A professional chef has revealed the secret to slicing onions that won’t make you cry.
Ian Sutton, chef lecturer at Capital City College, advised home chefs to start by peeling the vegetables whole and then placing them in an airtight container to store in the fridge, before moving on to dicing.
‘Once chilled, the onions can be halved and chopped,’ he said, explaining that this process is essential to controlling the tear-inducing compounds omitted when piercing the flesh of an onion.
He said: ‘The cold temperature slows down the release of sulphur compounds that make you cry.’
The chef was also keen to emphasise that the choice of tool was also pivotal to avoiding runny eyes.
‘When you are cutting the onions, use a very sharp knife. This makes cleaner cuts, minimising damage to the onion’s cell walls,’ he said.
It’s piercing these cells that releases the sulphurous chemicals that cause the eyes to well.
Offering his words of culinary wisdom, Ian Sutton, chef lecturer at Capital City College, has revealed the lesser-known trick for onion dicing that won’t leave you in tears (stock photo)
Explaining the purpose of a sharp blade, he said: ‘A blunt knife will often mean that the chef is pressing down too much and squashing the onion and rupturing the cell walls.’
Using a ‘sharp knife will alleviate this,’ he said. Additionally, the part of the onion from which to begin chopping is also important in preventing tears.
‘The root end of the onion contains the highest concentration of sulphur compounds, so leave the root intact in order to dice each half of the onion without crying.
‘The root will also help hold the onion together and provide stability to the cutting process.’
Speaking to the Daily Mail last month, Dr Dylan Poulsen, an associate professor of mathematics at Washington College, calculated in a blog post that you need to make your cuts while aiming at an imagined centre point below your chopping board.
Dr Poulsen told Daily Mail: ‘Using calculus, I found that to minimise the variance of the area of the onion pieces, a chef should aim at a point under the centre of the onion that is 0.55730669298566447885… onion radiuses beneath the centre of the half-onion.’
In simpler terms, imagine there is a point below your chopping board, roughly half as far down as the onion is tall.
‘If you try to hit that point with your cuts, rather than aiming at the centre of the onion, the resulting pieces will be more even.
However, as Dr Poulson points out, this ideal number is based on the ‘unrealistic case of infinitely many layers and infinitely many cuts.’
Chopping onions might seem simple, but according to mathematicians you have been doing it wrong all along (stock image)
In the real world, onions typically have between seven and 13 layers, and you aren’t likely to make more than 10 cuts.
Ian isn’t the first to have revealed the secret to perfecting certain cooking methods – a Michelin-starred chef recently shared a hack hack for making the ultimate scrambled eggs.
Sally Abé, who was awarded a Michelin star while at Fulham’s Harwood Arms gastropub, has drawn attention to a crucial – but often overlooked – step in the cooking process.
Multi-tasking parents may be disappointed to learn that ‘patience’ is absolutely paramount when it comes to making the protein-packed breakfast staple.
Sally, 37, who was appointed head of food at The Bull Charlbury in the Cotswolds earlier this year, said: ‘To end up with silky pillows of scrambled eggs, patience is key.’
Sharing her recipe for the ultimate scrambled eggs, she explained that the best way to start is by cracking ‘two eggs per person into a small bowl and whisk until the yolks and whites are fully mixed together.’
The next step is to add salt and pepper before heating some butter ‘over a gentle heat in a small non-stick pan until it starts to bubble but not brown’.
Only then is it time to add the eggs to the pan.
Sally continued: ‘Stir with a spatula then leave for 10-15 seconds to let the eggs start to firm from the heat. Continue to stir gently until you get nice pillows of egg.
‘Remove from the heat when the eggs are three quarters cooked and give one final stir before quickly removing from the pan, as they will continue cooking.’
And, for those who want to elevate their scrambled eggs, Sally recommends stirring in a spoonful of crème fraíche while the eggs are still in the pan.
