What's BEST WAY to DICE AN ONION?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
- ► Support my work on Patreon: / ethanc
Do you know how many recipes require diced onion? Regardless though, countless recipes require the use of diced onion, but what's the best way to do it?
Today, we are going to explore the 3 main ways to dice an onion in the home kitchen, the traditional 3-way dice, the radial, and what I like to call the lazy dice. Each one has its own benefits such as speed or even cutting, but at the end of the video, I will let you know my verdict on which one is the best.
First up is the traditional way. This is the most common one that is taught by chef's around the world and it's the method shown in the Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
► Connect with me on social:
- Instagram: / echleb
- TikTok: / cookwithe
- Twitter: / ethanchleb
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
► Cheap, but useful Kitchen Gear
- Whetstone for sharpening: amzn.to/35lvnuv
- Scale: amzn.to/2SMht25
- 8 inch Chef's knife: amzn.to/2QLYvWr
- Cast iron: amzn.to/2tu4Bmo
- Saucepan: amzn.to/2tu4Bmo
- Wood cutting board: amzn.to/2Qkw1UQ
- (NOT cheap) Amazing Pan: amzn.to/2rW8wYY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MISC. DETAILS
Music: Provided by Epidemic Sound
Filmed on: Sony a6400 w/ Sigma 16mm F1.4
Voice recorded on Rode Video Micro
Edited in: Premiere Pro #Onyo - Розваги
Noticeably absent is the "Chop sloppily, then keep chopping the messy pile you've made on your cutting board, until you have a million random shapes that are finally about the right size" technique. This method has never failed me.
If you want to to get even better results...get yourself a Ginsu Knife! 🙄
Absolutly my kind of dicing onion, normally a two way dice is fine enough. If not I make very fine slices and then do exactly like you suggest.
Sometimes we go too far in examining our kitchen techniques. I agree. If I want a really fine dice (or mince) I just dump the dice on my cutting board and rock my chef's knife over the pile of dice until it is fine enough. I takes seconds. Sheesh! We''re cooking not doing rocket science!
The old put it in the food processor for anything more than 1 onion
I wind up doing this way too much lmao
I usually just go for the lazy dice for two main reasons:
1: It's the fastest and I just want to minimize the amount of time I spend cutting onions. I didn't enter the kitchen just so a bloody vegetable could break the geneva convention by attacking me with chemical weapons.
2: I'm really not comfortable with the horizontal cuts in the traditional dice. It seems like an really easy way to also dice your left hand which would probably ruin the taste. It also just tends to fall apart for me, resulting in a worse and less even chop than just the lazy method. I guess this might have something to do with how sharp the knives in my kitchen are, but I mean, they cut things alright. But they aren't quite scalpel levels of sharp where it basically meets no resistance. Besides, the onion is already doing a fine job at being chopped horizontally just by having those layers.
Exactly, it's a lot easier with horizontal first. It's also pretty obvious, I don't get why he would do it the other way around in the video...
An alternate method is to quarter the onion. Do vertical slices, flip the quarter on its other flat side and do vertical slices again, which will be perpendicular to the previous cuts. Since you don't have to slow down so much for the "horizontal" slices, it's really not much slower, especially if you slice 2 quarters then join back up for the cross-cuts.
Get a steel or ceramic rod...use it early and use it often and your alright knives will become very useful tools with 30 seconds of maintenance.
Chill your onion and sharpen your knives and you won't cry haha
But yeah, half of the time I also don't bother with the horizontal cuts. A couple uneven pieces won't ruin any dish that I know of
Summary: I do the lazy because I'm lazy like all of you guys.
In the video you referenced, Marco actually uses the "lazy" dice, his reasoning being that when you cut an onion as finely as he does, there is no discernible difference between 2 cuts or 3 cuts. The dice he is looking for is so small that it easily melts in a hot pan, and adding an additional slice at that point simply wastes time.
