At this point I'm convinced the main force of energy that keeps Kenji going is the spite he feels towards whoever keeps disagreeing with him about the best way to cut onions.
jean pierre recently made a very popular short saying horizontal cuts/other methods are pointless and it kinda hurt my soul to see victims of that video pop up everywhere
I have to comment every time this topic comes up because (for me) the #1 fantastic way to eliminate onion tears is to blow a small fan across your cutting board. I have one of those little table fans always plugged in and under my counter. Without it, I'm a blubbering, sneezing wheezing mess. With it on, I can stick my face right on top of the cut onions with no problems. Try it!
Me too! Or if I'm trying to be really "resourceful"? - frugal - and I'm doing fried onions but also a boiled accompaniment, I'll boil that outer layer instead of frying - it's the frying that makes it go tough.
I'm so glad to see your second method, because to me the horizontal slice feels awkward and dangerous. And I loved your drawing of the cells. Now I'll never forget which way to slice for strong versus mild flavors.
I've followed the chopping advice you've talked about in earlier videos and found it improved my technique. What I feel is an additional improvement before the chopping part, is leaving what you call the stem end and cut so I leave 2-3 layers intact. Then I use them as a leverage to bend the onion apart. Depending on the water content of the outer layers I can then simply pull off the outer layer I want gone on both sides. In a very satisfying manner at that. Saves me a lot of time in my daily chopping :)
Finally! Addressing dicing onions non-generically. Here's my twist: I also angle my polar cuts, and do not make a horizontal cut. Instead, adjusting to the size of the onion, I make 3-4 spaced-out cuts TO the board (rather than to ~.6 below). Then, I make shallower cuts in between these, only half way down to the board. For a particularly large onion, I will even make cuts in between these, going down only a few layers. This avoids making those tiny pieces in the center. I also angle my orbital cuts. At the stem end, this keeps the onion from becoming splayed. At the stem end, it keeps me from needing to flip the stub over, as you showed. All of this gives me that equal dice necessary for even cooking, with the fewest moves. Speaking of that, I noticed that you used a board scraper to move the bulk of the product into a bowl, and then to sweep the remaining amount in. Why not just slide your cutting board forward a little, and rake it all in with your knife? This uses (and washes) only one implement, and keeps your fingers and your hand towel cleaner. -- Feel free to share.
Thanks for the knowledge about cutting onion. I open the air flow of the room when I cut my onions. It helps my eyes. And we layered the onions especially for the clear soup in traditional way. Greetings from Myanmar.
“There really is no other way” to avoid tears when slicing onions? I use a small table fan! I’m an old retired scientist (octogenarian). 8 decades ago I saw my mother crying while cutting onions. When I asked why she was crying she said it’s the onions. I immediately got a fan we used during the summer and pointed it at the onions. Turned it on. Voilà the fumes did not go up into her eyes. No more eye irritation. No more tears. Now, you can say you learned this from an old retired scientist who, at the age of 7, figured out how to stop his mom from crying when she cut onions.🤣
Just love Kenji. Currently working my way through the Food Lab and it's by far the best book I've read on cooking. And that WIRED wok tutorial was a game-changer
I've been cutting onions for about 40 years - I love that there are infinite new things to learn about the simplest of things. I'm very impressed with the technique based on the computer model. It really helps with something that has plagued me for years, so thank you for that!
My eyes are super sensitive to onions so I used swim goggles for years. But now I put my cutting board on my stovetop (assuming it’s cold) and turn my relatively high-powered hood fan on. As long as I don’t put my face right over the onions, I never shed a tear and it’s way more comfortable than the goggles. But for sliced (vs chopped or diced) onion needs, I’m going to try the lateral slicing next time, thanks!
@@mariehud7382 It makes sense too, as the first layer is beginning to dessicate; sometimes you come across a partially dessicated layer. Also, I was pleasantly surprised at Kenji 's pop up notice to be courteous in the comments 👍
I love the kitchen space in which he works, where everything is close together to save steps and aching feet, and the windows for enough natural light and to see what's going on outside. Also love the handy dandy knife display. But I do wonder about storage space.
Excellent tutorial. I've seen a few onion slicing tutorials (a strange claim), and this has been the most thorough, clear, and the preferred technique (mathematically recommended lazy radial) was well justified.
i rarely use a knife these days. i have a Breville food processor that does all the slicing and dicing for me. my slicing disc is variable, so if i twist the bottom, it adjusts the slicing thickness. but i mainly use the dicer discs. perfect dice in 2 seconds, along with whatever other veggies i am cooking with. i'll also dice mirepoix, trinity, and soffrittos in freezer bags. it's easier to just dump a bag of them into a pot or pan during the weekday instead of chopping and prepping veggies when i'm exhausted coming home from work. i dont even slice bread anymore. i'll ask the bakery to slice a loaf for me since they have the equipment. knives are overrated. 😂
My first day of the open house for high school, we took a tour of the biology lab. Some student volunteers shows us onion cells under a microscope, which was revealing as Kenji mentioned. I volunteered a few years later - each one teach one (onion)...😅
I like to do this offset radial technique, but with the heel of the knife. I grew up cooking with chinese vegetable cleavers, where it's common to do delicate work with the heel because it affords better control.
