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Remember, it takes at least 45 minutes to caramelize an onion. If you're doing it for less than 45 minutes, then you're just cooking it.
45 minus to fully caramelize.
If you don't want them that dark you don't have to cook them that long.
Sure, you can use non-caramelized onions. You just won't get that sweetness.
Just add more sugar.
What kind of hooligan adds sugar
Saves times and gives the sweet taste. If someone doesn't want to do it for 45 minutes then yeah
But it keeps the the sour and bitter tastes in. Caramelizing replaces most of those with sweet.
Sour and bitter can be good though. I love fresh onion as is. I ghetto caramelize it a bit to make it more palatable to my girlfriend though. For that you don't need to do a proper caramelization, getting the process going and adding a bit of sugar is enough.
I love to add vinegar too though. Vinegar, a bit of sugar, a bit of salt, some time on the pan, delish.
Bitter is great. But at some point it ceases to be caramelized onions.
They've been caramelized some but not all the way, dunno where it'd draw the line at least when cooking at home
I honestly add a touch of brown sugar and I guess I’ve been doing it wrong according to these comments.
I know you're joking, but the only way I can see it taking that long is if you put whole onions into an oven set to 180° to 200° F.
In a frying pan, one can easily caramelize an entire large frying pan of onions in about 30 minutes, or even faster if you decide to use physics to your advantage, and add a small amount of water to your pan and caramelize your pan of onions within 14 minutes. This is an advanced technique that requires some experience to try to use. Much like making a Dark Roux in 15 minutes.
I'm absolutely not joking. If you're cooking it for less than 45 minutes, you're not caramelizing the onions. Frequent stirring, adding water, whatever, you can get the color and texture of caramelization, but not the flavor.
I spent a couple of years making slightly disappointing meals because I was focused on the color and texture of my onions instead of the flavor. When I finally took the time to fully caramelize them again, I remembered what I had been missing.
Try it and taste the difference if you don't believe me.
put whole onions into an oven set to 180° to 200° F.
Wait, would that work?
Might need it to be a bit higher than that, but I know one can caramelize onions slowly in an oven. Just not sure what temp is needed
I know it's not exactly the same as a low temp for a while. But you can get pretty good results with a high temp, just need to deglaze more frequently, usually with water until they're almost done. Then wine and/or balsamic is good.
... That explains a lot