Following that advice, I use the lazy dice for my onions, and go for thin slices. The uneven chunks that occur in your version don't happen, you save a lot of time, and you don't have to make an awkward sideways cut.
If you are cutting them less thin, doing just one sideways cut a third from the bottom before you do the straight or slightly angled vertical cuts makes it easy to do and you still get the benefit of reducing the long pieces.
Might not be worth it to do it Marco's way if you have a food processor though eh?
Not really important but I just felt the need to point out that onions don’t melt
@@Kryptnyt depends on the result you want. A food processor won't cut it all down at the same rate, and it'll be making onion juice or paste out of some parts by the time other parts are very finely diced. That may or may not be a problem depending on what you're planning to do with it.
@@WillM555 eh, they don't melt but the pectin breaks down & they soften considerably. Combine that with an extremely fine dice & they effectively stop being perceptible as individual pieces.
The most important part about dicing an onion is realizing the onion isn't an onion. Its... An onyo.
holy shit i read it with the accent
Legendary.
and the onyo becomes oño
now slice the oño
Great advice
I use the lazy because I don’t really give a shit. I’m not cooking to impress people, I’m cooking to feed myself good food and slightly more uniform diced onion pieces won’t matter when I’m done making fried rice.
If I really need finely diced onions I’ll just do smaller cross cuts.
Especially considering that the onion has separated layers... What do the horizontal cuts even achieve?
Mobin92 ok, obviously you didn’t watch the video. And if you’ve ever cut an onion, you’ll notice that some pieces are way bigger, and for someone like me, who likes the flavor and not the texture, I gotta put it at least one horizontal cut just to keep the pieces on the smaller
It makes logical sense the more you cut it the more smaller the pieces are. If you want even smaller use a food blender lol.
I'm the same way. I love onions, I put them in just about everything I cook lol. I've done the tradition way a bunch of times but for me, it doesn't make that much of a difference in the end. Also feel doing the cross cuts is a good way to injure myself in a hurry with a really sharp knife, haven't yet, just adds that extra potential. So for me, I like to stick to the 'lazy' way.
even if you cook to impress someone 3 way dice is not neccesary imo
if the person you're cooking for is more worried about slight differences in cut sizes instead of being appreciative of being cooked for its not someone i would care to impress anyways
I got in the habit of using a radial cut and for most things it's perfect.
me too ! I naturally cut about 20 lines down the lines of the onion. small pairing knife is best
I'm partial to the radial dice. I think that one may be best if you don't have the sharpest knife.
my tip for even finer dices and to prevent the uneven sizes of outer larger pieces and smaller inner pieces: every second cut goes only halfway the distance from outside to the center :)
Same. All it takes is the ability to not cut onions like the fucknuckle in this video, and instead like a person who can cut onions 😭😭😭
But the size discrepancy is larger...
As a side note for the radial version: Kenji said (somewhere in his POV-series; can't remeber the exact video though...) that you should not actually cut to the center of the onion half but to an imagined point below the cutting surface for maximized evenness.
And actually cutting straight to the center without crossing your cuts is very difficult.
nobody cares cut those onions and throw'em in the pan, done.
@@higgs135 the point of this video is about the best ways to cut onions tho
i also remember that but don't remember the video too but he said u should aim for 0.6*radius below the chopping board.
@@ChocoChopsticks I just angle the first and last two or three cuts at about 45°.
Whichever method you use, the layer next to the "paper" layer should also be discarded for most recipes. The taste is quite a bit different.
And is ofter quite hard !
Never experienced this, and I cook with onions daily
@@prismglider5922 .. Blind taste test and you will. For most onions, the concentration of skin vs meat is the biggest taste difference.
I happen to call the "lazy" cut the "I cut myself doing the horizontal cut on the three way dice and don't want to do that again."
Rotate the Onion 90 degrees and do more vertical slices. Also having a really sharp knife helps, if you need to use enough force that the knife can jump towards your hand too fast for you to be able to react, it's probably not sharp enough. A really sharp knife should almost glide through it, meaning you can be very precise and don't have to put much force behind it, allowing you to control where it is and have less risk of the knife slipping and coming for your hand or arm.
