Steve B wrote:
> Let me ask a basic question.
>
> You have a recipe that calls for you to cook some onion, celery, and
> possibly other ingredients right at the start. Until "clear" is stated in
> some recipes. Then garlic.

I will only cook onions "clear' if i am using a very small dice that i
intend to be part of a pan sauce. I also enjoy simmering a dice of
onion in milk to then be used in a sauce.

It is my experience that this must be done in a slow, low, gentle way,
especially if one wants to puree the diced onions, if they are cooked
too hot for too long it seems to me they lose their flavor.

I used to caramelize onions and carrots to add to home made soup, but
once i started making vegetarian soups (meat added after cooking) i
stopped doing so, not only do i find it an unnecessarily tedious step,
but i think the vegetables cut in large chunks (paysan) and simmered
from raw in stock or water produce a better flavor than those precooked
to what ever stage of doneness.

I sometimes think the way some recipes are written that have the veggies
for soup first browned in butter or oil being little more than a butter
or oil delivery system for the soup.

When i use carrots, celery and onions in a roast i throw those away when
clarifying the pan drippings.

>
> What is a proper sequence so that one does not get too cooked, as garlic has
> a tendency to do if fried in too hot oil at first when you are cooking the
> onion and celery?

Many people, myself included, will soften, cook al dente or otherwise
saute a dice of veggies, onions, carrots, celery for a traditional
American turkey or chicken stuffing, in which case i start with the
carrots, let them cook till they begin to slightly brown, , then add
onions, and then celery, but keep them firm so they finish cooking in
the stuffing. If one ants to make a stuffing without a bird then its
just a matter of cooking the veggies till they are the degree of
doneness desired, al dente or soft. Generally speaking, imo, when a
carrot begins to brown it is over done.

Some people take a veggie peeler to the celery ribs and carve off the
fibrous parts and then saute briefly in butter, garlic and deglaze with
white wine

Add a bit of cream, or rice flour and more wine or stock and call it
sauce au celeri.

>
> Do you ever sometimes entirely remove these ingredients completely, then
> brown meat, or whatever, and return the ingredients so that they don't get
> fried to a crisp?

I would cook the meat first, set it aside and then cook the veggies in a
bit of the oil left from cooking the meat, but i prefer to put the
veggies in soup raw and let them simmer to done there, i think it gives
a more primary, veggie flavor than using pre cooked or browned veggies
in a soup.

The only 2 exceptions i can think of right off the top of my head is the
French onion soup, caramelized onions in beef broth, and the Belgium
'carbonad flammanade de boeuf" (sp?) where the onions are sometimes
cooked to the "Mahogany" stage.

I enjoy 'dored" veggies but there it is the coating and not the veggie
that is 'dored' (gilded) to a golden color.

As i understand it the water content of most vegetables make them hard
to brown, those with a high sugar content 'brown' easier, and some cooks
are not above a pinch of sugar in the veggies to hasten the caramelizing
process, or at least appear to, but i don't care for adding sugar to my
food.

I used to throughly enjoy a particular restaurants deep fried onion
rings till one day i saw the cook pouring a bag of sugar in the batter,
delicious they were but.....
--
JL
--
JL