The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

browning them? If so, I should be able to save myself a bit
of babysitting time by limiting my stirring to the final stage
of cooking. To do it, I went back to a method I’d learned
from Chef Jason Bond for making a sweet white onion
puree back when I was a line cook at No. 9 Park: all you
have to do is to cook onions thinly sliced pole-to-pole
(they’ll have a better texture when cooked) in butter in a
heavy enameled cast-iron or stainless steel Dutch oven.
Once they get going, throw on the lid, turn the heat down as
low as possible, and let ’em sit there. As the onions heat,
they give off liquid, some of which turns to steam, re-
condenses on the roof of the pot, and then falls back down,
keeping the onions moist as they soften.
After a couple hours (with just one or two stirs in the
middle), the onions will be completely softened and have
given up all the liquid and dissolved flavor compounds
they’re gonna give up. At this stage, it’s a simple matter of
reducing that sugary liquid over moderate heat until it’s
deeply caramelized and brown, using the browning-and-
deglazing process I use for my quick caramelized onions.
The resultant soup is sweet, rich, and deeply complex.