I’m excited to see you post a proper video about this! I’ve been following your updates on Reddit and sharing the paper done with your mathematician friends. And every now and then you would pop into an interview with other chefs or youtubers and mention this technique. The onion gods applaud you for your pursuit of oniony perfection
I learned so much in this one video.... so glad I found your channel today. 👍😎👍 So far I've been OK with just safety goggles .... not sealed like swimmer's goggles but much better than nothing. Will try the pole to pole cuts next time. I hope you have a great recipe that uses lots of onions 'cuz I think you cut 4 or 5 up. I have a scoopy-metal-thing but never thought to use it for picking up onions.
Bro I have never seen any of your videos in my life, and I came across this and immediately subscribed. Like this is dead to the earth educational and I love it. Thank you.
I really think that you have a lot to teach and are a great resource. I was so happy to see that you had a standard camera episode with these onions so I went to your channel to see if that’s your new format. Unfortunately for me I can’t watch your normal formatbecause the moving angles make me nauseous. But I do love what you do.
So I’m sitting in my recliner watching a variety of UA-cam videos and yours pops up. I figure, what the hey, I’ll watch a video on slicing and dicing onions. I’m always receptive to learning something new. You didn’t mention it in your video but I think that I understand why you only cut the stem end off at first. When processing the onion it stays together better with the root end still attached. I’ll do that next time because I cut both ends off and the onion sort of falls apart when I start slicing it. I also didn’t realize that the direction that you slice is related to how strong tasting the resultant slices will be. Thanks for the information.
That’s a great video on cutting onions. One thing though my mom used to bite on a slice of bread on hold on to it until the cutting is over, this way it shields the fumes so you don’t tear in your eyes.
Love your vids. A trick my dad taught me to avoid teary eyes is to whistle while cutting. 😊 Sounds weird but it actually works. Probably just because you blow the gases away from your eyes. On the same note, not leaning in above the onions helps some in my experience.
I love how you explain these things. Knowledge is power in every medium and knowing the science behind cooking has helped my cooking immensely, and you were no small part in that, so thank you Kenji for your vast knowledge and pure passion and enthusiasm. ❤️
I've been doing the cut you demonstrated with the radial cut at 1.6 the radius of the onion, but I've been doing the orbital cut first. then the radial cut. It's harder to keep the onion together, so I'm going to do it your way. And when cutting strips, I only do the radial cut and the strips stay pretty uniform. Thanks for the mathematical lesson! I was wondering if anyone had ever actually done the calculations. Don't ya just love the science/math of cooking?
I have never owned a knife as sharp as the one you used in this video. Even the fancy chef's knife I bought last year can't cut through an onion that cleanly and quickly.
Make sure you learn how to use a whetstone! No knife will hold an edge eternally, and putting it to the stone once a month could drastically improve results. Also, honing before each use (dragging along a steel rod) will straighten the edge (as opposed to grinding a new edge) to keep your cuts smooth.
I have been using a small cleaver for years for everything and hone it with a steel every few months and it cuts just like that , paper thin , you can shave with it , put it to the stone when i first got it and that was it , just looked at it and there is no writing on it at all an don't remember where or how i got it but it's a 6 inch cleaver , think some kind of stainless , the wife often brings knives home from the church for me to sharpen and i have found some i just couldn't get an edge on an others i could but wouldn't hold it at all then some like this cleaver not only take an edge but keep it for seems forever , somebody probably knows the answers out there about the metallurgy involved i don't , i do know just because you spent 200 bucks for a chefs knife doesn't mean it will be a good one , i would go to yard sales or something , pick up cheap ones and try to sharpen them to find one that's works for you instead of throwing money out the window in this world of ripoff artists we live in today , my two cents
Try a guided sharpener, such as a Lansky. You can arrive to disturbingly sharp blades. I now don't sharpen my knifes as sharp as I used to do, because it is too easy to cut yourself by just touching lightly the blade with the back of a finger.
