- The Maillard reaction, aka the browning
reaction, also takes place at these temperatures. This is the
same reaction that causes browning on your toast or your
steak when you cook it (see here). The Maillard reaction is
far more complex than caramelization, involving
interactions among sugars, proteins, and enzymes. The
products of the reaction number in the hundreds, and are
still not fully identified.In an ideal world, as the onions continue to cook, three
things will happen at the same time: (1) the complete
softening of the onions’ cell structures, (2) maximum
caramelization (i.e., as brown as you can get before bitter
products begin to develop), and (3) maximum Maillard
browning (with the same caveat as caramelization).
By enhancing these results, I should be able to speed up
my overall process.
Mission 1: Increase the Effects of Caramelization
The most obvious way to speed up caramelization is to add
more raw ingredients, namely, sugar. The sugars in onions,
as mentioned above, are glucose, fructose, and sucrose (a
combination of one glucose and one fructose molecule)—
exactly the same as the caramelization products of
granulated sugar. So I tried cooking a touch of sugar in a
dry skillet until it reached a deep golden brown, then adding
the onions and tossing them to coat them in the hot caramel.
It worked like a charm, shaving a good 4 to 5 minutes off
my total cooking time and giving me sweeter, more deeply
caramelized end results, without affecting the overall flavor