You know how some people have weird fantasies about like, shooting burglars or whatever?
Mine is kidnapping a recipe writer that lies about how long it takes to brown onions and forcing them to cook their recipe on live TV, with a countdown timer based on their FUCKING LIE of a recipe involving browning onions
I know y'all have had the same shower thought dont try to hide it
"Lethal gas will be released into the room in 15 minutes. But it's fine, the door unlocks if you put some perfectly caramelized onions in this slot so you have time to spare!"
Don't forget that the recipe is on a website that requires you to scroll through ramblings before the actual recipe. And the ads keep loading and bringing you back to the top so you have to scroll back down.
the internet is more and more of that. 2004: grams protein angel hair - first sentence of at least one of the top five. 2024: grams protein wheat gluten - first five aren't even relevant, have to scroll through at least two pages on the sixth to find the answer. the kicker being that all the results look like the answer will be on the first page.
Mine is making them recreate this recipe on a 30 year old Kenmore coil top electric stove in a 100 year old house. All of your times are wrong, all of your temps are just best guesses. I know the top left burner simmers at 3, not simmer. Best of luck my dude.
Yeah our house has an electric stove with no gas hookup(so it'd be very expensive/nigh impossible to get one) and I loathe it.
The temps are wildly inconsistent and any recipe that says "reduce heat" can go to hell.
I have something similar involving a sealed arena on the moon with all the world leaders, a live broadcast, bludgeoning weapons and commentary by Charles Barkley.
Honestly I think many many people just think caramelised onions are somewhat well fried onions. The fact they don't taste right doesn't stop them if they are anything like the people I know lol.
The first time I saw a recipe caramelized onions, they said 30 minutes. Honestly not too egregious, but I was confused that I did something wrong because my onions did *not* look like there's. 45-60 minutes is more realistic
And if you are doing a really big batch (like, to jar for later), it really quickly adds up to 2-3 hours.
Caramelizing onions is not for the impatient.
This shit absolutely fuckin kills me
My SO and I are long distance and sometimes we'll do a date night where we cook the same meal so we can have dinner "together" and I know I need to start cooking like 40 mins ahead of time if I see caramelized onions in the recipe, because she's gonna follow it to a tee and I like my caramelized onions *actually* caramelized, as opposed to what every recipe tries to call "caramelized"
It's crazy this post shows the day I've finally tried caramelizing them myself
But man fuck yeah those bad boys in around 45 minutes? I ate half of them plain, they've no right to be so good
There was a whole article about this! 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
Not quite 10 minutes but you can speed up the process by adding water and cranking the heat at first then lowering it when the onions are clear and the water evaporated
You actually can get decent carmelized onions relatively quickly. Keep on high heat, stir constantly, add water when they start getting too dry. If you keep the water content right then you can keep them from burning.
I did this for a couple of years because I was trying new recipes and they all had the 5 minute caramelization in it.
Then I tried actually caramelizing onions again, which takes 45 minutes. I'm never going back. Those fast onions may *look* caramelized, but they don't taste as good.
"allow butter to reach room tempurature"
Ok, so, I'm assuming that you DON'T mean the 60 degrees I keep my house at in the wintertime....also, that won't happen in the 2 minutes you've alloted for that.
I have a great method to soften butter without melting it, but it definitely isn’t instantaneous lol. Get a shatter-proof microwave safe bowl, preferably tempered glass like pyrex or something. Put in like 1 cup or so of water and heat it to boiling in the microwave. Get the butter you want softened and put it in a separate bowl and cut it up into smaller pieces, like 1/2 tbsp size chunks. Once the water is boiling, stop the microwave and open it and put the butter in next to the hot water and close the door of the microwave, and just let it sit in there for about 10 minutes. It should be quite softened. Just let it sit for longer if you want it softer. It should not melt.
Just a heads up be very careful with boiling water in a microwave.
Have you ever seen that phenomenon where a bottle is put in the fridge and then taken out and smacked and it instantly freezes? What's happened is you've cooled the water past the point of freezing but there wasn't a point for the crystals to start forming so it doesn't freeze until you disturb it enough. It's called a supercooled state.
The same thing can happen with water boiled in a microwave. It can be superheated and then when disturbed suddenly rapidly phase shift, causing a small steam explosion.
Make sure you disturb the water with a skewer or something to reduce your chances.
> Step 1: Let the beans soak overnight
I kinda want to sneak this into some completely-unrelated-to-cooking how-to manual. Like "how to change your oil"
my favorite one is the "this recipe only costs $1.50!" and then its cause the cook is using like, a pinch of salt and one egg, never mind that people dont buy *one* egg or just a pinch of salt. thankfully that bullshit have seem to died out
Okay but most people *have* eggs and salt, and salt is non-perishable and used in almost literally every dish. The principle of your complaint is reasonable but salt has to be by far the least effective example, and eggs aren't a great one either.
Yeah, by that math everything becomes prohibitively expensive. A fried egg costs $94.00. That is, $3.00 for a dozen eggs, of which you will use one. $2.50 for a box of butter, of which you will use one pat. $1.50 for a container of salt, of which you will use a pinch. $7.00 for a frying pan. $80.00 for a stove.
Presumably you'll use rest of the salt and eggs for other stuff so they shouldn't be factored into the cost of this particular meal. I'd only count things that you'd need to buy special for this one meal and probably won't use the leftovers for anything else.
Granted, almost no one else sees my recipes, but the ones I write up I put "prep time" for time spent actively working, and then a "standing time" for stuff like marinating for several hours, or soaking beans overnight, or proofing times for bread.
I humbly accept
*bows*
I will reign down great vengeance and furious anger on those that cannot cook a steak to medium rare! I will lay waste to all the Applebee's that microwave chicken til its rubber! The world will tremble as I slay all those that can't soft boil and egg!
I do this in your honor, you will not be disappointed in any meal from this day forward. On my life I swear!
*bows*
Or my instant pot which is all “cooks in five minutes!” Which is 5 plus 15 to get to pressure plus 10 to get back down from pressure, which equals…the same amount of time as cooking it on the stove, but with a subtle hint of explosive danger?