Great stuff - I've just realised how useful it is to leave one of the ends on to keep the onion together until you've finished cutting most of it! Does it matter if it's the root end or the top though? I'll have to experiment. I use a tip I heard years ago to avoid onion-tears, just make sure your mouth is open and somehow breathing that way avoids the gases entering the nose. I'm not convinced they get in your eyes, but I think they irritate the nasal mucous membrane and that makes you cry. If I start stinging, it reminds me, and it works every time. If you cut radially, you can avoid the different sizes of the sections to some extent by not quite cutting to the centre on alternate cuts. One other tip - cutting onion rings, not covered here - I always try to lean the onion so that it rests at the point where the knife meets the board. That's a long way over at first, then upright at the centre. I then turn it round and do the other side, leaving the "equator" to slice very carefully supporting it on both sides.
I've been cutting radially for years when dicing onions! It just makes more sense! Something I came up with on my own when doing the radial cuts is to do most of those cuts (about ½ to ⅔ of them) only partway through. That way the bigger outer layers get more cuts than the smaller inner layers, and the pieces will also be more even in size.
@@BxKRs Same. I've been doing the offset radial thing for years because it gave me an even dice pretty efficiently. My other habit is once I get about halfway across, I rotate the whole thing 180 so I'm always holding a pretty stable portion. Cutting until the last bit then letting it fall seems much more efficient and I'll try to incorporate it. Never stop learning !
Last summer I stumbled across using a desk fan while cutting onions to stop the tear-fumes wafting into my face. Not worth taking a fan out each time you want to make dinner, but good if you happen to have one handy.
The geometry involved in the imagined point below the cutting surface is extremely similar to the geometry involved in billiards/pool bank and kick shots. What you mentioned is akin to the "ghost table" method a lot of players use to visualize their target angle, but there are also others such as the "X" method that uses the target pocket's opposite pocket to visualize triangles on the table using your cue as a tangent visualizer, determine the tangent point that becomes the aiming target on the rail, and ultimately remove the guesswork on the angle in/out. I'm not sure if you've ever written any articles or done a deeper reveal of the math that went into this, but it'd be awesome to see how you two got to the conclusion that you did with onions.
The radial way is what I do! I probably don't go to the 0.6 depth, a bit shallower but something to try next time. One other thing I do is cut into half again, so I can keep cutting from the right rather than twisting the knife around the wrong way, makes it feel a bit safer for my fingers
Great video as always! I've been using your onion-cutting method for years now! I also bought that scoop thingy you use to put all cut vegetables into the bowl and my brother gifted me a wooden box for salt similar to yours since he knows I'm a big fan, haha
As a home cook, I've always just diced the same way you showed slicing. I have tried the methods leaving the root end on, but i always go back to what I'm familiar with.
I’d really love it if you explored traditional Mexican and Indian onion dicing techniques. They seem very similar, and neither one uses a cutting board or traditional chefs knife. The process also does not involve initially halving the onion. Thank you Kenji!
I learned how to dice onions at Taco Bell when everything was prepared by hand. They had us cut both ends off, peel, then cut pole to pole. Each half then got sliced, then turn 90 degrees and slice again. It takes practice keeping onion together after turn, but very efficient. Thanks for your video 😊
I've always naturally aimed my radial cuts well below the cutting board since it just felt Right to me, and it's nice to know that it's vindicated by a proper mathematical model.
I read the links you included in your Patreon post and they were interesting. The difference between 0.55 and 1/phi is pretty minimal and phi is a good place to start because it is a value so ubiquitous in nature.
Great video, as always! One additional technique I've seen is the one made famous by an Indian street food vendor, who uses a long knife, angled so that when chopping the heel doesn't cut all the way to the chopping board, while cutting along all three dimensions to dice the onion. Could be interesting to see you try that!
Thanks for your videos. If anyone is worried about the wastage, they can use the ends, skins etc when making stock. They can go in the freezer with other ends etc you save for stock until the day you make the stock.
I love seeing you talk about removing that outer layer because I don't think a single other onion cutting tutorial I've seen has mentioned that and I've been doing it myself personally for years now just based on the vibes because that outer layer really is different from the inner ones. Do you ever find yourself removing the core bit after splitting the onion in half before chopping? Maybe it's just my local supply but I always feel like these bits just green and off putting while being very little actual lost onion to just pluck out.
You had a friend build a computer model of an onion to determine the most efficient way to slice an onion? I am totally subscribing to this channel. . . . 🙂
My theory on the orbital vs polar cutting difference: cutting polar slices along the longer sides and more orderly structure, causing more shearing away of groups of cells and any piercing is superficial. While orbitally, you cut along the more interlocked structures, causing more piercing of cells and all the way through. Source am biomechanics researcher and guessing everything
Rick Bayless often deflames raw onions in dishes like guacamole by rinsing them under cold water for 30 seconds to make them milder and less aggressive. What do you think about deflaming onions?