Growing up in a restaurant family, the method taught to me by the Chinese chefs reverses your radial cut and makes it easier and faster: prep the onion into halves as you showed. Then cut it into slices that are essentially the same as the *final* slice of your traditional and radial methods. This leaves you with a stack of slices. Push that stack of slices over like a set of collapsed dominoes so they are mostly flat on the board, but still laying on top of each other. Now make the radial cuts downward into the cutting board. The knife angle changes to different clock positions, but in this case the clock is laying flat on the cutting board. Every cut is made with the knife travelling vertically and straight into the cutting board. This method avoids those non-vertical cuts in the traditional and radial methods, which can be awkward for some.
Yeah, though you do have to have a higher tolerance for the sting. Leaving the root end on results in far less spray of those super-fun sulfur compounds, especially combined with a very sharp knife.
You forgot another cut, called the Crying Onion Cut. It's where you use a butter knife
I use the back of a butter knife for extra tears 😭
I use bare hands (a rock is optional)
Chuck Norris doesn't cut onions. Chuck Norris orders them to separate themselves
Once we lost the key to the knives at work, so I had to use a butterknife, or the handle of a fork, if I recall correctly.
Lol
I’ve always wondered why methods always suggest doing the vertical cuts before the horizontal. For me it makes sense to the horizontal cuts first while the onion has a stronger structure so there is less chance of slippage.
the horizontal cuts are completely unnecessary
@MikehMike01 your side pieces will be 2 inches long
"Marco Pierre White or something" oof how can you not know the man who made Gordon Ramsey cry.
Ismoil ? According to Marco Pierre White, he “did not make him cry,he made himself cry. It was his choice.”
@@toptextbottomtext9833 It’s optional. You don’t have to use your real tears, stock pot will do just fine.
Péťa there’s no recipe for crying. One stock pot, two, four, it doesn’t matter. You’ll get your tears.
@@TheAndersDanilet Depends how you like it, you can use anywhere between 3-6 stock pots. For me personally, i'm gonna use 12.
@@toptextbottomtext9833 Man that seems like a great way to excuse being an asshole
Obviously you haven't seen a random indian guy chopping an onion blindfolded.
From alex’s video
Ouaaaaaais!
Yes, but that is more a show than actually speeding it up. Someone has to peel the onions for him, which takes longer when you don't cut them in half.
@@TheSwedishRider nope, not so. Just score a side and peel around.
true
As a CIA graduate, why in gods name does it teach us to cut downward first? It's infinitely easier and more precise to do the lateral cuts first
I was confused for longer than I should’ve been about the CIA.
@@Jay-629 i was more surprised that the culinary institute of America actually existed, i had seen it used before only as hinting at another Organisation. And yes you guessed it is Christians in action. ;-)
@@Jay-629 what better way to get spies into places than having them cook meals for people.
@@Jay-629 lol, same
Watching this video reminded me of recent reading on how trees are processed at the sawmill. The Plain sawn, rift sawn, & quarter sawn methods are almost identical to the dicing methods presented in this video.
I worked as a prep cook in a traditional french restaurant. When you are required to do it a specific way (traditional) and you chop at least a hundred onions every day, that's the way you do it. I haven't worked in a restaurant for 30 years, but I still chop onions that way. But you're right, for most dishes the lazy way is good enough.
I started the radial dice in the 70’s when I did my own cooking. As much time as I spent in the kitchen watching my mother and grandmother, I don’t recall their methods. The radial made more sense when I observed the natural structure of the onion.
Isn’t it strange the habits we learn, and how we adhere to traditions.
I mostly use the “lazy dice” after years of doing the traditional way, it was actually Racheal Ray who changed my mind. I saw a video of her showing that the horizontal cuts were totally unnecessary and it just clicked.