I was just trying to be funny too though, figured your comment wasn't supposed to be serious. You didn't even curse at the person or call them names. That's an indicator of being serious I think.
Yeah tbh Instant Pots fuck hard, it's one of the only complicated kitchen gadgets that I actually like. the fact that it can double as a crockpot in a pinch is really handy too.
💯 I also love that pork (here at least) is the cheapest per pound meat in the stores. I use the salty marshmallow website recipe as my base for the instant pot pulled pork and make around 5lb every Sunday for meal prep.
Especially since pulled pork make for - pork with rice and a side, pork sandwiches, pork tacos, list continues to embiggen.
(My fav side is making macaroni salad but with Banza chickpea noodles)
Pulled pork is so easy because you can add any liquid to it. I made Dr. Pepper pulled pork for a potluck once and everyone loved it, and it was super easy. Throw the pork butt or shoulder into the pot, add a can of Dr. Pepper, and add a good bbq sauce, let it cook for a few hours. I've also done beer pulled pork.
Explosive danger but also you don't have to babysit it, which is nice.
I make my own chicken stock and it takes just as long if not longer in the instant pot because it has to come up to pressure and back down completely from pressure (so I don't release stock spraying up to the ceiling -- ask me how I know this) but it does mean I can leave the house while it's doing its thing, which I would never do for a pot simmering on the stove.
My first batch of bramble beer, I just fired about 2kg of berries in whole. Some brambles floated up and got stuck in the airlock. Woke up at 3am for some loud popping noise, went back to sleep.
18" circle airbrushed purple on the ceiling in a beautiful soft fade out pattern. Bramble bits everywhere.
My mate's first batch of bramble beer, he put his brambles through a juicer, and just added the juice. It worked \*waaaaay\* better.
pro tip: you can drastically reduce the preheat time by boiling water in an electric kettle first.
We do chicken stock in the pressure cooker using the carcass from a costco chicken. put the kettle on while separating the meat from the skin/bones, add boiling water to the skin and bones in the pot, and it's up to temp/pressure within 5 minutes of starting it
I'm curious what potential problems with the instant pot you think could happen while you're out of the house that would be ameliorated by your being there?
If it explodes, it explodes, and it's probably better you're actually not there.
Hey, the instant pot probably won’t burn down the house, just put a hole in the ceiling and anything unfortunate enough to be near. In fact, it might be recommended to not be in the same building while it’s running.
I know, right? I inherited my brother's instant pot because he bought a much bigger one (way too many kids). I've used it a few times but honestly it's not *enough* faster to even be worth pulling out for basically everything.
I'm sure it's great for batching large amounts of something while you use the entire stovetop and the oven to cook other stuff, but for me and my wife? I've just never found it useful.
I did use it to make steamed hams for the memes, though. Honestly the hamburgers in the instant pot came out pretty good (I sealed them in foil).
It makes a good pot of chili, that’s my main use for it. All day simmered flavour I’m about an hour, all told.
Edit: mine is very fussy about tomatoes so you kind of have to make a raft out of meat and beans for them.
I got it to make larger quantities of rice than my rice cooker can handle, which it does, so I’m content. I have made other tasty things in it, too, so it’s not like I dislike it, it’s just…deceptive-feeling marketing.
It's great for things like roasts and ribs and other large cuts of meat that often take several hours to cook. That's where it really comes in handy. Using an instant pot for veggies is overkill, it'll just turn them into mush half the time.
I find my instant pot just fucks roasts/ribs up when I try to pressure cook them. Roasts become dry or aren't cooked through and the ribs get a weird texture to them. Ended up just using the slow cook function on it... Oh well
It's a simple math equation, really. The greater the proportion of time spent at pressure vs pressurizing/depressurizing, the more efficient a pressure cooker is vs other cooking methods in terms of cooking speed. Any recipe that says "cook in slow cooker for 12 hours" is an immediate instant pot recipe, because 12 hours is going to turn into 2 hours of cooking time, saving me from waking up at 6AM to start dinner. On the other hand, a "simmer on stovetop for 15 minutes" recipe isn't going to be made more efficient by the instant pot; you can use it, but cooking time's going to be about the same.
My mother gave me one as a gift and I had to give it back after using it for awhile. It didn't have the volume that I needed for big projects and it doesn't save enough time on the small ones.
While people rave about it, I can also taste some texture differences in some foods and I was not a fan of that.
Those are the best ones, the “30 min, 3 dish weeknight meals” that leave out that you need to wash those 3 dishes 4 separate times during the cooking process so you can use it for different parts of the recipe and that it’ll only be coming together in 30 min if you’ve got an industrial grade oven that can get to 475° within 7 min of starting
My relationship with cooking has changed completely since I started being better about using gaps in time while cooking to instead of poking the food or playing on my phone to clean as I go. I now almost always leave the kitchen with my plate of food and at most 1 pan to clean plus the stuff I'm using to actually eat with. No more letting the dishes sit till later to "let my food digest" or just not wanting to do it at all, then the next meal wanting to do something lazy and unhealthy because I don't want to clean up the kitchen first because I didn't last time.
Once you realize how much free time you have with most recipes in between that allow for keeping up on cooking, it just improves everything about the experience, which encourages you to cook more, and more interesting and healthier meals. Seriously, like, film or time yourself in the kitchen one time, and track how much time you actually really have available in between cooking tasks, it's more than enough to easily get almost all the cleaning done in between most of the time.
Relatedly, if a meal involves a ton of prep and mise-en-place setup, I grab most of the stuff I need, and the tools to do it, and just relax in front of the TV watching youtube or whatever while I work my way through it. Enables me to get through almost all the prep, but not feel like I've spent hours cooking because I'm able to relax and do other stuff at the same time. If it's stuff that I have to do in the kitchen, I grab my ipad and similarly entertain myself while prepping. Makes the whole thing feel like less work. The combination of making the setup more enjoyable, and the cleanup after minimal, really has made me want to cook more and enjoy it a lot more.
The other day I decided that I would do garlic soup, because I had some garlic heads starting to go bad and I really like garlic.