Excellent video, but may I add one more technique? The standard slicing technique demonstrated results in slices of different diameters as the knife works its way in from the periphery into the center of the onion. Instead, I take the half onion and stand it vertically on one of its flattened poles, and then cut radial slices around the onion, which results in all slices having the same dimensions. The only drawback is that as the remaining piece of onion gets narrower and narrower, the central core tends to pop out.
@@Imadov so agree! Less slipping around when making the vertical cuts. And in the interest of Kenji’s efficiency mantra, one less change of plane for your cutting ;) just need to rotate the onion
Do you have a new playlist for these knife skills? I want to check them out. Gonna give these onion tips a go tomorrow when I prep dinner and practice them 😁
I have seen other videos where you can put a wet paper towel on the cutting board next to the onion. The wet paper attracts the eye-burning chemicals. No more tears. I’ve had success with this method myself.
Interesting! I knew that about the taste but I like spicey food so for me it does not matter. But my heart aches when I see all food you waste! I cut away the roots and after cutting the onion I save thoose pieces together with that first layer in a bag and put it in the freezer. Perfect to use when making a stock and if the first layer have started to dry out o got a little brown it does not matter, that gives the stock a beautiful color. I also save the drye layers if not to muddy or having some mould on them and use them to dye wool/wool yarn. They give a beautiful yellow color on white wool and terrific greens on grey wool. I am so in for zero waste, it saves space in my garden and help my budget enormously! If I can not use some but still is edible I give it to my chickens or put it in the compost bin and get beautiful soil back to feed my garden beds. 😃
Never knew why I prefer an orbital cut! Definitely do not want the word "sweet" anywhere near my onions. They should be strongly bitter and, as you say, pungent. Great explanation!
Hi everyone.
@@JKenjiLopezAlt Hi Kenji ❤️
Love your videos you saved me during COVID
sup
Heyo
Big love Kenji.
This video, your work. You're truly making a difference in peoples lives!
At this point I'm convinced the main force of energy that keeps Kenji going is the spite he feels towards whoever keeps disagreeing with him about the best way to cut onions.
Yeah, I just love the armchair experts
I love how Kenji's onion cutting method matches exactly what Townsends found in a cookbook from 400 years ago. Why do humans forget common knowledge?
jean pierre recently made a very popular short saying horizontal cuts/other methods are pointless and it kinda hurt my soul to see victims of that video pop up everywhere
@@lusteraliaszero Jean-Pierre's unstated point was just cut them small so they cook a little faster, because he always cooks the hell out of them. 🙂
@@WastrelWay I can assure you that is not what people took away from it
For years, I have checked the internet about dicing onions but this can be the only second or third time I ever saw that it explained well. Thank you.
Imagine having Jacques Pepin just pop in on you at work.
As a relatively new onion-chopper, this genuinely cut my onion-chopping time in half!! Thank you!!
I have to comment every time this topic comes up because (for me) the #1 fantastic way to eliminate onion tears is to blow a small fan across your cutting board. I have one of those little table fans always plugged in and under my counter. Without it, I'm a blubbering, sneezing wheezing mess. With it on, I can stick my face right on top of the cut onions with no problems. Try it!
I use the same technique, it works wonders!
@@fisch723
I’ do this, too. I also use the fan when dicing fresh jalapeños.
Yup, standing next to my stove with the extractor fan pulling away the fume helps but is less effective than your method though
Or just wear contacts 😜
I have a battery powered one-no cord to fuss with. I use this especially when batch cutting onions for the freezer (I grow my own onions).
Moooom, Kenji is nerding out on onions again.
Great vid Kenji
that's why we listen whenever Kenji is talking. Let the nerd flag fly (the "Spock" of cooking!).
Wow!! I'm just a dude that cooks for family and now I feel enlightened! I've been doing it.. but now I'll do it more effectively. Thanks.
My habit of discarding one layer of onion along with the papery skin, vindicated by Jacques Pepin himself. 😌
right?
Me too! Or if I'm trying to be really "resourceful"? - frugal - and I'm doing fried onions but also a boiled accompaniment, I'll boil that outer layer instead of frying - it's the frying that makes it go tough.
I'm so glad to see your second method, because to me the horizontal slice feels awkward and dangerous. And I loved your drawing of the cells. Now I'll never forget which way to slice for strong versus mild flavors.
