NOW PLAYING |
Introduction: Sixty-six words to start off the show. Skip it if you don’t wish to see my scowling face or hear my mellow tones. [0:35] |
PLAY | Background Information: Before cutting, let’s get some background information on onions. Things like types of onions, how they are grown and cured, what a “sweet onion” is, and more than you care to know about “propanethial sulfoxide.” [5:11] |
PLAY | Knife Skills Review: If we’re going to cut, we need to talk knives and how to use them. All you’ll need is a chef’s knife and a paring knife, and a little bit of practice. [2:43] |
PLAY | Onion Preliminaries: Before you slice or dice, you’ll need to peel (most of the time). Like everything else, there’s a few tricks here. [3:46] |
PLAY | Dicing: Probably the most common thing done with onions is dicing. (You won’t find any chopping or mincing here.) There’s three techniques: one that most people do that I don’t like, one that few people do that I do like, and one that can yield the smallest little onion pieces you’ll ever make (and that I think is original to me). There’s also a technique for producing larger rectangular pieces. [8:10] |
PLAY | Slicing: Even with slicing I’m a contrarian. There’s the way most people slice, and then there’s the way a few of us do it. And if you want really, really thin slices, you can use a mandolin. I’ll show you a safer way. [3:22] |
PLAY | Green Onions: Life isn’t all red, white, and yellow round onions. A lot of recipes call for green onions, and I see a lot of students struggle with them. [3:36] |
PLAY | (Bonus) Chives: Since I’m on the subject of alliums, let’s discuss green onion’s much thinner cousin the chive. For some reason, a lot of cooks think you have to use scissors and not a knife for chives. Maybe they aren’t doing it right? [0:51] |
PLAY | (Bonus) Shallots: On the surface it may look like you can handle a shallot as a small onion, but there are some subtle differences. [3:53] |
PLAY | (Bonus) Garlic: Ah, the “stinking rose.” Throw away your garlic press and learn a better way to use this allium with much less waste. (I may mince words but never garlic!) [2:53] |
PLAY | Conclusion: All good things must come to an end. All that’s left is to thank everyone who helped with this video. [0:33] |