients are not 100 uniform and always cook in same way. Have "how it should be done" and "how it should look during/at the end of the process". You can't have exact same temperature on…

And humidity, altitude/weather, variations in stoves/ovens, shape and thermals of the pan, etc. There are too many variables for the same process to produce the same results.

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

#533

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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…

> What is worse, she claims that virtually all recipe books are made like this.

Books have a much higher production value than content farm material like your sister writes. They also rely heavily on reviews, which is incentive to invest the effort to do it right.

Modern recipe books have photos of the dish, so obviously they made it at least once. It would be unreasonable for them to invest all of the effort into writing a book, typesetting it, creating photography to match, proofreading, and getting it published, but to not actually try the recipe inside.

I’m sorry, but your sister is projecting her behavior on to everyone else in order to justify it. She is writing content farm material, but that doesn’t mean the entire industry works that way. Especially not the paid material book industry that hinges on reviews, gifting, and referrals.

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

#534

Post by efields »

Hilarious that there's 500 comments on this, of all things.

You can safely say in a recipe book that caramelized onions take 10, 20, or 45 minutes or an hour. Chances are the writer has the best intentions and reasonable knowledge of the subject matter.

Nobody's going to sue you if you're wrong. So there's no single source of truth for how to caramelize onions. Life goes on.

FWIW, caramelization boggles scientists to this day. Last I heard/read, there are still unidentified sugars that occur there that don't occur elsewhere.

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

#535

Post by astura »

downut wrote: post #529
sanitycheck wrote: post #421

I've had this conversation with people many times, a consequence is that some of them have no idea what caramelised onions actually are - they think it's the state you get to after 10 mins. Thinly slice 10 onions, dump them in a big pot with some oil on a medium heat for 10-15 minutes stirring frequently. Then turn the heat down to low and cook for a further 45-60 mins, check on it and stir every 10 mins or so. When…

Yeah that works on my Viking stove with my competent pans, and is basically how I do it, but people with shitty stoves, i.e. the majority, have burners with hot spots and/or mismatched pan widths or even too thin pan bottoms. I suspect that's where the constant stirring/too short time business might originate. I never realized how widespread this was until I brought dishes to group meals (as in Slow Food) and people…

Oh please, just stop! This elitism around caramelized onions is just absurd. I've caramelized onions on the shittiest of shitty electric stoves using the cheapest of cheap pans Walmart sells. It's not difficult and doesn't take any special equipment or skills - just time.

Most people don't want that though most of the time. In 99.9% of applications fully caramelized onions simply aren't nearly as pleasant as onions that have been cooked until soft and very slightly caramelized.

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

#536

Post by the_af »

groestl wrote: post #189
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…

> she never actually tries her recipes. Well, that makes two of us, her, and me buying too many recipe books ;)

Haha I understand you. I have way too many cookbooks that are untried and untested. I like looking at the pretty photos and marvel at those kitchens and kitchenware. And the ingredients, so colorful!

Then I realize I don't know what half those ingredients are, wouldn't know where to source them, and in any case I don't have time to go shopping for nonstandard stuff.

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

#537

Post by bluGill »

jaclaz wrote: post #309
rutierut wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Cannot say for recipe books, but for illustrations for ads and/or for restaurant posters, the "traditional" way was to not use food at all, or use only partially actual food, the rest being artificial. Very likely this has changed but once there were specialized artists that made mock-ups (often using wax, but not only), besides the ready-made props (usually plastic). And then there is an endless list of non-food ing…

I know someone who was a cook for a food photographer. they always made 10x what was called for. For one salad in the photo she made 10 so they could choose the best looking one, then a lot of time was spent adjusting exactly where each tomato was. Likewise make 10 pies, take a slice our of each, then the artist uses a rubber scrapper to put the right lines in the side of each slice, then choose the best to photograph. It was all real food.

I'm not saying that they don't also do fake food, but a lot of real food is used as well.

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

#538

Post by _fat_santa »

conductr wrote: post #518
bruckie wrote: post #110

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…

Mirrors my experience. Prep work is the most underestimated part. I think they start with everything out on the counter and unpackaged and with necessary tooling lined up and ready. But those things take time. For me, something like mincing garlic cloves takes a solid 5-10 minutes alone and is one of the things that consistently stands out as they must have started with minced garlic to get to this time estimate.

I found that it really just comes down to how much experience you have. I started cooking a lot this year, mostly because it beats taking my girlfriend out to dinner every week. When I started I was very slow and dinners would take me in excess of an hour, mostly because I was just very unskilled in the basics of cooking.

As time has gone on I found that making dinners took me less and less time, part of it is knowing the right techniques for preparing certain foods, others are little ergonomic things like getting a knife magnet and ensuring all the tools you need are at your fingertips. It's also knowing how long food cooks for, what you have to keep an eye on and what you can just let cook. The first time I made smash burgers at home it took me in excess of an hour to prep and cook everything and yesterday I was able to do the same in about 20 minutes.

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

#539

Post by nyjah »

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…

This seems about right to me from watching Kenji cook on his YouTube channel. He was promoting his wok book and everything he cooked he would say, “I think it says to do it this other way in my book, but you can do it this way or your own way and it will be fine”.- which I appreciate. I’ve noticed the cooking channels I watch on YouTube are technique based more than specific recipes. So I’m wondering if some people read a recipe thinking “this is the exact way” and other look at it as just a rough template

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

#540

Post by ip26 »

marak830 wrote: post #276
MrScruff wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that the time quoted to cook the recipes is always based on an experienced chef, which is likely often not the case for things like Hello Fresh. An experienced chef will have be far more efficient at chopping/food preparation - I'm reasonable fast at chopping but still probably end up focusing over details an experienced chef would know aren't going to matter for the final recipe. Also they're probably better…

You are spot on. Ex chef here(quite experienced), and without notice (while watching a tv show), I'm at least twice as fast as my wife at prep. When I'm focused I'm even faster. Even then I'm probably on par if not only a touch faster than these recipes XD

How long did it take you to get that fast? Any training, or just on the job?
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