Background: I love caramelized onions, but I don’t often have time these days to baby a pan for 40 minutes. Instead, I’ve turned to a quick sauté, followed by a quick braise. The results are slightly different than caramelized onions, but the applications for the two ingredients are similar. Here’s the move:
- Buy a yellow onion or divert some onions from your Quick Pickled Onion move.
- French cut the onion.
- Heat up a skillet on high, add butter, and turn on the hood.
- Throw the onion in the pan just after some of the butter starts to brown, but before it starts to smoke too much.
- Turn down the heat to medium.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- Stir the onions a couple times. Turn to something else for a bit, and check back on them.
- When they are cooked and they are kind of sticking to the pan, but still kind of firm and there’s enough Maillard reaction going on in the pan–it doesn’t all have to be happening on the onions–add enough water or cooking liquid to deglaze the pan, getting all the fond off the bottom of the pan.
- Reduce down to your desired consistency.
Why It Works:
- It works great as a side project for the quick pickled onions. You are already French cutting the onions.
- You can vary the cut of the onions. You could also dice for more surface area (and if that’s how you like them on a burger).
- You could also use oil if you want these to be vegan. In that case, I would use a dark braising liquid if you want a richer color.
- Browning the butter is a cheat to get the color of caramelized onions in half the time.
- You can adjust the heat to multitask. If the other project you are doing at the time is very time consuming and requires your attention (cutting up a whole, raw, chicken for example), you might want to turn it down to medium-low.
- You can adjust the amount of salt and pepper by considering the braising liquid you are going to use.
- This move is forgiving, as are onions. Different outcomes will mostly have different applications. After, all, onion brûlée (burnt onion) is an actual thing with applications in the culinary world.
- This move is quicker than caramelized onions. Unlike caramelized onions, this move gets its color (and much of it’s flavor) from the braising liquid and the fond. This also steams the onions quickly rather than cooking them in their own liquid and butter more slowly, which is also kind of a braise, if we’re being honest. This is a faster braise.
Mods:
- The mods in this move are all about experimenting with different kinds of liquids for deglazing and braising. Of course water is fine. I use more butter and salt if I’m using water.
- Add Herbes de Provence when you add the salt and pepper, especially if you are using water to deglaze, to make them come to life.
- You can use stock–either vegetable or animal–for a richer, French onion soup kind of flavor.
- You can experiment with any kinds of alcohols. Beer and wine work.
- For a brighter taste without the alcohol, squeeze a lemon or lime into it and add a bit of water to keep the sugars from burning.