Forget the pan – this microwave trick quickly results in great onions

Many years ago my wife and I wrote a column together Reader Digest This told each month the compelling life story of another ingredient (you have no idea how exciting honey is). I always delivered a small recipe-just a simple, written thing that I had to insert a few hundred words at the end of the column.

When the time came to cover the onion, I met a recipe problem: the editors wanted a simple puff bag onion, but I knew they had to be cooked in advance to properly soften them during the brief baking time. Under -cooked, leather onion was not a result I was willing to cope with, but I didn't have enough room for the preparation of the typical onion in the recipe besides the formation of the cake and baking.

That's when a bulb came out – can I use the microwave oven? I arranged my sliced ​​onion on a microwave cake, cleaned it with oil and crushed it for a few minutes. The result was perfect: the gentle onion circles, which were gently softened and became slightly golden in the microwave oven, partly shallow baking thanks to the oil. At this point, they were ready to go to the top of the cake to roast in the oven. It's like a very carefully roasted onion without toast.

It is a great technique like a frying onion, mess or heat, and other allium-microave methods, such as crispy fried hazelnuts and garlic– Cake application is one of the best cases of use for this method, but this is far from the only one. No need to limit the sliced ​​onions; It can work with onion grids or wedges, diced onions and many more.

Here is the basic method followed by some suggestions to incorporate it into cooking for easier and faster cooked onions.

How to make a microwave softened onion

First, look for a microwave oven, the oil becomes very hot as the onion cooks and does not want the plate to crush the heat. Then arrange the onion on the plate in a steady layer and toss it with a brush or slightly oil to coat (olive oil or neutral oil is fine). The sliced ​​onion should not be overlapped (or minimally overlap) and diced or minced onions should not be tossed too high – try to spread them to the plate on a steady plate. If you want, you can season the onions with salt or do so later.

Then the microwave oven on the onion in high energy until they reach the desired softness. The timing depends on how to cut the onion (ie thickness and dimensions) and how thoroughly you want to be cooked. Timing may also vary depending on the microwave oven and its performance level. I found that 10 minutes are usually a good ballpark for the thinly sliced ​​onion that should be very gentle. Nevertheless, it may take less or more time- it is best to be in a microwave oven in two or three minutes, until you get better on how the timing works in the microwave oven. For the diced onion, it may be worthwhile to give them a few stirring to ensure even cooking.

How to use these onions

This method of rapid onion cooking has unlimited potential applications-even though you need relieved onions, this method may be useful, with particular reference to its speed, simplicity and delivery. Here's a small handful of ideas for the gears to turn away for you:

• Fast onion cake. This application inspired me to invent* this technique, and this is a perfect example of a small technical challenge with a wonderfully low effort and a low-fledged way.
• Gentle onions for hearty salads. Many hearty salad and grain recipes require raw onions, but the taste can be rough. At the same time, the onion pan frying pan to avoid this rawness is often more effort than most of us are willing to insert. For two more minutes in the microwave oven, this method can be removed in some of the sharp winds while left the onion fresh and fat. Examples: tuna salad, cereal bowls, beans salads, hearty vegetable salads, pasta salads and much more.
• Make a better onion layer on toast and sandwiches. In connection with the idea of ​​the above salads, the sliced ​​onion is a popular sandwich supplement. While raw Allium Picania is sometimes only what you need, many sandwiches can be repaired by adding the onion in a gentle, soft shape. Although I would not describe these microwave onions as caramelized, the application is caramelized. Any toast or sandwich that would benefit from the caramelized onion layer would also be well coupled with them. I would like to eat these on some salty anchovies on toast or track short ribbed grilled cheeseor the Regular old grilled cheeseor the chicken salad sandwichor the tuna meltOr much more!
• As a lazy (but still fine) as a side. Cut the onions thicker and cook the plates until it's just gentle and have a nice little side to roast meat such as chicken, pork, beef and lamb.
• As an easy accessory. For most of the time, if a recipe requires toasted onions, they are prepared at the beginning of the cooking process before the other ingredients are added and cooked. But there are moments when you may be on the cooking road in a way when you realize that you want to add toasted onions to the mixture, or maybe leave them to the end to keep their fat texture in the finished container. This technique is an easy way to prepare the onion without having to get out a second dish or pan to cook them next to everything else.

These are just a few ideas for getting started. The most important thing is: microwave sautéing onions are a precision cooking method that produces easily and quickly soft and gentle onions. You can then throw them into almost anything or anything.

* Here I use “inhint” loosely; I'm sure I'm not the first person to think, but the idea was new to me when I came up.