Have you heard about the new superfast way of caramelizing onions?
One of my students told me that Lan Lam from America’s Test Kitchen has a video where
she speeds up caramelization with -- are you ready for this?
-- Water!
And I am like, “what?”
If anyone else told me that water could speed up browning, I’d laugh.
But America’s Test Kitchen is known for coming up with clever counter-intuitive techniques,
so I googled for that video.
First of all, it’s not as crazy as it sounds.
Lan is not caramelizing anything in water.
Water can’t get above 212 and browning needs around 350, so don’t worry, she is not breaking
any laws of physics here.
What Lan is doing is steaming the onions using water, then evaporating this water, and after
this steaming step, the onions brown at a lightning speed.
Lan explains this super fast browning like this.
The steaming step gets the sugars and amino acids in the onions to ooze out and come to
the surface, and that’s what gives you such a fast browning.
I also think there is another factor at play here.
After the onions are wilted, they make better contact with the bottom of the pan which also
speeds up browning.
Well, regardless of how you explain this effect, it’s very easily observable with a naked
eye.
No microscope required!
Besides the improvement in speed, this method offers another benefit -- it requires way
less oil than the traditional cooking methods.
Over the last few months, I played with this technique a lot.
I tried different skillets, different liquids, and different vegetables.
This method doesn’t just apply to onions.
It’s useful for many things, but as any technique this one is not without its pitfalls
and limitations.
And today we are going to talk about all that!
When I saw Lan’s video, it reminded me a lot of the method I call Steam Then Brown
(or STB for short).
I routinely use it for broccoli and mushrooms and I already made videos on both of those.
You know where I got the mushroom idea?
From Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
It just comes to show that most new techniques are old techniques applied in a new context.
The new context for me here were the onions, so let’s see how well STB works for them.
For this method, Lan calls for a non-stick skillet.
I know using a non-stick skillet for caramelized onions feels completely wrong (at least it
did to me).
For a traditional method, a stainless steel skillet works a lot better.
But for STB a non-stick skillet is a must and here is why.
The steaming step makes the onions insanely sticky.
I tried using a stainless steel skillet for this method and I couldn’t get any of the
browning to stay on the onions.
It all stuck to the bottom of my pan.
So I had a very well caramelized pan, but not very well caramelized onions.
So yes, a non-stick pan is crucial to make this work.
I haven’t tried using a cast iron or carbon steel pan for this, but I can’t imagine
it being a good idea.
First of all, the first step is wet.
It might compromise your seasoning.
Second of all, cast iron and carbon steel pans are mostly non-stick, but not completely
non-stick and here that won’t do.
Today, I’ll use a 10 inch teflon skillet.
Let’s set it over medium-high heat and set a timer to count up so that we can see how
long this method takes.
There is no need to wait for the pan to preheat since our first step is steaming.
I am adding 600 grams of yellow onions sliced pole to pole (this is the weight after peeling
and slicing), but the exact amount isn’t important as long as you have a big pile.
Caramelized onions shrink a lot, so it’s important to start with a very full pan.
Let’s add a half cup of cold water, 2 Tablespoons of olive oil, and 2 teaspoons of Diamond Crystal
Kosher salt or whatever you think is reasonable for your salt type.
For most salts you’ll need about 1 teaspoon of salt.
Stir the onions briefly and cover.
Now we need to wait for all the water to evaporate.
This will take about 10 minutes, but it will depend on many factors -- your burner, skillet,
heat setting, and the exact weight of your onions.
I read the comments on America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe, and the most common complaint was
that the onions burnt to a crisp.
To prevent that from happening, check up on your onions starting at 5 minutes.
Just do it quickly so that you don’t lose too much steam.
I would also avoid setting the stove to the highest possible setting.
I know Lan suggests high heat, but what that means depends on your stove.
If your heat is not high enough, the worst that will happen is that your onions take
an extra minute or two.
But if it’s too high, your onions will burn a lot faster and there is no recovering from
that.