I've followed the chopping advice you've talked about in earlier videos and found it improved my technique. What I feel is an additional improvement before the chopping part, is leaving what you call the stem end and cut so I leave 2-3 layers intact. Then I use them as a leverage to bend the onion apart. Depending on the water content of the outer layers I can then simply pull off the outer layer I want gone on both sides. In a very satisfying manner at that. Saves me a lot of time in my daily chopping :)
Finally! Addressing dicing onions non-generically. Here's my twist:
I also angle my polar cuts, and do not make a horizontal cut. Instead,
adjusting to the size of the onion, I make 3-4 spaced-out cuts TO the
board (rather than to ~.6 below). Then, I make shallower cuts in
between these, only half way down to the board. For a particularly
large onion, I will even make cuts in between these, going down only
a few layers. This avoids making those tiny pieces in the center.
I also angle my orbital cuts. At the stem end, this keeps the onion
from becoming splayed. At the stem end, it keeps me from needing
to flip the stub over, as you showed. All of this gives me that equal
dice necessary for even cooking, with the fewest moves. Speaking
of that, I noticed that you used a board scraper to move the bulk of
the product into a bowl, and then to sweep the remaining amount in.
Why not just slide your cutting board forward a little, and rake it all in
with your knife? This uses (and washes) only one implement, and
keeps your fingers and your hand towel cleaner. -- Feel free to share.
Is it something wrong with me or right with me? Super excited to come home from work and watch Kenji talk for 13 minutes about onion prep!
@@Hugh_Hunt Another reason why UA-cam rocks!
Going pole-to-pole for sweetness. 🧅
Thanks for the knowledge about cutting onion. I open the air flow of the room when I cut my onions. It helps my eyes. And we layered the onions especially for the clear soup in traditional way. Greetings from Myanmar.
“There really is no other way” to avoid tears when slicing onions? I use a small table fan!
I’m an old retired scientist (octogenarian). 8 decades ago I saw my mother crying while cutting onions. When I asked why she was crying she said it’s the onions. I immediately got a fan we used during the summer and pointed it at the onions. Turned it on. Voilà the fumes did not go up into her eyes. No more eye irritation. No more tears. Now, you can say you learned this from an old retired scientist who, at the age of 7, figured out how to stop his mom from crying when she cut onions.🤣
Just love Kenji. Currently working my way through the Food Lab and it's by far the best book I've read on cooking. And that WIRED wok tutorial was a game-changer
I've been cutting onions for about 40 years - I love that there are infinite new things to learn about the simplest of things. I'm very impressed with the technique based on the computer model. It really helps with something that has plagued me for years, so thank you for that!
I failed at onions for years .... Then I painted my fingernails and it made all the difference 😉 cheers
My eyes are super sensitive to onions so I used swim goggles for years. But now I put my cutting board on my stovetop (assuming it’s cold) and turn my relatively high-powered hood fan on. As long as I don’t put my face right over the onions, I never shed a tear and it’s way more comfortable than the goggles. But for sliced (vs chopped or diced) onion needs, I’m going to try the lateral slicing next time, thanks!
Remove the paper skin first.
Try a sharper knife
Love onions, new techniques, your big white book, The Food Lab & love your nails 💅
I loved the Jacques Pepin tip…you have to love that guy.
@@mariehud7382
It makes sense too, as the first layer is beginning to dessicate; sometimes you come across a partially dessicated layer.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised at Kenji 's pop up notice to be courteous in the comments 👍
Love you Kenji. It’s always stop, listen, learn. Thank you for your heart.
A cut above the rest! 😉
Not only do I love this onion-meets-knife tutorial, but the way Kenji does it makes me smile throughout! 🖖🏽
I love the kitchen space in which he works, where everything is close together to save steps and aching feet, and the windows for enough natural light and to see what's going on outside. Also love the handy dandy knife display. But I do wonder about storage space.
Excellent tutorial. I've seen a few onion slicing tutorials (a strange claim), and this has been the most thorough, clear, and the preferred technique (mathematically recommended lazy radial) was well justified.
i rarely use a knife these days. i have a Breville food processor that does all the slicing and dicing for me. my slicing disc is variable, so if i twist the bottom, it adjusts the slicing thickness. but i mainly use the dicer discs. perfect dice in 2 seconds, along with whatever other veggies i am cooking with. i'll also dice mirepoix, trinity, and soffrittos in freezer bags. it's easier to just dump a bag of them into a pot or pan during the weekday instead of chopping and prepping veggies when i'm exhausted coming home from work. i dont even slice bread anymore. i'll ask the bakery to slice a loaf for me since they have the equipment. knives are overrated. 😂
The word you want is frugal. You are being frugal with your onions when you don't waste anything.
Very interesting video. Enjoyed it. Learned a lot.
Frugal was the word that came to mind
My first day of the open house for high school, we took a tour of the biology lab. Some student volunteers shows us onion cells under a microscope, which was revealing as Kenji mentioned. I volunteered a few years later - each one teach one (onion)...😅
I like to do this offset radial technique, but with the heel of the knife. I grew up cooking with chinese vegetable cleavers, where it's common to do delicate work with the heel because it affords better control.
