Somehow while chatting with my friend April one day, the subject of onions came up. She mentioned how her accidentally cut through the onion while trying to dice it. This confused me. How else are you going to dice an onion if you don’t cut it through?
Turns out, she had a trick which she then told me – don’t cut the onion all the way through and dice it while it’s still one piece.
!!! Best. Trick. Ever. Maybe even better than the garlic whap.
Vertical slices from the scape to the base. And my knife.
Take your onion, cut it in half, and peel it. Or peel it and then cut it in half from base to the scape (on a side note, did you know you can use the Internet to search for Parts of an Onion to find out what the top and bottom are called?).
Cut the half in half again (horizontally, starting from the scape) but don’t cut all the way to the base.
Lay the flat part of the onion on the board.
Cut vertically from the scape again, but don’t cut all the way to the base.
Neatly diced onions
Then cut from side-to-side until all the nicely diced pieces fall off.
And you’re done! Got any tips for me? Comment in the next couple of days for a chance to win a copy of The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook. It’s a used copy (I got it at the local library book sale), but full of great recipe ideas for the frugal. Also, I won’t be around during the day, but I’ll reply when I can. Happy cooking!
OMG, I’m trying this next time I cook with onions. Which is…what time is it? I can’t believe I love onions now. As a kid I used to pick them off anything.
Okay, so this leads me to my next question: how the heck do you slice onions without crying?!? I’ve heard a bunch of old wives tales but have yet to find a sure-fire remedy, short of, “Don’t slice onions.” Yeah, that’ll happen.
Thanks!
Isn’t that crazy? I mean, so simple, and yet, I never realized it. When April told me about it, I couldn’t believe I had never thought of it. Let me know when you use it if it was successful.
As for the crying – usually I buy sweet onions or small red ones that don’t have time to make me cry. I brought sliced onions to my work tailgate party and Husband had to leave the room while I was cutting them. It was awful.
I’m thinking a scuba mask is the best answer.
Yeah, that would work…
I have been using this technique for a while to dice onions. If you pay close attention to cooking shows, you will see that this is the technique that most of the celebrity chefs use to dice up an onion.
I figure I only dice up onions about half the time, perhaps even less. I usually do very rough cuts on onions in the first place because I really like big chunks of onion.
I fell in love with onions, believe it or not, on a Boy Scout camping trip when I was about sixteen or so. Our troop was on an island in the middle of a lake, and the heavens opened up and poured on us. We spent half the time in the rain getting soaked, trying to keep the fire going, and the rain chilled us to the bone. One of the scout masters there peeled an onion and handed it to me, saying “bite into this… it will warm you right up.” I did, and it did, and the rest is history. If there is one vegetable that will always be in my refrigerator for use, it is a bag of onions.
Once I learned the technique, I did start noticing it in cooking shows. I was like, duh!!!
Eating an onion, eh? I’m not sure if I could just take a bite of one. I guess I’d have to be cold and wet to find out.
My grandpa used to take a bite out of an onion all the time! I thought he was insane and now I think you are, too.
I’ve always chopped my onions like this. I don’t know if I learned how from my mom or I just accidentally discovered it.
You can see this technique being used on the Food Network Channel any day. I first saw it on Chopped (ironically enough) and would never chop onions any other way now. Since we are on the topic of onions and there was another blog that mentioned eggplant, I am reminded of my favorite recipe of Ratatouille. It uses eggplant and pearl onions, rather than the traditional squash and chopped onions. It is so much more delicious doing it that way and so much easier to create!
Ooh, pearl onions! I’ll have to try that.
Geez, all this talk about eggplant and onions has me doing some craving!!!
And Toni from last Monday’s post won the cook book. Don’t worry… I’m sure we’ll have another one to give away soon.