Here we go -- our water is all gone.
Now we uncover the pan and press the onions firmly into the bottom and the sides.
The better the contact, the faster the browning.
I find that an easy way to create a better contact is to press the onions down with a
flat lid that’s smaller in diameter than your skillet.
This creates perfect contact, but allows the steam to escape.
I am continuing on fairly high heat, but not the max.
At this stage, you can’t leave your skillet unattended even for a minute.
Check your onions every 30 seconds, and stir as soon as they brown.
Press again, and wait for more browning.
Keep cooking them like this until they are completely brown.
This will take about 10 minutes.
By the way, if you don’t have a small flat lid, or don’t want to dirty one, it’s
perfectly fine to just press on your onions with the back of a spatula.
It took me a total of 6 stir and press intervals to get my onions to this stage.
I am happy with this color, so I think we are done!
In the end, Lan suggests adding a tiny bit of baking soda dissolved in water to boost
sweetness.
I personally find caramelized onions so sweet that I prefer to add a splash of balsamic
vinegar and an extra pinch of salt to balance all that sweetness.
Here we go.
Now we are really done.
From the moment I turned on my burner, this method took 22 minutes.
For caramelized onions, that’s really good.
The question is how does this compare to standard caramelized onions.
Lan said those can take between an hour to an hour and a half.
But I have a feeling that mine don’t take that long because I crank up the heat for
the first step.
The reason I can get away with that is that I am very generous with olive oil.
I’ve never actually timed my caramelized onions before, so let’s do it now.
Let’s caramelize exactly the same amount of onions (600 grams) using my standard method
and compare the timing, the oil amount, and the taste.
Let’s turn on the burner and start the timer.
For my method, I need a stainless steel skillet and a 1/4 cup of olive oil.
My pan is on medium-high heat and we need to wait a couple of minutes for the oil to
preheat.
In go the onions and the salt.
I made sure the salt amount is the same.
Let’s give them a mix and leave them alone to brown.
This will take a little while.
Don’t expect anything to happen for about 5 minutes.
Give them a stir and leave them alone until they brown again.
Here we go, we’ve got more color.
Let’s stir.
Leave them alone again.
This is my third time stirring.
Leave them alone again.
And this is my fourth time stirring.
At 16 minutes, my onions look like this.
Now it’s time to bring the heat down to very low and let them wilt until they become
jammy.
Once my pan calms down, I won’t need to stir much and can leave them to their own
devices for 5 to 10 minutes at a time.
Here they are at 30 minutes, and they are looking good to me.
Let’s add balsamic vinegar and a little salt.
Here, I like to crank the heat back up for a minute or so to help the vinegar and onion
juices reduce to a syrup.
From the moment I turned on my burner, this method took 32 minutes.
Definitely longer than STB, but not by much.
That being said, I was not cooking a huge pile of onions.
For very large quantities, I have a feeling that STB would offer a bigger time saving.
Also, note the oil difference.
STB allowed me to cut the oil in half.
Lan uses even less oil than I do for this method.
So if reducing oil is important to you, STB is a huge win.
Now let’s compare the taste.
STB onions are delicious, but not as rich and jammy as my traditional onions.
If you are using caramelized onions in a dish that’s already rich, this could be a huge
plus.
Take my tomato gruyere onion tart for example.
Between the butter in the pie crust and the fat in the gruyere cheese, that dish is loaded.
So STB onions would only make that dish better.
But if you need caramelized onions for beans or grains or sandwiches, I would prefer the
richer option.
To clean your stainless steel skillet, you can boil some water in it to loosen all the
gunk or use Bar Keeper’s friend.
The stainless steel pan definitely takes longer to clean than teflon so that’s another win
for STB.
So if this method works so well for onions, what else can we use it for.
I’ve tried it for butternut squash, zucchini, turnips, cabbage, mushrooms, green beans,
broccoli, and leeks.
Butternut squash, zucchini, and turnips did not work.