I’m excited to see you post a proper video about this! I’ve been following your updates on Reddit and sharing the paper done with your mathematician friends. And every now and then you would pop into an interview with other chefs or youtubers and mention this technique. The onion gods applaud you for your pursuit of oniony perfection
I learned so much in this one video.... so glad I found your channel today. 👍😎👍 So far I've been OK with just safety goggles .... not sealed like swimmer's goggles but much better than nothing. Will try the pole to pole cuts next time. I hope you have a great recipe that uses lots of onions 'cuz I think you cut 4 or 5 up. I have a scoopy-metal-thing but never thought to use it for picking up onions.
This was such a great video..and super fun to watch…I will forever look differently at the way I slice onions! Loved this!
Love this! Ive been "lazy radial" dicing onions for years. Just kinda meshed the two techniques I had been show over time.
Bro I have never seen any of your videos in my life, and I came across this and immediately subscribed. Like this is dead to the earth educational and I love it. Thank you.
I really think that you have a lot to teach and are a great resource. I was so happy to see that you had a standard camera episode with these onions so I went to your channel to see if that’s your new format. Unfortunately for me I can’t watch your normal formatbecause the moving angles make me nauseous. But I do love what you do.
So I’m sitting in my recliner watching a variety of UA-cam videos and yours pops up. I figure, what the hey, I’ll watch a video on slicing and dicing onions. I’m always receptive to learning something new. You didn’t mention it in your video but I think that I understand why you only cut the stem end off at first. When processing the onion it stays together better with the root end still attached. I’ll do that next time because I cut both ends off and the onion sort of falls apart when I start slicing it. I also didn’t realize that the direction that you slice is related to how strong tasting the resultant slices will be. Thanks for the information.
That’s a great video on cutting onions. One thing though my mom used to bite on a slice of bread on hold on to it until the cutting is over, this way it shields the fumes so you don’t tear in your eyes.
I love dicing onions radially. Thanks for lowering the center point for me! It helps! This is faster and more efficient!
Love your vids.
A trick my dad taught me to avoid teary eyes is to whistle while cutting. 😊 Sounds weird but it actually works. Probably just because you blow the gases away from your eyes. On the same note, not leaning in above the onions helps some in my experience.
Great Video! I just tried the diced technique, aiming for below the cutting board and it really works to get an even dice! O
I love how you explain these things. Knowledge is power in every medium and knowing the science behind cooking has helped my cooking immensely, and you were no small part in that, so thank you Kenji for your vast knowledge and pure passion and enthusiasm. ❤️
I've been doing the cut you demonstrated with the radial cut at 1.6 the radius of the onion, but I've been doing the orbital cut first. then the radial cut. It's harder to keep the onion together, so I'm going to do it your way. And when cutting strips, I only do the radial cut and the strips stay pretty uniform. Thanks for the mathematical lesson! I was wondering if anyone had ever actually done the calculations. Don't ya just love the science/math of cooking?
I have never owned a knife as sharp as the one you used in this video. Even the fancy chef's knife I bought last year can't cut through an onion that cleanly and quickly.
Make sure you learn how to use a whetstone! No knife will hold an edge eternally, and putting it to the stone once a month could drastically improve results. Also, honing before each use (dragging along a steel rod) will straighten the edge (as opposed to grinding a new edge) to keep your cuts smooth.
I have been using a small cleaver for years for everything and hone it with a steel every few months and it cuts just like that , paper thin , you can shave with it , put it to the stone when i first got it and that was it , just looked at it and there is no writing on it at all an don't remember where or how i got it but it's a 6 inch cleaver , think some kind of stainless , the wife often brings knives home from the church for me to sharpen and i have found some i just couldn't get an edge on an others i could but wouldn't hold it at all then some like this cleaver not only take an edge but keep it for seems forever , somebody probably knows the answers out there about the metallurgy involved i don't , i do know just because you spent 200 bucks for a chefs knife doesn't mean it will be a good one , i would go to yard sales or something , pick up cheap ones and try to sharpen them to find one that's works for you instead of throwing money out the window in this world of ripoff artists we live in today , my two cents
Try a guided sharpener, such as a Lansky. You can arrive to disturbingly sharp blades. I now don't sharpen my knifes as sharp as I used to do, because it is too easy to cut yourself by just touching lightly the blade with the back of a finger.
@@uffa00001 Yep those cooks that say a super sharp knife reduces cuts are nuts
Wow that was amazing, what a educational experience, thank you ❤❤❤
I sometimes set up my cutting board underneath the fume hood of the oven and turn the fan on full blast. 😁
Thank you! I knew all of these techniques, but didn’t think about the cell shapes and impact on pungency. Very helpful.