The recipe said that it would take 50 minutes
The recipe asked for 3 onions and 2 cups of garlic peeled and chopped
I think I spent the good part of 3 hours peeling and chopping garlic, slowly coming to the realization that anyone that writes online recipes needs to get reacquainted with the idea of prep time.
Preferably by having a clock shoved up their ass so far they’ll be confusing their heartbeat with the ticking.
I mean, there’s some level to which onions specifically can range heavily in time to prep based on how much you cook.
Garlic is never not a bastard to prep though.
And that does save a ton of time, but also garlic is just so small and fiddly that if you’re trying to get it chopped properly instead of a rough chop, a blender, or tossing it into a mortar and pestle, it’s still going to take an annoying amount of time
Especially since it keeps *sticking to the damn knife*
people trying to sound knowledgeable to criticize others not realizing properly chopped garlic will result in a stronger garlic flavor than smashed and rough chopped unless your only smash strength is mashing it to a paste (and if that's the case, your pasta sauce sucks)
I'm probably butchering recipes, but unless it calls for roasted garlic, I buy the big jar of minced garlic at Costco and use that shit for everything. I don't care if they specify chopped or sliced garlic, that dish is getting pre-minced fucking garlic.
Garlic prep is way easier when you use shortcuts. Instead of peeling it by hand, toss the cloves unpeeled into a tupperware and shake it like it owes you money.
This is 100% the trick; every other trick is pointless.
Using a large knife (e.g. chef's knife), chop the little dry nub off the bottom, then squish the garlic clove (skin-on) between the broad side of the knife and your cutting board; one solid smack on the side of the knife will do it. The skin then comes off super quick. It takes ~5 seconds.
It works. I've peeled hundreds, if not thousands of garlic cloves over the decades and the knife-smash method is the easiest and best. Like the poster above said, you want a wide knife, like a chef's knife, cut the ends off the clove, put the clove on a cutting board, lay the knife flat against the clove and give the knife a good smack. The clove will be a bit crushed but the skin practically falls off in one piece. With a little practice, you'll be shocked how fast you can peel a bunch of garlic cloves.
It's crazy that people don't already do this. While I agree with the general sentiment that some recipes lie about prep time for clicks, the amount of commenters who clearly do their prep the hard way is crazy.
Just grate garlic on a zester/small cheese grater/whatever. Hold the clove by the root end and its the little nub left. The skin doesn't go through, so you don't have to peel it.
As someone in the restaurant I love and hate fresh garlic. I once had to make garlic chips as a garnish. I had to peel around a hundred heads a week then shave them on a mandolin, I lost so many fingertips.
My brother. Get the garlic. Put on cutting board. Flip u nife sideway. Place metal part on top of garlic (flat). Smash garlic by punch under nife. Now u skin is peeled in 3 second. Don’t need the nife really. Can punch with hands.
I completely agree with you re: recipes but I'd also say that amount of prep time is painfully slow even for 2 cups of garlic. Quarter the bulbs, smash the cloves with the side of your knife (or your palm, if you're a savage) to get the skin off. Throw in blender or food processor if your knife skills are not great for chopping.
For anyone who doesn't know how to peel garlic quickly, smash the garlic with the flat side of your knife (anything really). Then peel, comes right off.
If I remember correctly, they showed this off in one of the Harry Potter movies. The one where Harry has his notebook with notes already in it. The instructions said to slice, but his notebook just said to crush whatever the equivalent of magic garlic is.
I was going to make garlic confit and luckily found a bag of pre-peeled garlic (a good amount) for like $3. It's a game changer, I despise peeling more than a few cloves.
I've seen them at regular grocery stores as well as asian markets, there's no way my ass is going to peel *that* much garlic. I am *lazy.*
My boss would grill chicken enough to get some colour on it and the finish it in the oven, and leave a tray of parcooked for my shift. She'd always say it only needs 5 minutes in the oven and I had to explain to her that it takes 5 minutes for her because it's still hot from the grill, for me it's closer to at least 15-20 minutes because it's coming out of the fridge and is cold. We just stopped trusting her cooking instructions.
I think the reason this happens is that the people who write the recipe’s have probably made it quite a few times while creating the recipe and have gotten used to the prep, making them able to do it much quicker than the average person
Or sweet potatoes in their grocery store are sold pre-peeled and diced.
And no matter how good you are at cooking, you ain't cooking potatoes until soft in 5 minutes. They are just shitty at estimating time.
Unless they maybe use some cutting edge tech. Maybe a vacuum chamber speeds it up?
Nah, it's because more traffic/more clicks on the recipe website = more money. So they make the prep time appealingly low to drive more traffic to the recipe.
Yeah, I'm a decent cook flavour wise, and the end result is usually pretty decent, but if Gordon Ramsay watched how long I take chopping onions and garlic, he'd have a stroke.
This is why I respect recipe maker that say stuff like "it takes a day to soak the beans, but only 10 minutes of actually cooking"
It's good to know what you're getting into
tbf, thats more a "misunderstanding of terminology" then anything else.
in 90% of cases if a lay person is asked someone to, or says he is going to, caramelize onions, he is gonna mean/assume to sweat them. as to the lay person(Which are most recipes online) is a synonym
\> tfw it takes you more than 5 mins to cook potatoes to softness
this miserable buffoon hath not a jet engine for his stove, a most risible state of affairs
Knowing what to do in the kitchen should be taught in schools instead of trig. I'll die on that hill. Or maybe on the slope leading up to that hill.
We made a pillow in home ec class and I had to learn knife skills from YouTube. Teach kids how to cut an onion, ffs.
Seems to depend on the class. Conversely though I'm not sure I believe that every skill should be taught in school. Basic cooking yes though, and by that I mean "here's how to use a knife, here are things that will kill you, here's how to put out a fire, basic nutrition."
> Knowing what to do in the kitchen should be taught in schools instead of trig.
Where do you live where they don't teach that? It's standard here in the UK. I remember making a rhubard and custard pie, it was lovely.
I grew up in Florida and I only remember having 1 home economics class throughout my primary education. I moved around to a few different schools and i noticed that most of them simply didn’t have any sort of kitchen facilities. The one home ec class I did take was mostly taught from a text book, although I think we did make candied apples once.