The steaming step turned them to mush.
Even if I reduced the amount of water and the steaming time, the outside of the vegetables
turned mushy and I wasn’t happy with the results.
Cabbage, mushrooms, green beans, broccoli, and leeks worked very well.
And during all those experiments, I learned something interesting about the how to control
the texture of the vegetable.
More acidic liquids result in firmer vegetables.
Let me show you cabbage using 2 different liquids.
Water and white wine.
Both are delicious, but produce very different results.
We start just like with the onions.
In goes a big pile of cabbage, 1/2 cup of water, 2 Tbsp of olive oil and salt.
Steam it for about 10 minutes or until all the liquid is gone.
And then brown it, pressing firmly and stirring frequently.
I won’t bore you with all the stirring this time.
I finished it with a splash of pomegranate molasses and a pinch of salt.
The whole process only took about 16 minutes.
Now, let’s do exactly the same thing, replacing 1/2 cup of water with 1/2 cup of dry white
wine.
I am using a cheap sauvignon blanc.
The wine produces much firmer results.
The cabbage that was cooked in water is delicious, but very soft.
Almost mushy, but in a tasty way.
It would work great as a filling in vareniki or pirozhki or some other eastern european
dish, but might be too soft to serve as a side dish.
It would also be a disaster to cook it with water in a stainless steel skillet.
Trust me, I tried.
The browning sticks to the pan more than to the cabbage and by the time I finally got
some color on it, it was baby food.
The cabbage cooked with wine is a lot more resilient.
It’s almost crisp tender.
This works really well as a side dish and it also allows you to cook it in a stainless
steel pan.
I do find that a teflon pan produces faster and better results since all the browning
sticks to the cabbage and not to the pan, but if you don’t have a teflon pan, wine
allows you to take advantage of the STB method for certain vegetables.
Unfortunately, the wine is not quite right for caramelized onions because they need to
be soft and jammy.
Now, let’s talk about mushrooms.
Using STB for mushrooms is nothing new.
The best kind of mushrooms to cook using this method are big and sturdy -- basic button
mushrooms, portabella, crimini, and king trumpet all work very well.
I find that wine gives them a better texture and flavor than water and a stainless steel
skillet is not a problem because these mushrooms don’t stick.
I tried STB on delicate mushrooms like oyster and chanterelles and didn’t like it at all.
It makes them come out really soggy.
Those mushrooms are so delicate that they need fast, dry heat.
The problem here is that people over generalize.
You probably heard about not washing the mushrooms, right.
And then you heard that it’s an old wives’ tale and there is no problem with washing
the mushrooms.
From my experience, it depends on the mushrooms.
Most mushrooms you get in the supermarket don’t suffer from washing.
But the same mushrooms that don’t do well with the STB cooking method, don’t do well
with washing either.
Among the green vegetables, good candidates for STB are the ones that need longer cooking,
like green beans and broccoli.
Something like asparagus overcooks too easily during the steaming step.
Even for green beans and broccoli, it’s best to use way less water and a shorter steaming
time than for the onions and cabbage.
I also don’t crowd the pan nearly as much when cooking green beans and broccoli as when
I cook onions and cabbage.
This way they don’t overcook during the browning step.
My only reservation about using STB in a teflon pan is that over time this method seems to
wear out my non-stick coating.
Of course all non-stick pans become more sticky over time.
It could have been just a coincidence.
But a few months after I started playing with this method, my teflon pan seemed to need
replacement.
The pan was already a few years old and I was using this method a lot.
So take this concern with a huge grain of salt.
More like a pile of salt.
This is a very difficult thing for me to test rigorously.
But I would love to hear from anyone who uses this method a lot.
How is your pan doing?
I really hope I am wrong about the pan issue because I simply adore Steaming Then Browning.
Have you tried it?
What did you cook with it and how did it go?
Let me know in the comments below.
Here are more thought provoking culinary videos for you to check out and if you are ever in
the Boston area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.