You slice thinner and more regularly than I can with a mandolin. Amazing.
You slice with an instrument? 😅
@@wat4036 Like a normal person.
I prefer to use a vintage gibson les paul
Great stuff - I've just realised how useful it is to leave one of the ends on to keep the onion together until you've finished cutting most of it! Does it matter if it's the root end or the top though? I'll have to experiment.
I use a tip I heard years ago to avoid onion-tears, just make sure your mouth is open and somehow breathing that way avoids the gases entering the nose. I'm not convinced they get in your eyes, but I think they irritate the nasal mucous membrane and that makes you cry. If I start stinging, it reminds me, and it works every time.
If you cut radially, you can avoid the different sizes of the sections to some extent by not quite cutting to the centre on alternate cuts.
One other tip - cutting onion rings, not covered here - I always try to lean the onion so that it rests at the point where the knife meets the board. That's a long way over at first, then upright at the centre. I then turn it round and do the other side, leaving the "equator" to slice very carefully supporting it on both sides.
I use a small battery powered fan that blows across my cutting board when I cut onions. Work great.
I just commented the same! Hope more people try it.
A commercially available product or homemade? I've wanted something directable for frying mushrooms for years.
I can see this perhaps being necessary if you cut a bushel of onions.
I've been cutting radially for years when dicing onions! It just makes more sense! Something I came up with on my own when doing the radial cuts is to do most of those cuts (about ½ to ⅔ of them) only partway through. That way the bigger outer layers get more cuts than the smaller inner layers, and the pieces will also be more even in size.
Glad to know I was intuitively doing some things correctly, and very happy to learn some new techniques as well!
@@BxKRs Same. I've been doing the offset radial thing for years because it gave me an even dice pretty efficiently. My other habit is once I get about halfway across, I rotate the whole thing 180 so I'm always holding a pretty stable portion. Cutting until the last bit then letting it fall seems much more efficient and I'll try to incorporate it. Never stop learning !
Last summer I stumbled across using a desk fan while cutting onions to stop the tear-fumes wafting into my face. Not worth taking a fan out each time you want to make dinner, but good if you happen to have one handy.
The geometry involved in the imagined point below the cutting surface is extremely similar to the geometry involved in billiards/pool bank and kick shots.
What you mentioned is akin to the "ghost table" method a lot of players use to visualize their target angle, but there are also others such as the "X" method that uses the target pocket's opposite pocket to visualize triangles on the table using your cue as a tangent visualizer, determine the tangent point that becomes the aiming target on the rail, and ultimately remove the guesswork on the angle in/out.
I'm not sure if you've ever written any articles or done a deeper reveal of the math that went into this, but it'd be awesome to see how you two got to the conclusion that you did with onions.
Pulling out the visual aid felt very Good Eats coded
The radial way is what I do! I probably don't go to the 0.6 depth, a bit shallower but something to try next time. One other thing I do is cut into half again, so I can keep cutting from the right rather than twisting the knife around the wrong way, makes it feel a bit safer for my fingers
Wow, this was a really comprehensive lecture about cutting onions. Thank you!
I'm just in awe of your eyeballs of steel against this army of onions you just sliced through
This video is the most informative, educational, and practical cooking prep video i've ever seen
Great video as always! I've been using your onion-cutting method for years now! I also bought that scoop thingy you use to put all cut vegetables into the bowl and my brother gifted me a wooden box for salt similar to yours since he knows I'm a big fan, haha
As a home cook, I've always just diced the same way you showed slicing. I have tried the methods leaving the root end on, but i always go back to what I'm familiar with.
Good one, new griddler here and this is very, very helpful
Love the format ! Seems a lot of fun to produce :) gained a lot insights from it, now I know how to cut an Onion the Kenji way ( the best way )
I’d really love it if you explored traditional Mexican and Indian onion dicing techniques. They seem very similar, and neither one uses a cutting board or traditional chefs knife. The process also does not involve initially halving the onion. Thank you Kenji!
... omg ... how skillful you are ... !!!
Love watching great knife skills.
This whole video is a giant show-off of your knife skills.
Success!! Now I'm madly jealous.
I learned how to dice onions at Taco Bell when everything was prepared by hand. They had us cut both ends off, peel, then cut pole to pole. Each half then got sliced, then turn 90 degrees and slice again. It takes practice keeping onion together after turn, but very efficient. Thanks for your video 😊
smart thinking I always try and find the most efficient way to keep doing things
Amazing, thank you Kenji! I can't tell you how many times for dicing an onion i cut myself by doing the old style cut-towards-yourself horizontal cuts
I've always naturally aimed my radial cuts well below the cutting board since it just felt Right to me, and it's nice to know that it's vindicated by a proper mathematical model.
