I don't recall seeing instructions to caramelise in pasta sauce recipes, that's usually "until starting to brown", same with curries.. "Until translucent" for risotto.

What I'm really talking about is... Let's have a look... First result for "caramelised onion quiche" says cook onions for 15 mins. Doesn't work!

To be honest, there's a lot of these sort of words that are often used in recipes where I have no idea what they mean. A basic cook book to just explain these sort of things, would be fantastic. Just the different ways to properly cook onions, mushrooms, and other ingredients, and what those techniques are called. And warn for ways that those names might be misused: "If a recipe says to caramelize onions in 10 minutes, don't caramelize them, do this other thing instead." I think a book like that would be really helpful to a lot of people.

They are not "better" or "worse" than fried onions, they have a very different taste.

It's called The Joy of Cooking.

Then Modernist Cuisine just for the pictures. Actually I learned a bunch when Mhyrvold spoke at my company- we talked about how to make BBQ ribs. His suggestion: sous vide, then immerse in liquid nitrogen, then deep fry.

This is like a recipe needing turkey but asking for chicken. Like sure, it will probably work, but it is clearly different and not entirely substitute.

The confusion comes in the color versus the process. I've seen some recipes call for "cook down onions until translucent and caramel in color". This is the most accurate definition of what most recipes want when asking for caramelized onions.

However the true use of the word "Caramelized Onions" are onions that have gone through the cooking process of caramelization. This process requires two things: sugar and time. Just like making candy caramels, you are performing the same process to onions. This makes true caramelized onions actually sweet, with savory notes throughout.

French Onion soup is the most common use of real caramelized onions, which is sweet and savory soup. It could not be made with browned onions, that would ruin it. Coq a vin is another popular recipe that uses caramelized onions, which complement the prominent wine flavors of the dish into a sweet, savory, gamey (usually made with game hens), and earthy delight of a meal. The caramelized onions are what pull that dish together.

It isn't haute cuisine, but for something you might serve for a Superbowl party it's at least pointing in that direction. It can stand up to taking a moment to savor and inhale it, moreso than most of the rest of what might be served up there. Pair with the bizarrely tasty Costco Kettle Krinkle Cut potato chips.

That's even worse. And it begs the question: why are they lying about this?

Recipe authors have probably been using the word "caramelize" to mean "soften and turn brown and sweet" for longer than food nerds have been nitpicking the exact definition of caramelize.

It would have been nice if someone had clued people like me in to their special definition of the word before now. I'd have saved a whole lot of time and frustration.

But now I'm presented with the other problem: when a recipe calls for carmelized onions, how am I supposed to know if they mean carmelized onions or "cook until translucent"?

You aren't supposed to interpret a recipe. You are supposed to follow it. If you have enough skill, practice, or ability to order pizza, THEN is the right time to make decisions about whether this recipe actually needs REAL caramelized onions.

Recipes have been vague and don't make sense out of context for millennia.

So when a recipe says to "carmelize onions", that's what I do. To do anything else is to deviate from what the recipe is plainly telling me.

> Recipes have been vague and don't make sense out of context for millennia.

True. But the fact that this is true means it's essentially impossible to follow a recipe without some degree of interpretation.

I'm just irritated that there was a secret definition to "carmelize onions" that nobody clued me in to.

Many words will have definitions you don’t know — sometimes literally the opposite of their “proper” definitions!

It’s not a secret, it’s just a thing you didn’t know yet. So don’t be too mad, now you know.

Adding water early on in the cooking process to steam cook and soften the onions really speeds things up, too. (See Lan Lam's YouTube video on cooking carmelized onions. I use a slightly different method, but she got me on the track of adding water early, which really does help...)

The linked article gives a few examples where there was no vagueness: The recipes described the visual state that the onion should be in when caramelized, and it corresponded to the ~45 minute process, not the ~10 minutes the recipe claimed it would take.

I've had this issue myself with a meal kit service that said caramelized and showed a picture of the ~45 minute result but the overall prep & cook time for the entire meal, as stated in the recipe, was only 30 minutes. (In general meal prep kits seem to drastically understate the amount of prep time. At best, it might correspond to the amount of time it would take a skilled chef to chop and slice and peel everything, not the average consumer who subscribed on the basis of easy 15-30-45 minute meals)

1.) Anschwitzen, literally "sweating up", means putting them in a pan on low heat for around 10 minutes until they are translucent ("glasig", literally "glassy"). This is how to get a starter for many sauces, and is the standard way to prepare onions for many, many meals and sauces (e.g. a standard tomato sauce). They should not turn brown, as this would for example ruin the color and flavor of white or light sauces - caramelized onions have a kind of "heavy" flavor.

2.) Karamelisieren, "caramelize", which is the meaning described in this article.

3.) Rösten, "roast", which means frying the onions with a bit a flour until they are crispy.