If you have time to spare, you gotta check out this website!!! Cool how-to videos from Japan...

[sandi-in-hawaii]

I think you can get past the language barrier, and figure out what they're doing smileys/smile.gif

And the little english description of the video also gives you a clue to their secrets...

I gotta try the potato peeling thing, the salt-in-the-coffee thing, the mayonaise-in-the- hamburger, the butter in the stew to keep the potatoes nicely shaped, the caramelized onion thing, etc. etc. etc.

http://www.youtube.com/results?tag=urawaza

 

[steve2-in-la]

The cool trick is the t-shirt fold. I watched a buddy do it and it's "kewl".

 

[deb-in-mi]

My B-I-L showed me the t-shirt fold - very 'kewl'

 

[orchid]

Pealing the shrimp was fantastic! Way "kewl"

 

[sandi-in-hawaii]

orchid, did you see the browning the onions video? They sprinkled salt over the onions

They sprinkled salt over the onions before caramelizing them in a frying pan, and it only took 15 minutes. Looked like the water in the onions was drawn out by the salt, so it could brown better.

That might have helped with your large crockpot batch, in case you wanted to try it again....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZZJ87IR00A

 

[orchid]

I didn't watch that one Sandi because it said onion paste and I didn't....

relate to it I guess. These videos are very clever aren't they? My first thought was if the onions would be salty but they sure let you know that they weren't and I know that salt is used a lot of times to draw out moisture. I froze the rest of the onions as that was my main goal for doing the onions so I'll wait and see how they come out and then decide if I will try it again. Thanks for pointing this out.

 

[aajay]

Martha Stewart showed basically that trick-with same result. Works with sweats also