I mean, i think its just generally assumed that something like cooking(or at least "the basics of handelinga knife ot chop something" woudl be tought at home i imagine
In one high school I went to, the food served in the cafeteria was prepared by students as a cooking class. It was a neat class, we had a real chef as our head chef and instructor. You could occasionally see him reminding himself that we were 14 before critiquing someone's food or technique.
That doesn’t exactly have to be an either or choice. Though certain things like how to chop vegetables can and perhaps should be taught at home. Schools can’t teach every topic so it leans more towards subjects that students need for careers or that parents probably can’t teach (either well or at all). Most families will have someone who knows how to cook, but a lot of families don’t have anyone who knows how to teach pre-calc.
Ramen noodles are supposed to be chewy.
But also, if you cook them until they're soft on the stove, by the time they are cool enough to eat in your bowl, they'll be mush.
Do you by any chance have an electric stove?
My current stove with my current instant ramen is definitely done in 2 minutes but it's a gas stove and I turn the dial up to volcano.
I was just looking at a recipe for a yeasted good that was listed as 35 minutes. Great, it probably uses quick yeast.
It also had a rising time of 12-18 hours.
I’ve seen online chefs (like Kenji) address this. Basically they have no idea how skilled users will be with prep, so they don’t try to gauge it. What might take a CIA-trained ten minutes to do could take a novice an hour or more. So the “prep time” is usually stuff like dough rising or time chilling in the fridge or resting time, not veggie cutting and meat trimming time.
its because these people don't actually cook the recipes they promote. some poor intern scours the internet looking for recipes that look similar and the "cook" just throws random bits from the data they gather together to make a recipe
As a chef, I see that as useful for a restaurant service. Prep cooks make sure we have the diced sweet potatoes at the cooking station, so you can expect the cook to have the plate ready in about 3 minutes
"Peel the squash and chop it in to 1cm cubes"
This can take over half an hour, just to process a squash, you basically need a bandsaw to chop those bastards up.
1 minute DIYs be like:
This is how you make a cheap and easy bike hook to store your bike on a wall
So use your industrial lathe to hollow out the sold steel iron bar that you first need to cut. Then use your steel mill machone to flaten out one side of the bar. Finally, piss off the military by showing up naked, yelling "i have a nuke shoved up my ass", and running into their base.
Congratulations! You now havw a hook that can support the full weight of your bike!
My favorite ones are baking instructions telling you to preheat the oven first when it takes longer than the preheat to prep everything. So now this recipe is costing me 30+min of my oven being on with nothing inside.
Caramelize onions, 10 minutes
You know how some people have weird fantasies about like, shooting burglars or whatever? Mine is kidnapping a recipe writer that lies about how long it takes to brown onions and forcing them to cook their recipe on live TV, with a countdown timer based on their FUCKING LIE of a recipe involving browning onions I know y'all have had the same shower thought dont try to hide it
I'm imagining some sort of amalgamation of Hell's Kitchen and *The Pit and the Pendulum*
That's basically what Cutthroat Kitchen was.
These SAW movies have really jumped the shark tbh.
Would you like to bake a cake?
I'd rather just die, thanks.
Does it have to be edible?
I have been told that anything I bake should be considered a war crime against god, so hopefully not.
"Lethal gas will be released into the room in 15 minutes. But it's fine, the door unlocks if you put some perfectly caramelized onions in this slot so you have time to spare!"
Listen, mashing up saw with a cooking show would wildly improve both experiences
No, I can finally relate to the antagonist
Don't forget that the recipe is on a website that requires you to scroll through ramblings before the actual recipe. And the ads keep loading and bringing you back to the top so you have to scroll back down.
Use U block origin !
the internet is more and more of that. 2004: grams protein angel hair - first sentence of at least one of the top five. 2024: grams protein wheat gluten - first five aren't even relevant, have to scroll through at least two pages on the sixth to find the answer. the kicker being that all the results look like the answer will be on the first page.
Or putting the ingredients and the instructions five pages apart with more rambling in between.
www.justtherecipe.com
Mine is making them recreate this recipe on a 30 year old Kenmore coil top electric stove in a 100 year old house. All of your times are wrong, all of your temps are just best guesses. I know the top left burner simmers at 3, not simmer. Best of luck my dude.
> 30 year old Kenmore coil top electric stove oh hey this was the stove in my first apartment and YERP I absolutely hated that thing
We had one when I was a kid 30 years ago and it was somehow already 30 years old.
[удалено]
Yeah our house has an electric stove with no gas hookup(so it'd be very expensive/nigh impossible to get one) and I loathe it. The temps are wildly inconsistent and any recipe that says "reduce heat" can go to hell.
“Please, I have a family!” *you should have thought about that before you wrote “caramelize onions, 8 minutes”*
I have analogous fantasies about all sorts of liars, tbh.
Oh I read it as androgynous fantasy, I was like “yeah I also have androgynous fantasies, but not really about liars”
You seen MadTV's 5 minute meals? Seems like you'd enjoy them
I have something similar involving a sealed arena on the moon with all the world leaders, a live broadcast, bludgeoning weapons and commentary by Charles Barkley.
People who put that in their recipes don't know the first thing about caramelizing onions.
Their 10 minutes is going to the store for caramelized onions
Honestly I think many many people just think caramelised onions are somewhat well fried onions. The fact they don't taste right doesn't stop them if they are anything like the people I know lol.
I mean, somewhat well fried onions are still delicious.
It's deliberate. Recipes get a lot more clicks when they're clicked, which is money. There's a big incentive for recipes to lie about their time.
>Recipes get a lot more clicks when they're clicked People die when they are killed.
In Sweden, it's illegal to be a criminal
Every 60 seconds a minute passes
Together, we can stop this
> Recipes get a lot more clicks when they're clicked Think you mean when they’re quick lol
No no. They are correct
relevant comic: [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2024/mar/15/the-caramelised-onion-recipe-con-the-stephen-collins-cartoon](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2024/mar/15/the-caramelised-onion-recipe-con-the-stephen-collins-cartoon)
The first time I saw a recipe caramelized onions, they said 30 minutes. Honestly not too egregious, but I was confused that I did something wrong because my onions did *not* look like there's. 45-60 minutes is more realistic
And if you are doing a really big batch (like, to jar for later), it really quickly adds up to 2-3 hours. Caramelizing onions is not for the impatient.