After watching many vids on dicing onions, I found this. Perfect breakdown on the pro's and con's of all methods. My hat comes off to you Sir Ethan!
Don't know exactly how I stumbled across you, but I'm sure glad I did! Great videos!
I think there is nothing lazy about understanding the structure of the onion and knowing that I will get the same cuts without horizontal strokes of the blade.
With just one horizontal cut you radically increase the efficiency of the "lazy" dice. You get sharply diminishing returns past that first cut.
Agreed, half the onion first, remove outermost layer, slice horizontally and then the vertical lazy-dice.
if i am beeing lazy and extra smart, i cut horizontally not the whole slice, but only on the sides for the 2-3 outside layers that usually have the biggest pieces.
@@Hamachingo
>Agreed, half the onion first, remove outermost layer, slice horizontally and then the vertical lazy-dice.
yeah, this is how I do it, no idea why they teach you to go vertical then horizontal, that just makes it harder, and way easier to cut yourself if your finger slips.
I dice absolutely tons of onions at work (gallons), for big onions, exactly how you said, one slice 1/4 inch from the bottom maybe 2 if the onion is massive, then lazy especially for a small dice.
for small onions just lazy, at least depending on what its going in, it usually wont matter if you have a bigger piece here or there.
That makes sense to me. You can see on either side that there are wide pieces if you cut straight down. If you put one cut through that wide bit you'd fix it. I do radial myself but I have to admit the traditional way seemed to give a smaller, more uniform dice.
The horizontal cut accomplishes literally nothing
a sharp knife is key. trust me not fun cutting an onion with a dull knife
my eyes are tearing up just thinking about it
I liked cooking before, but I started to love it when I sharpened my knives. I used to avoid dishes that required diced tomatoes on weeknights. Dicing tomatoes was my arch-nemesis.
I have exclusively used dull knives for cutting anything. I can confirm that onion is an abomination to cut unless you are me who now doesn't get effected that harshly by it.
Oh and why don't i buy a good knife - i am stupid that's why.
@@MarkyIsNow just sharpen what you already have
@@ulasonal yeah. I usually end up with randomly cut squashed tomato
When it comes to the traditional, I always do the cuts parallel to the surface first. That way the onion stays together a bit better, and I have greater control over the size of the dice.
You have to try doing the traditional dice the way I learned from my Chinese family. We cut the onions into quarters before dicing so all the slices can be vertical. It's easier than the traditional with horizontal cuts and I find I dice onions faster that way.
you forgot the REALLY lazy method by Jamie Oliver: toss the onions in a food processor and pulse a few times.
Or the even lazier method: Buy them already sliced (frozen or otherwise).
I like the traditional method. Let your wife cook.
@@eisberg5249 very funni haha
Unless you are doing a shiton of onions thats not lazy at all. It'll take like 5x longer to clean all the food processor parts compared to cleaning a knife and cutting board.
@@gredystar8333 that's a very good remark. I use the food processor mostly when I need to chop up a lot of veggies
I started doing the radial dice for a reason not mentioned in the video. By using the natural ridges of the onion as my guide while cutting radially, I divide fewer onion cells. This means that I get less onion spray up in the air and fewer tears in my eyes. If you don't have a good tolerance for cutting onions, use the radial cut.
Side note, you can still do the traditional three-step method using the radial cut.
I've always felt so bad for those who have a low, or no, tolerance for the onion spray. It has never affected me at all, but my mother had to cut them under water.
Marco Pierre White, a legend. Dubbed the first celebrity chef.
He used to cook with the tears of Gordon Ramsay.
Now he just uses Knorr stock pots instead.
@@ramue5749 Cooking is about flavor. And he can buy lots of great ingredients with the money he gets from selling that stuff.
I usually cut the lazy way unless I am cooking for someone and care about the presentation, where I would go traditional :)
Spot on with what I do!
