Top Chef ™
Season:
Week:
Burnt Onions? Really?
Increasingly, we see chefs deliberately burning food because, when handled well, the impact on the flavor can be positive, not negative.
In Top Chef: Wisconsin ™, in the last round before moving to the Caribbean Cruise for the finals, Savannah won the Elimination round with a dish that used a jam/chutney of burnt onions and cherries.
Onions can be eaten raw, or gently cooked, or deeply caramelized, and now burned black. The onions should be treated with respect and removed from the heat as soon as they are 'beyond caramelized' but before they turn to miserable ash. Catch them at the right time and they really do bring a beautiful flavor to a dish. Try it out sometime. It's my belief that the burnt onions need combining with a strong accessory like anchovies, or eggplant, which is why Savannah's jam was so remarkably good.
Get recipes ...
Subscribe to our weekly recipes and culinary tips from streamed cooking shows.
Featured Recipes inspired by Top Chef ™
About Top Chef ™
Top Chef ™ is an American reality competition television series which has run since March 2006. The show features professional chefs competing against each other in culinary challenges.
The Top Chef ™ chef-contestants are judged by a counsel of exemplary, world-renowned professional chefs and famous names from the food and wine industry.
The contestants are superb, professional chefs with a huge array of global food skills.
The show is progressive, eliminating one or two chefs each week. Each episode follows a consistent theme with (usually) a Quickfire challenge (short and fun) followed by a more difficult "Elimination Challenge" that is much more intense. The Top Chef ™ Judges Table is where the winners and losers are determined each week.