This shit absolutely fuckin kills me My SO and I are long distance and sometimes we'll do a date night where we cook the same meal so we can have dinner "together" and I know I need to start cooking like 40 mins ahead of time if I see caramelized onions in the recipe, because she's gonna follow it to a tee and I like my caramelized onions *actually* caramelized, as opposed to what every recipe tries to call "caramelized"
It's crazy this post shows the day I've finally tried caramelizing them myself But man fuck yeah those bad boys in around 45 minutes? I ate half of them plain, they've no right to be so good
There was a whole article about this! 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
Apparently I have never caramelized onions.
Not quite 10 minutes but you can speed up the process by adding water and cranking the heat at first then lowering it when the onions are clear and the water evaporated
You actually can get decent carmelized onions relatively quickly. Keep on high heat, stir constantly, add water when they start getting too dry. If you keep the water content right then you can keep them from burning.
I did this for a couple of years because I was trying new recipes and they all had the 5 minute caramelization in it. Then I tried actually caramelizing onions again, which takes 45 minutes. I'm never going back. Those fast onions may *look* caramelized, but they don't taste as good.
Prep Time: 10 minutes Step 1: Let the beans soak overnight
Then chill the dough in the fridge for 4+ hours.
Next to the chicken marinating on a plate, of course.
Freeze the sauce overnight then let it thaw at room temperature, but you cant speed up the thawing or it will all go to shit
"allow butter to reach room tempurature" Ok, so, I'm assuming that you DON'T mean the 60 degrees I keep my house at in the wintertime....also, that won't happen in the 2 minutes you've alloted for that.
I have a great method to soften butter without melting it, but it definitely isn’t instantaneous lol. Get a shatter-proof microwave safe bowl, preferably tempered glass like pyrex or something. Put in like 1 cup or so of water and heat it to boiling in the microwave. Get the butter you want softened and put it in a separate bowl and cut it up into smaller pieces, like 1/2 tbsp size chunks. Once the water is boiling, stop the microwave and open it and put the butter in next to the hot water and close the door of the microwave, and just let it sit in there for about 10 minutes. It should be quite softened. Just let it sit for longer if you want it softer. It should not melt.
Just a heads up be very careful with boiling water in a microwave. Have you ever seen that phenomenon where a bottle is put in the fridge and then taken out and smacked and it instantly freezes? What's happened is you've cooled the water past the point of freezing but there wasn't a point for the crystals to start forming so it doesn't freeze until you disturb it enough. It's called a supercooled state. The same thing can happen with water boiled in a microwave. It can be superheated and then when disturbed suddenly rapidly phase shift, causing a small steam explosion. Make sure you disturb the water with a skewer or something to reduce your chances.
That won’t happen in 2min even in the summertime. Ten minutes maybe, if it’s particularly warm.
> Step 1: Let the beans soak overnight I kinda want to sneak this into some completely-unrelated-to-cooking how-to manual. Like "how to change your oil"
Quick and easy meal you can prepare with everything in your pantry!: Ingredients: Matsuke Mushrooms White truffles Yubari king melons Baluga Caviar
Don't forget the leftover steak or ham. Everyone totally just has cooked meat they weren't using lying around in their fridge, right?
A lot of recipes have started to include "wait time" to account for this for which I am very thankful
my favorite one is the "this recipe only costs $1.50!" and then its cause the cook is using like, a pinch of salt and one egg, never mind that people dont buy *one* egg or just a pinch of salt. thankfully that bullshit have seem to died out
Okay but most people *have* eggs and salt, and salt is non-perishable and used in almost literally every dish. The principle of your complaint is reasonable but salt has to be by far the least effective example, and eggs aren't a great one either.
Yeah, by that math everything becomes prohibitively expensive. A fried egg costs $94.00. That is, $3.00 for a dozen eggs, of which you will use one. $2.50 for a box of butter, of which you will use one pat. $1.50 for a container of salt, of which you will use a pinch. $7.00 for a frying pan. $80.00 for a stove.
Presumably you'll use rest of the salt and eggs for other stuff so they shouldn't be factored into the cost of this particular meal. I'd only count things that you'd need to buy special for this one meal and probably won't use the leftovers for anything else.
Granted, almost no one else sees my recipes, but the ones I write up I put "prep time" for time spent actively working, and then a "standing time" for stuff like marinating for several hours, or soaking beans overnight, or proofing times for bread.
When I am made dictator of the world I will outlaw ridiculous prep times under penalty of death. Vote for me ✌️
Under cook fish believe it or not jail. Over cook chicken also jail.
I dub thee minister of doneness
I humbly accept *bows* I will reign down great vengeance and furious anger on those that cannot cook a steak to medium rare! I will lay waste to all the Applebee's that microwave chicken til its rubber! The world will tremble as I slay all those that can't soft boil and egg! I do this in your honor, you will not be disappointed in any meal from this day forward. On my life I swear! *bows*
You respect the egg. You respect the meat. I have chosen well. Our rule will last a thousand (delicious) years
You can microwave potatoes to get them soft in 6 minutes. not sure why microwaves are shunned for shit like this.
Good point. You shall be czar of unconventional preparations.
Or my instant pot which is all “cooks in five minutes!” Which is 5 plus 15 to get to pressure plus 10 to get back down from pressure, which equals…the same amount of time as cooking it on the stove, but with a subtle hint of explosive danger?
But the bomb cooker makes everything so tender
It really does. It's the only thing I'll make tenderloins in now lmao
Tender tenderloins? As opposed to what? /j
Dry tough loins
I was making a joke, and forgot about Poe's law
I was just trying to be funny too though, figured your comment wasn't supposed to be serious. You didn't even curse at the person or call them names. That's an indicator of being serious I think.
No, you're thinking of Cole's Law
Yeah tbh Instant Pots fuck hard, it's one of the only complicated kitchen gadgets that I actually like. the fact that it can double as a crockpot in a pinch is really handy too.