How does it matter tho? Not like its a huge difference in texture - unless you serve just the onions
I feel like the difference for me between the lazy dice and the traditional dice is so minimal at this point I automatically lean towards traditional, but if the number of onions start to stack up in a dish (5+) I feel no shame breaking them down lazy dice way. The real people I fear are those who use the 3 slice way on individual cloves of garlic.
David seymour
oops, guilty...
I just sort of go ham on my garlic, tbh.
For the radial cut you should aim from the outside to a bit below the center, I think Kenji Lopez mentioned this once in one of his videos. The idea is that if you aim towards the center then the onions closest to the center end up quite small, but if you shoot below then the onions closest to the center don't suffer the same problem as badly.
Modified radial. On outside make a couple of angled cuts (but not towards the center and then transition to vertical ASAP.
I do a blend of the radial and lazy dice. The "vertical" cuts aren't angled in to the centre, but they do angle in somewhat as I get nearer the edges of the onion. This has the advantage of keeping the curved pieces shorter on the edges, without the finely cut mess at the centre where all the radial cuts converge.
I learned a variation of your traditional dice from my mother when I was very young. I use my 'traditional-variation' method when I make my own salsas - where I want small enough pieces to stay on the tortilla chip. My method doesn't require cutting the onion in half, and I feel like I get pretty good results. However, I think your 'traditional' demonstration has me voting for it!
Ethan, I am like you--98% lazy but when I want a more controlled or quick cook, the trad cut provides a better result.
I actually prefer option D, which is a hybrid between the lazy and the traditional. If you quarter the onion, by splitting the halves in half. You can do a few vertical slices, then flip the onion 45 degrees on its other face, and do a couple more vertical slices to effectively get the horizontal cuts of "traditional", but doing so in an easier, safer, vertical manner. Proceed to the cross chops and you get to the same end as traditional, with only a couple more (non-scary to novices) slices. Blew my mind the first time I saw someone do it.
Lazy cuts is the best and the most efficient.
In the traditional 3 way cut, the horizontal cut is really redundant because onion are *ALREADY SLICES*, except that the slices are arranged circularly (radially).
The radial cut is going to give more even pieces *ONLY IF* one can angle each cut precisely and right to the center, otherwise the cuts are going to be not exactly the same size (and who needs them to be that precise anyway).
the traditional cut still produces smaller pieces than a lazy cut, most people won't care but I hate the texture of onion and love the taste. So I use traditional to get them to the right size.
I do a kind of a hybrid of two: radial dicing at the edges and then just lazy dicing at the center (say the middle third)
I combine the radial dice with the traditional dice method, by incorporating radial cuts for the first 2 or 3 cuts, switching to vertical cuts through the midpoint, and then finishing with 2 or 3 radial cuts. Then proceed with the horizontal cuts, then the final vertical chop.
Lazy dice, but honestly I rarely use even that.
Most of the time, I don't want to dice up a whole onion, or even half of an onion. I want enough for what I making at the time. So what I do is cut the onion in half, and remove the outer skin from that half. Then I just cut off slices on the perpendicular and dice them on a cutting board.
This gives me a granularity that I can easily control, and just the right amount of onion.
Horizontal slicing is totally futile because an onion is already "sliced" horizontally.
You May have missed the diagram. Onions are NOT sliced horizontally, though I get what you are saying. They are ‘sliced’ in a radial pattern. This mean the dices are almost vertical on the ends, and almost horizontal in the middle.
@@timbrophy Yes, that's correct. I should have chosen a better description.
@@BANKO007 Right, so... you _do_ understand why to slice horizontally as well, then?
Thanks for taking the time to do this analysis. I'll keep sticking with my lazy dice method :-)
I use the traditional cut, but find that doing the horizontal cuts first. I find it easier to control the onion during vertical cuts, after the horizontal are already there, than the reverse.
I'll sometimes do an inbetween of lazy and traditional. One horizontal cut along the bottom takes care of most of the larger pieces.
