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I think the confusion might come in from the fact that many recipes refer to the process of onions starting to brown as "beginning to caramelize" simply meaning
by more_corn 10y ago
I think the confusion might come in from the fact that many recipes refer to the process of onions starting to brown as "beginning to caramelize" simply meaning that they start to turn brown and sweeten. This does in fact happen in five to ten minutes. "Caramelized Onions" might be an entirely different proper noun than the concept "Onions which have begun to caramelize".
- kem 10y agoAfter thinking about this, I think you're probably right, along with a gradual declining of standards about caramelization. I've made caramelized onions multiple times, watching over them for long periods of time. At some point several years ago I became confused by the issue referred to in the article, and thought that I was mistaken about what caramelizing onions was. I've come to realize that I was not. However, caramelizing onions is a gradual process, and so I could see how what one calls "caramelized onions" could be seen as a matter of degree. With candy making, as a parallel, there are degrees of hardness; with roux there's different degrees of browning, etc. etc. etc. You're probably right, because at some point early on something very very roughly resembling "caramelized onions" is achieved, which is basically the same as "fried onions." People assumed because the onions resembled what they were familiar with in fried onions, they must be the same, even though they're not.