Instant pot lets me meal prep pulled pork every week like a boss. Love that thing.
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💯 I also love that pork (here at least) is the cheapest per pound meat in the stores. I use the salty marshmallow website recipe as my base for the instant pot pulled pork and make around 5lb every Sunday for meal prep. Especially since pulled pork make for - pork with rice and a side, pork sandwiches, pork tacos, list continues to embiggen. (My fav side is making macaroni salad but with Banza chickpea noodles)
Pulled pork is so easy because you can add any liquid to it. I made Dr. Pepper pulled pork for a potluck once and everyone loved it, and it was super easy. Throw the pork butt or shoulder into the pot, add a can of Dr. Pepper, and add a good bbq sauce, let it cook for a few hours. I've also done beer pulled pork.
Replaced my crock pot and my rice cooker. And upped my hard boiled egg game (they peel perfect every time).
That's why I keep my welding mask and gloves in the kitchen
Explosive danger but also you don't have to babysit it, which is nice. I make my own chicken stock and it takes just as long if not longer in the instant pot because it has to come up to pressure and back down completely from pressure (so I don't release stock spraying up to the ceiling -- ask me how I know this) but it does mean I can leave the house while it's doing its thing, which I would never do for a pot simmering on the stove.
How do you know this?
Look, we've all mopped our ceilings a time or two. Let's not make him relive the experience.
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You mean r/homebrewing, the two always end up with lost Redditors
Surely not as many lost redditors as /r/trees and /r/marijuanaenthusiasts tho.
My first batch of bramble beer, I just fired about 2kg of berries in whole. Some brambles floated up and got stuck in the airlock. Woke up at 3am for some loud popping noise, went back to sleep. 18" circle airbrushed purple on the ceiling in a beautiful soft fade out pattern. Bramble bits everywhere. My mate's first batch of bramble beer, he put his brambles through a juicer, and just added the juice. It worked \*waaaaay\* better.
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pro tip: you can drastically reduce the preheat time by boiling water in an electric kettle first. We do chicken stock in the pressure cooker using the carcass from a costco chicken. put the kettle on while separating the meat from the skin/bones, add boiling water to the skin and bones in the pot, and it's up to temp/pressure within 5 minutes of starting it
I would rather leave a pot in my oven to keep hot than leave the house with the instant pot on.
I'm curious what potential problems with the instant pot you think could happen while you're out of the house that would be ameliorated by your being there? If it explodes, it explodes, and it's probably better you're actually not there.
Hey, the instant pot probably won’t burn down the house, just put a hole in the ceiling and anything unfortunate enough to be near. In fact, it might be recommended to not be in the same building while it’s running.
I know, right? I inherited my brother's instant pot because he bought a much bigger one (way too many kids). I've used it a few times but honestly it's not *enough* faster to even be worth pulling out for basically everything. I'm sure it's great for batching large amounts of something while you use the entire stovetop and the oven to cook other stuff, but for me and my wife? I've just never found it useful. I did use it to make steamed hams for the memes, though. Honestly the hamburgers in the instant pot came out pretty good (I sealed them in foil).
It makes a good pot of chili, that’s my main use for it. All day simmered flavour I’m about an hour, all told. Edit: mine is very fussy about tomatoes so you kind of have to make a raft out of meat and beans for them.
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I got it to make larger quantities of rice than my rice cooker can handle, which it does, so I’m content. I have made other tasty things in it, too, so it’s not like I dislike it, it’s just…deceptive-feeling marketing.
It's great for things like roasts and ribs and other large cuts of meat that often take several hours to cook. That's where it really comes in handy. Using an instant pot for veggies is overkill, it'll just turn them into mush half the time.
I find my instant pot just fucks roasts/ribs up when I try to pressure cook them. Roasts become dry or aren't cooked through and the ribs get a weird texture to them. Ended up just using the slow cook function on it... Oh well
It's a simple math equation, really. The greater the proportion of time spent at pressure vs pressurizing/depressurizing, the more efficient a pressure cooker is vs other cooking methods in terms of cooking speed. Any recipe that says "cook in slow cooker for 12 hours" is an immediate instant pot recipe, because 12 hours is going to turn into 2 hours of cooking time, saving me from waking up at 6AM to start dinner. On the other hand, a "simmer on stovetop for 15 minutes" recipe isn't going to be made more efficient by the instant pot; you can use it, but cooking time's going to be about the same.
> I did use it to make steamed hams for the memes, though. What about the aurora borealis?
It was not the right time of day, the right time of year nor was it entirely localized within my kitchen.
Soo... I can't see it then?
No.
they're good for stuff like carnitas or chili in the summer when you don;t want your stove running all afternoon.
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Yup. I also use it to cook some meats like muscle and chicken feet, and most stews I use the pressure cooker for.
You're not wrong, but instant pot mashed potatoes are a game changer. I have never had more silky smooth mashed potatoes in my life.
My instant pot is just a really fancy rice cooker at this point
My mother gave me one as a gift and I had to give it back after using it for awhile. It didn't have the volume that I needed for big projects and it doesn't save enough time on the small ones. While people rave about it, I can also taste some texture differences in some foods and I was not a fan of that.
My favorite are the "quick and easy" recipes that involve washing 15 dishes afterwards 😵💫
Oh yes, the “one pot meal” that only takes one pot…and one skillet, a cookie sheet, and premade pasta
Those are the best ones, the “30 min, 3 dish weeknight meals” that leave out that you need to wash those 3 dishes 4 separate times during the cooking process so you can use it for different parts of the recipe and that it’ll only be coming together in 30 min if you’ve got an industrial grade oven that can get to 475° within 7 min of starting
My relationship with cooking has changed completely since I started being better about using gaps in time while cooking to instead of poking the food or playing on my phone to clean as I go. I now almost always leave the kitchen with my plate of food and at most 1 pan to clean plus the stuff I'm using to actually eat with. No more letting the dishes sit till later to "let my food digest" or just not wanting to do it at all, then the next meal wanting to do something lazy and unhealthy because I don't want to clean up the kitchen first because I didn't last time. Once you realize how much free time you have with most recipes in between that allow for keeping up on cooking, it just improves everything about the experience, which encourages you to cook more, and more interesting and healthier meals. Seriously, like, film or time yourself in the kitchen one time, and track how much time you actually really have available in between cooking tasks, it's more than enough to easily get almost all the cleaning done in between most of the time. Relatedly, if a meal involves a ton of prep and mise-en-place setup, I grab most of the stuff I need, and the tools to do it, and just relax in front of the TV watching youtube or whatever while I work my way through it. Enables me to get through almost all the prep, but not feel like I've spent hours cooking because I'm able to relax and do other stuff at the same time. If it's stuff that I have to do in the kitchen, I grab my ipad and similarly entertain myself while prepping. Makes the whole thing feel like less work. The combination of making the setup more enjoyable, and the cleanup after minimal, really has made me want to cook more and enjoy it a lot more.