I read the links you included in your Patreon post and they were interesting. The difference between 0.55 and 1/phi is pretty minimal and phi is a good place to start because it is a value so ubiquitous in nature.
NICE! I've been using the radial cut method since I first saw it on Alton Brown's show. I will try to incorporate the updated idea. Thanks!
Great video, as always!
One additional technique I've seen is the one made famous by an Indian street food vendor, who uses a long knife, angled so that when chopping the heel doesn't cut all the way to the chopping board, while cutting along all three dimensions to dice the onion. Could be interesting to see you try that!
Thanks for your videos. If anyone is worried about the wastage, they can use the ends, skins etc when making stock. They can go in the freezer with other ends etc you save for stock until the day you make the stock.
I dont understand why anyone would be concerned about wasting a single layer of onion 😅
I love seeing you talk about removing that outer layer because I don't think a single other onion cutting tutorial I've seen has mentioned that and I've been doing it myself personally for years now just based on the vibes because that outer layer really is different from the inner ones.
Do you ever find yourself removing the core bit after splitting the onion in half before chopping? Maybe it's just my local supply but I always feel like these bits just green and off putting while being very little actual lost onion to just pluck out.
Gotta say, love the camera work.
You had a friend build a computer model of an onion to determine the most efficient way to slice an onion? I am totally subscribing to this channel. . . . 🙂
My theory on the orbital vs polar cutting difference: cutting polar slices along the longer sides and more orderly structure, causing more shearing away of groups of cells and any piercing is superficial. While orbitally, you cut along the more interlocked structures, causing more piercing of cells and all the way through. Source am biomechanics researcher and guessing everything
Thank you! That was very helpful!!! 🙏❤️ Now I want to cut some onions!!! 😂
Rick Bayless often deflames raw onions in dishes like guacamole by rinsing them under cold water for 30 seconds to make them milder and less aggressive. What do you think about deflaming onions?
@@zaf7819 great question!
@@zaf7819 Jacques Pepein sp? also uses this method. I tied it immediately after cutting red onion for a salad, it worked beautifully
Excellent video, but may I add one more technique? The standard slicing technique demonstrated results in slices of different diameters as the knife works its way in from the periphery into the center of the onion. Instead, I take the half onion and stand it vertically on one of its flattened poles, and then cut radial slices around the onion, which results in all slices having the same dimensions. The only drawback is that as the remaining piece of onion gets narrower and narrower, the central core tends to pop out.
Fantastic! Loved this and learned so much!
Dankeschön, diese Erklärung ist einfach SUPER !!!!
Try doing the horizontal slices first, keeps things tidier 😉
Great show !
@@Imadov so agree! Less slipping around when making the vertical cuts. And in the interest of Kenji’s efficiency mantra, one less change of plane for your cutting ;) just need to rotate the onion
Do you have a new playlist for these knife skills? I want to check them out. Gonna give these onion tips a go tomorrow when I prep dinner and practice them 😁
Thank you for the education.
Great video!! I love that a mathematician was involved 😊
Hi, thanks for an informative video. This was my first time here, so I will be checking out your other videos. New follower, thanks.
🙏🏼You made that look so easy!🤩
I will watch every onion video Kenji puts out.
I'd watch any onion video really.
Looking great Kenji!
this is so helpful Kenji! Thank you!
I have seen other videos where you can put a wet paper towel on the cutting board next to the onion. The wet paper attracts the eye-burning chemicals. No more tears.
I’ve had success with this method myself.
Woah, you're on UA-cam. Fantastic! A legend.
Thank you for sharing your skills. ❤
Always looking to improve my knife skills, thanks!
Interesting! I knew that about the taste but I like spicey food so for me it does not matter. But my heart aches when I see all food you waste! I cut away the roots and after cutting the onion I save thoose pieces together with that first layer in a bag and put it in the freezer. Perfect to use when making a stock and if the first layer have started to dry out o got a little brown it does not matter, that gives the stock a beautiful color. I also save the drye layers if not to muddy or having some mould on them and use them to dye wool/wool yarn. They give a beautiful yellow color on white wool and terrific greens on grey wool. I am so in for zero waste, it saves space in my garden and help my budget enormously! If I can not use some but still is edible I give it to my chickens or put it in the compost bin and get beautiful soil back to feed my garden beds. 😃
Thanks for the nice video!
Never knew why I prefer an orbital cut! Definitely do not want the word "sweet" anywhere near my onions. They should be strongly bitter and, as you say, pungent. Great explanation!
Great job! Thank you very much! Do you paint your nails so that you can see them better and not cut them?