Unpopular opinion: your mise en place is useless if you salt your onions at the start
I watched a line cook at a busy spot in Portland dump salt on diced onions the second they hit the pan last Tuesday, and it steamed the whole pan instead of browning. It bugs me because that move pulls water out and you end up boiling them, not getting that sweet caramel color you want for a 20 minute saute. I know this because I did the same thing for two years at my old job and could not figure out why my onions always turned to mush. Now I wait until they are almost done, and the difference is like night and day. Has anyone else had a chef chew them out for this, or is it just a thing I picked up wrong?