If I need a pretty onion dice or just one or two onions, I will do the threefer. If I am needing lots of chopped onion, I will throw 5-6 or more, onions into my onion chopper, and hit the button. The truly lazy way to chop onion.
SLAP CHOP
@@SimonWoodburyForget Idk about you, but I hate cleaning my food processor.
@@SimonWoodburyForget Lul, chopping an onion is like a 20sec job. And then I don't have to pull out an appliance and clean it afterwards.
Why is this so calming to watch? Maybe it’s the cutting board sounds
I use the radial dice. I feel like it is a compromise between the traditional and the lazy dice. I do not find making the angled radial cuts difficult and often use the striations on the onion as a guide which is oddly satisfying to me! Thanks for a fun video!
It’s pretty cool to see Tosh.0 is into cooking.
I'm going to like after 10 seconds just because of the music choice.
I subscribed at that part lol
I do traditional mostly, but have grown to appreciate the mpw tech from one of your other videos
After learning the traditional, I've never gone back to the lazy dice. It's just so much more consistent.
Since the onion is in layers anyway, never understood need for horizontal cuts...
it's the difference between the two-way and three-way cuts. The two-way will have some larger chunks which will take a tiny bit longer to cook than the rest giving a non-uniform cook. It will give you more texture though because of that inconsistency, which may have its uses depending on the dish.
It's not a cake, its an oño, there's no left or right side, its radial, its oño.
Ya, I don't bother either.
Lazier dice: lop off the root, chop down end-to-end. Just hold it together a bit as you do the horizontal cuts and you're fine. It's fast, and you get chopped onion. I can't be having with all these fiddly partial cuts; I have a day job.
The triple cut comes from commercial kitchens where consistent size pieces are key to a consistent product with consistent cook times. Home cooks are only making the one dish in all likelihood so whatever works works. But the knife skills behind chopping/dicing onions is an eternal pro-chef vs amature-chef thing, and as youtubers need to look more professional they will likely use the triple on camera, even though it doesn't matter at all to a home cook - like you said.
I do the Radial dice. the Fumes are greatly reduced when cutting an onion this way, and the Radial diced slivers are also a great texture. When living with my polish mother in law, she liked my radial dice method so much she would ask me to cut up the onions so that the smell was less in the very small kitchen. so I got a lot of practice and got quite good at it. * :) watching your knife skills on the Radial cut I knew you didn't do this method much, :) *
Love hearing Peter Sandberg in the background. Whenever I hear him now I’ll need to cut onions! Great video, thanks 😊
Woah!!! The moment u said "Marco Pierre white or something" that man deserves respect mate ..he is a legend!
I have been doing the radial dice for several years now after I figured out how to do it right. You're not doing it in the manner that makes it easy and consistent. Here's the way to get consistent radial cuts, easily.
Make the center cut. Then make the 45˚ cut on one side, then split each of the quarters in half with radial cuts. Turn the onion, and repeat: make the 45˚ cut then split each quarter with an additional cut. That's seven radial cuts, making each wedge 1/8th of the half-onion. Cutting something in half is easy to do accurately. If you do it this way, you can very quickly do the radial cut. You should also not have to turn your hand in the awkward position of cutting radial cuts where your hand is cutting outward at an angle. That is uncomfortable and not likely to give you a consistent and accurate cut. That's why you turn the onion and do the cuts from the position which is most comfortable.
If you do the radial cuts this way, it involves fewer cuts, and gives you consistent pieces. That's how to do a radial dice the optimal way.
First time learning about the radial dice, will try it out!
Guess my mom taught the Lazy (2-way) dice. Who knew! And I have always cut both ends off. I learned something new. So that's why my onion usually slips away from me and I have leftover pieces to chop or dice more. I love these UA-cam videos.
