"Whether you're making a comforting stew or a mouthwatering curry, they are often the first ingredient you reach for. But scientists say that you might have been cooking your onions wrong. To get the truly deep, caramelised onions needed for many dishes, some recipes require upwards of 30 to 40 minutes of cooking. But with a little scientific knowledge and one simple ingredient, you can more than half that time."
"Since this reaction is dependent on pH, chefs can speed up or slow down the reaction as they need. So in order to make onions brown faster, we need to increase their pH by adding something alkaline to the mix. That's why just a pinch of baking soda is the key to unlocking delicious flavours in just a fraction of the time."
Onions brown through two distinct processes: caramelisation of sugars and the Maillard reaction between sugars and proteins. Caramelisation breaks long carbohydrates into simpler sugars that create sweet and bitter-sweet compounds. The Maillard reaction produces complex browned flavours and is pH-dependent. Raising onion pH by adding a small amount of an alkaline agent like baking soda speeds the Maillard reaction, accelerating browning. Heating ruptures onion cells, vaporises water and releases sugars, proteins and volatile compounds that participate in these reactions. A pinch of baking soda can more than halve the time needed to achieve deep, caramelised-browning.
Read at Mail Online
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