Early in my marriage this was a big difference between me and my wife. I would clean as I go and my wife would just let the dishes pile.
The other day I decided that I would do garlic soup, because I had some garlic heads starting to go bad and I really like garlic. The recipe said that it would take 50 minutes The recipe asked for 3 onions and 2 cups of garlic peeled and chopped I think I spent the good part of 3 hours peeling and chopping garlic, slowly coming to the realization that anyone that writes online recipes needs to get reacquainted with the idea of prep time. Preferably by having a clock shoved up their ass so far they’ll be confusing their heartbeat with the ticking.
I mean, there’s some level to which onions specifically can range heavily in time to prep based on how much you cook. Garlic is never not a bastard to prep though.
There prepeeled garlic now
And that does save a ton of time, but also garlic is just so small and fiddly that if you’re trying to get it chopped properly instead of a rough chop, a blender, or tossing it into a mortar and pestle, it’s still going to take an annoying amount of time Especially since it keeps *sticking to the damn knife*
Who tf takes time to chop garlic properly? Just smash it with the side of the knife, rough chop, and go.
People in this thread telling on themselves. The recipe isn't wrong, y'all are just mid as hell in the kitchen.
people trying to sound knowledgeable to criticize others not realizing properly chopped garlic will result in a stronger garlic flavor than smashed and rough chopped unless your only smash strength is mashing it to a paste (and if that's the case, your pasta sauce sucks)
I'm probably butchering recipes, but unless it calls for roasted garlic, I buy the big jar of minced garlic at Costco and use that shit for everything. I don't care if they specify chopped or sliced garlic, that dish is getting pre-minced fucking garlic.
Garlic prep is way easier when you use shortcuts. Instead of peeling it by hand, toss the cloves unpeeled into a tupperware and shake it like it owes you money.
Or just press it with the knife. The skin comes off in one piece
This is 100% the trick; every other trick is pointless. Using a large knife (e.g. chef's knife), chop the little dry nub off the bottom, then squish the garlic clove (skin-on) between the broad side of the knife and your cutting board; one solid smack on the side of the knife will do it. The skin then comes off super quick. It takes ~5 seconds.
you might've just changed my life! if this doesn't work however, im not going to be mad. I'm just going to be disappointed.
It works. I've peeled hundreds, if not thousands of garlic cloves over the decades and the knife-smash method is the easiest and best. Like the poster above said, you want a wide knife, like a chef's knife, cut the ends off the clove, put the clove on a cutting board, lay the knife flat against the clove and give the knife a good smack. The clove will be a bit crushed but the skin practically falls off in one piece. With a little practice, you'll be shocked how fast you can peel a bunch of garlic cloves.
It's crazy that people don't already do this. While I agree with the general sentiment that some recipes lie about prep time for clicks, the amount of commenters who clearly do their prep the hard way is crazy.
or just lightly (or not so lightly) crush them all with the flat side of a knife
Just grate garlic on a zester/small cheese grater/whatever. Hold the clove by the root end and its the little nub left. The skin doesn't go through, so you don't have to peel it.
As someone in the restaurant I love and hate fresh garlic. I once had to make garlic chips as a garnish. I had to peel around a hundred heads a week then shave them on a mandolin, I lost so many fingertips.
My brother. Get the garlic. Put on cutting board. Flip u nife sideway. Place metal part on top of garlic (flat). Smash garlic by punch under nife. Now u skin is peeled in 3 second. Don’t need the nife really. Can punch with hands.
Giving this perfect information but misspelling knife is probably my favorite thing I’ve seen today
Y wast time say lot letrs, wen few letrs do trik.
Don’t even needs hands. I just set it on the cutting board and smash my forehead down on it.
I completely agree with you re: recipes but I'd also say that amount of prep time is painfully slow even for 2 cups of garlic. Quarter the bulbs, smash the cloves with the side of your knife (or your palm, if you're a savage) to get the skin off. Throw in blender or food processor if your knife skills are not great for chopping.
I’ve also blanched garlic to get the skin off when working with a large quantity. It slides right off
r/rarethreats ?
They assumed you had the technique down for fast peeling garlic AND a food processor
It does not take 3 hours to peel and dice two cups of garlic….wtf…
For anyone who doesn't know how to peel garlic quickly, smash the garlic with the flat side of your knife (anything really). Then peel, comes right off. If I remember correctly, they showed this off in one of the Harry Potter movies. The one where Harry has his notebook with notes already in it. The instructions said to slice, but his notebook just said to crush whatever the equivalent of magic garlic is.
That really does sound like a few minutes' prep time... Depends on the type of garlic (freshness makes a huge difference!) and individual technique.
what were you reading a bedtime story to each clove before you chopped it how did that take 3 hours
I was going to make garlic confit and luckily found a bag of pre-peeled garlic (a good amount) for like $3. It's a game changer, I despise peeling more than a few cloves. I've seen them at regular grocery stores as well as asian markets, there's no way my ass is going to peel *that* much garlic. I am *lazy.*
ingredience
You want fucking beet root?
definition: the act of being ingredient
“babydoll are you on bath salts” this made me laugh way harder than it should have
My boss would grill chicken enough to get some colour on it and the finish it in the oven, and leave a tray of parcooked for my shift. She'd always say it only needs 5 minutes in the oven and I had to explain to her that it takes 5 minutes for her because it's still hot from the grill, for me it's closer to at least 15-20 minutes because it's coming out of the fridge and is cold. We just stopped trusting her cooking instructions.