1. Bless you for showing people how to cut an onion.
2. I feel called out for the calling it the "lazy cut"
3. Marry me because no one else that I deal with knows how to use a knife.....
The moment he said "lazy dice" I knew it was the one for me
this is a weird add on technique for the radial slice that i learned at chipotle: face the root towards your body and use the square end of the knife, pushing in and away from you. it was a little weird to learn but it was definitely faster. if you don't have to cut 50lb of onions though it might not matter.
You gotta do the horizontal slice before the vertical ones. It makes it so much easier. I don't know why no one on UA-cam does it that way.
Exactly! I'm a radial guy in most cases, but when I need a smaller dice, this here is the best option.
Is anyone gonna point out how sweet Ethan’s ‘stache is?
Needs to twist some handlebars up in there
Is anyone gonna point out how sweet Ethan is?
Learn to dice an onion 101
Step 1) Buy a cutting board that has more grip than your local water slide
You have my sincere respect and gratitude sir. That was a great solution to one of life's problems.
I used to use the lazy cut, then Alton Brown taught me the radial but now I just the 3-way. The 3-way gets me the best control and results and I've just gotten better at doing it. I've started dicing my onions more fine, more often, too.
1:06 I was not expecting culinary slapstick, this made me laugh hard
I think you mean slapjulienne
Make the lazy dice easier: remove the outer layer, cut the top and root off, cut them in half and then 'lazy dice'.
I thought everyone did this.
Me too, just remove top, remove bottom, take of skin and half (or half and than take of skin) and just cut the onion, no need to analyse 3 different methods
@@arandomlanguagenerd1869 EXactly, my bru. xD
@@samgrant83 I do that, never did it any other way, it works just fine mate
This is a good video, it brings a tear to my eye.
I've never heard of the lazy dice, I've always used the traditional dice. Recently learned and been trying the radial dice (I don't like it nearly as much), but the lazy dice is definitely going to be used in my kitchen!
Maybe the best way is to do a modified traditional cut: do a single parallel cut about 0.5 inch / 1 cm from the bottom. That will result in more evenly sized pieces.
yeah if you think about where the lazy dice has downsides, it's only on the bottom pieces. your suggestion gets you 95% of the efficacy of the traditional with less work.
Interesting to learn about the radical, I've usually do the traditional way, still can't stop crying. Do chefs cut so many onions their eyes just adapt?
sharp knives make the difference
sharp knives help. Apparently blunt knives crush rather than cut the cell walls and hence release more...err...tear producing gas.
Put them in the refrigerator a little bit prior to cutting!
Great video like alwasy!
I use the 3 of them! I use the lazy about 80% for the daily basis and 20% on guests and something fancier/no onion evidence. I used the radial in spite of lazy about once a month when I feel like it
I was taught the radial dice in school and it has served me well in fine dining establishments.
Here, fixed the title for you:
"How do you dice an OÑO"
I’ve never understood the ‘traditional’ method as there is no need for the horizontal cuts. The onion is layered so it falls apart that way anyway. All that happens when you put the two slices in is that bits fall off
As a kid I learned the lazy cut from my father. Then as I got more into chef cooking, I learned the radial cut. And while I did that all the time, I am like you. It is hard to do and get good pieces and the onion wants to fall apart. Seeing the three techniques (and I'm watching this to prepare for cooking a pot of cuban black beans) I'll go with the 3 way cut from now on. Noticeably more consistent size and that is what makes for an even saute.
I grew up in a Mexican kitchen and the traditional cut was the method of choice for salsas and other onion-heavy recipes. The lazy cut was used occasionally for recipes where size consistency wasn’t so important.
I wanna say, Radial method is quite inefficient.
The slanted knife strokes aren't ergonomic in the least. Not to mention pointlessly dangerous.
Lazy dice or 2 way dice is most preferable Dice.
Disagree. Once you develop the skill, it's second nature and you avoid the big chunk problem.
I've never seen a problem with small chunks but big chunks can be a real issue.
The 2 way dice is scary and inefficient. IMHO.
@@michaelgrier can't argue with the skill logic since If someone practiced the radial way they are surely gonna prefer that and that's totally fair.
