Dicing an Onion

The most tedious part of preparing any dish is the prep work, be it cutting a tenderloin into fillets, or pealing and slicing a dozen apples to make a pie, prep work is a necessary evil in the kitchen. One of the prep tasks no one likes is to dice an onion. For the uneducated, dicing an onion can be a time intensive task that more often than not ends up with the cook in tears. The other day I happened to StumbleUpon this YouTube video. The pretentiousness, and incorrectness of it was unbearable, and I had to come make a post about it. Here it is, the proper way to quickly dice an onion.

Step 1: Get a sharp knife. A sharp knife will be able to make smooth cuts of the cellular structure of the onion, instead of spraying the mist into the air, preventing the sulfenic acids from reaching your eye. Think of a ketchup pack, if you were to step on it, the ketchup would explode out of it going everywhere. If, on the other hand, you were to make a quick, sharp cut across it, the ketchup would stay in the pack. The same thing is true with the cells of an onion, a dull knife will spray, while a sharp knife makes a smooth quick cut.

Step 2: Cut off one end.


Step 3: Cut the onion in half.


Step 4: Peal the onion.


Step 5: Make several vertical cuts across the onion, without cutting all the way to the end of the onion.


Step 6: Make 2 or 3 horizontal cuts, going almost all the way to the end, but do not complete the cut.


Step 7: Cut across the onion, leaving you with mostly even, similar sized onion pieces. Once you get to the end of your cuts, you can either throw away the end, or save it for stock.


Note: If you listen to the "chef" in the video above, he says step 6 is not necessary. If you look closely at the picture below, you will see the group on the left is done the correct way, while the group on the right is done his way. You should notice the correct way creates similar size and shapes, while his way creates misshaped pieces that are different sizes and shapes.


This becomes a problem when you try to cook the onions. The smaller pieces will be done several minutes before the larger pieces. This will result in some overcooked pieces and some undercooked pieces. When prepping, you need to make sure all of your vegetables are the same size and shape. This will create a better dish, and with a little practice, you will be able to do this task quickly, and with less tears.

Scott