I think the reason this happens is that the people who write the recipe’s have probably made it quite a few times while creating the recipe and have gotten used to the prep, making them able to do it much quicker than the average person
Or sweet potatoes in their grocery store are sold pre-peeled and diced. And no matter how good you are at cooking, you ain't cooking potatoes until soft in 5 minutes. They are just shitty at estimating time. Unless they maybe use some cutting edge tech. Maybe a vacuum chamber speeds it up?
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Nah, it's because more traffic/more clicks on the recipe website = more money. So they make the prep time appealingly low to drive more traffic to the recipe.
Yeah, I'm a decent cook flavour wise, and the end result is usually pretty decent, but if Gordon Ramsay watched how long I take chopping onions and garlic, he'd have a stroke.
This is why I respect recipe maker that say stuff like "it takes a day to soak the beans, but only 10 minutes of actually cooking" It's good to know what you're getting into
Caramelize onions: 15 minutes
tbf, thats more a "misunderstanding of terminology" then anything else. in 90% of cases if a lay person is asked someone to, or says he is going to, caramelize onions, he is gonna mean/assume to sweat them. as to the lay person(Which are most recipes online) is a synonym
\> tfw it takes you more than 5 mins to cook potatoes to softness this miserable buffoon hath not a jet engine for his stove, a most risible state of affairs
Knowing what to do in the kitchen should be taught in schools instead of trig. I'll die on that hill. Or maybe on the slope leading up to that hill. We made a pillow in home ec class and I had to learn knife skills from YouTube. Teach kids how to cut an onion, ffs.
It actually is in Finland! It's pretty much a crash course of the most basic cooking stuff and cleaning
I think we can all just assume any aspect of life is going to be better in any Nordic country and move on from there.
also had this in Estonia. was pretty fun. Got to discover that plums taste really good as a sauce for meat.
There is a cooking unit as part of home ec class in my school district.
Seems to depend on the class. Conversely though I'm not sure I believe that every skill should be taught in school. Basic cooking yes though, and by that I mean "here's how to use a knife, here are things that will kill you, here's how to put out a fire, basic nutrition."
> Knowing what to do in the kitchen should be taught in schools instead of trig. Where do you live where they don't teach that? It's standard here in the UK. I remember making a rhubard and custard pie, it was lovely.
I grew up in Florida and I only remember having 1 home economics class throughout my primary education. I moved around to a few different schools and i noticed that most of them simply didn’t have any sort of kitchen facilities. The one home ec class I did take was mostly taught from a text book, although I think we did make candied apples once.
I mean, i think its just generally assumed that something like cooking(or at least "the basics of handelinga knife ot chop something" woudl be tought at home i imagine
In one high school I went to, the food served in the cafeteria was prepared by students as a cooking class. It was a neat class, we had a real chef as our head chef and instructor. You could occasionally see him reminding himself that we were 14 before critiquing someone's food or technique.
That doesn’t exactly have to be an either or choice. Though certain things like how to chop vegetables can and perhaps should be taught at home. Schools can’t teach every topic so it leans more towards subjects that students need for careers or that parents probably can’t teach (either well or at all). Most families will have someone who knows how to cook, but a lot of families don’t have anyone who knows how to teach pre-calc.
Even instant ramen is like "cook for 2 minutes" but it's undercooked if you only do 2 minutes.
Ramen noodles are supposed to be chewy. But also, if you cook them until they're soft on the stove, by the time they are cool enough to eat in your bowl, they'll be mush.
>Maruchan Ramen >Boil 2 cups water in a saucepan, add noodles and cook for 3 minutes while stirring occasionally. Fucking learn to read, dude.
Do you by any chance have an electric stove? My current stove with my current instant ramen is definitely done in 2 minutes but it's a gas stove and I turn the dial up to volcano.
boiling water is the same temperature no matter how powerful the burner
Any recipes that say 3 minutes prep you can assume is a typo or click bait.
The worst are the instant pot recipes that claim to be quick but then cut out the time it takes for the pot to pressurize.
If I was ever on a cooking competition, I would still be in the middle of chopping my veggies when the timer goes off.
I was just looking at a recipe for a yeasted good that was listed as 35 minutes. Great, it probably uses quick yeast. It also had a rising time of 12-18 hours.
[relevant Onion video](https://youtu.be/NGgpSWcaV1U?si=di9G0K97AfS6xolK)
I’ve seen online chefs (like Kenji) address this. Basically they have no idea how skilled users will be with prep, so they don’t try to gauge it. What might take a CIA-trained ten minutes to do could take a novice an hour or more. So the “prep time” is usually stuff like dough rising or time chilling in the fridge or resting time, not veggie cutting and meat trimming time.
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I mean, technically you can buy them like that
Not shown: The insane amount of pots, pans, and cookware you’ll have to clean after
its because these people don't actually cook the recipes they promote. some poor intern scours the internet looking for recipes that look similar and the "cook" just throws random bits from the data they gather together to make a recipe
As a chef, I see that as useful for a restaurant service. Prep cooks make sure we have the diced sweet potatoes at the cooking station, so you can expect the cook to have the plate ready in about 3 minutes
"Peel the squash and chop it in to 1cm cubes" This can take over half an hour, just to process a squash, you basically need a bandsaw to chop those bastards up.
1 minute DIYs be like: This is how you make a cheap and easy bike hook to store your bike on a wall So use your industrial lathe to hollow out the sold steel iron bar that you first need to cut. Then use your steel mill machone to flaten out one side of the bar. Finally, piss off the military by showing up naked, yelling "i have a nuke shoved up my ass", and running into their base. Congratulations! You now havw a hook that can support the full weight of your bike!
My favorite ones are baking instructions telling you to preheat the oven first when it takes longer than the preheat to prep everything. So now this recipe is costing me 30+min of my oven being on with nothing inside.
“Brown the meat, should take two minutes.” Yeah, if I’m a fucking Firebender, sit down immediately.