But I wanna know how radial dice is more ergonomical in your eyes?
As far as my understanding goes, you have to change the direction of your knife for every cut (the slight slant every time)
And you aren't going straight down, so it'd be comparably difficult cut down since it would mean not going down with gravity.
I
So how is it that 2 way/ Lazy cut is less ergonomic in your opinion?
PS. I do agree the final result of the diced onion will be slightly different but the difference is way too small to Actually make any actual difference.
I'll use the radial cut if I'm going for long pieces (radial then cut the root off), but not for a dice.
meh, down cuts are all I need, no crosscut, rock my knife back through one time if I need anything smaller. I've never had diced onion be that critical in a recipe
I like to cut every third onion the lazy way, so that there are some larger delicious chunks. Variety of the chop is cool, and hence I think slicing garlic is the way to go
Originally I learned the 3 way and have stuck with that. It is easy to make horizontal and vertical cuts. The radial method looks interesting as it looks like a combination of the other two methods, since diagonal cuts are like cutting both vertically and horizontally at the same time.
This video was going so well until ... "Marco Pierre White or something" oh my ..... First British Chef to be awarded three Michelin stars and former mentor to Gordon Ramsay
the horizontal cuts are pointless as they are already built into an onion.
Yaaaas
are you blind or deaf?
@@LK25278 yes
@@LK25278 everyone saw the video, 1-2 bigger pieces can be chopped after doing the onion
@@Tushii yeah true, or you can just do as i do and make 1 horizontal cut instead of three. Do a cut at the part of the onion thats closer to the board, if you look at the onion structure that should solve most of the problem.
I had no idea I was cutting onion in a traditional sense. This gives me the big happy.
Home cook in my 20 years of being with my lady, I usually go with the “lazy” method but I make my initial cuts tight together. Only if I’m say prepping onions is a raw garnish like for chili dogs, will I then go with the traditional cut for a more even dice.
Point is, if I’m cooking onions, the “lazy” method is more than fine, especially when the initial cuts are tight together.
Lazy? So pretentious. It’s not that serious, it’s food.
The best way to dice an onion is "however" and then to not watch any nine minute videos on the best way to dice an onion.
I always used the lazy dice with two slightly angled (radial) cuts on the side, to avoid the big uncut sidepieces. But I also do cut the root end of right at the start and hold everything together while cutting... Has always worked way better for me...
I just diced an onion tonight when I made pizza from scratch. I ALWAYS use the traditional method but with my own twist...I make the horizontal cuts first. I find that it's much easier rather than dealing with all of the little "fingers" created by the vertical cuts. I then control the size of the dices with my crosscuts. I can easily make finely minced onions by crosscutting very fine and then rocking my knife through the diced onions...fantastic on chili dogs, etc.
Let's rename Lazy, sufficient in most cases and quit being pretentious.
Sometimes (when I need a *REALLY* fine dice), I start by quartering the onion, then take a quarter, make a lot of close vertical cuts, roll it 90 degrees, make another bunch of vertical cuts, then slice finely from the stem end. It takes a little longer, but you avoid the "dreaded" horizontal cuts.
I do the traditional dice but on the ones parallel to the board, I turn some 50 to 60 degrees as if joining the cross and parallel cuts together. A few pieces remain for the final cross cut. Very quick and even.
Another excellent video 👨🍳
I believe in Kenji's recent video on Ragu (or was it lasagna), he shows by doing the radial dice but with the center of the radius below the onion (as opposed to the root) gives more even pieces. And perhaps it'll be easier to cut finer too
I do a half and half of radial and lazy. Lazy method in the middle 2 thirds and a couple angled cuts on the sides. A nice of balance of simplicity, stability, and evenness.
Alton Brown taught me radial cut and it's served me pretty well over the years.
May years ago I learned the lazy way from Chef John Pierre. The 'Onyo' guy.
Thanks for sharing the other 2 ways.