The Maillard reaction is the secret king of cookery, the little bit of magic that turns a slab of meat into a nicely browned steak or a raw onion into a caramelized delight. We call it "browning," and it's a reaction between proteins and sugars in the presence of heat that creates the tasty flavor compounds.

I'm equal parts lazy and impatient, and always give up before my onions are nice and browned. There are a few things you can do...

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I haven't owned a microwave for a long, long time and have come to think of it as useful only for melting butter and reheating coffee. But then we decided to have a microwave candy class, ripped from the headlines of this NYTimes article on the subject, and now I know how completely wrong I was about them. They make the entire process way quicker and way easier. I'm so totally sold. 

If you're venturing into the wild world of microwave...

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