![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
commodorifiedAbout living with an Optimiser without losing your mind.
Said thread having left me with an irresistible urge to tell people how I think onions are best cut. As this is high on the list of Worst Things I Could Do over there - quite right, too - I have come back here to do it.
So, these are My Opinions:
0) Dried onions and frozen onions - which in Canada can be bought in large bags at M&M Meats, among other places - are terribly under-appreciated.
1) Always use your very sharpest non-serrated blade. The onion juice that makes you cry is released by crushing the flesh of the onion, so the more you minimise this the less irritant is released.
2) Putting the onion in the fridge for an hour -or the freezer for ten minutes, but don't forget about it - before you cut it does, actually, help.
3) Keeping your mouth tightly shut from the moment you cut into the onion until you walk away from the cutting board helps a lot, but if you once open your mouth it stops working. I do not know why this is so.
4) Cut the ends off first, so that you have flat spots to stand the onion on rather than it being able to roll around. This may save your fingers if you do get teary-eyed.
5) When you put them into the pan to cook, starting them off on low and increasing the heat in stages will minimise the amount of onion juice that gets into the air to irritate your eyes.
6) If you do end up with streaming eyes, rinse out your mouth and nostrils, not your eyes. Putting a cool washcloth over your eyes is soothing and gets your lashes clean, but your eyes are already cleaning themselves.
7) Food processors are not, in my opinion, suitable for chopping onions due to an excess of crushing activity and subsequent fumes.
Please share your opinions about onions freely - with impeccable courtesy and bountiful goodwill - in the comments. Anonymous commenting is on (on DW) but screened, please do sign your anonymous comment in some fashion; initials, nicknames, etc. are just fine, I just want to be able to tell y'all apart.
n.b. Rice Cookers may also be discussed.
Said thread having left me with an irresistible urge to tell people how I think onions are best cut. As this is high on the list of Worst Things I Could Do over there - quite right, too - I have come back here to do it.
So, these are My Opinions:
0) Dried onions and frozen onions - which in Canada can be bought in large bags at M&M Meats, among other places - are terribly under-appreciated.
1) Always use your very sharpest non-serrated blade. The onion juice that makes you cry is released by crushing the flesh of the onion, so the more you minimise this the less irritant is released.
2) Putting the onion in the fridge for an hour -or the freezer for ten minutes, but don't forget about it - before you cut it does, actually, help.
3) Keeping your mouth tightly shut from the moment you cut into the onion until you walk away from the cutting board helps a lot, but if you once open your mouth it stops working. I do not know why this is so.
4) Cut the ends off first, so that you have flat spots to stand the onion on rather than it being able to roll around. This may save your fingers if you do get teary-eyed.
5) When you put them into the pan to cook, starting them off on low and increasing the heat in stages will minimise the amount of onion juice that gets into the air to irritate your eyes.
6) If you do end up with streaming eyes, rinse out your mouth and nostrils, not your eyes. Putting a cool washcloth over your eyes is soothing and gets your lashes clean, but your eyes are already cleaning themselves.
7) Food processors are not, in my opinion, suitable for chopping onions due to an excess of crushing activity and subsequent fumes.
Please share your opinions about onions freely - with impeccable courtesy and bountiful goodwill - in the comments. Anonymous commenting is on (on DW) but screened, please do sign your anonymous comment in some fashion; initials, nicknames, etc. are just fine, I just want to be able to tell y'all apart.
n.b. Rice Cookers may also be discussed.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-04 06:55 am (UTC)It may predate everything except the domestication of onions concentrated enough to cause tears when chopped.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-04 08:03 am (UTC)*And don't even go there with tomatoes.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-04 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-04 03:11 pm (UTC)ETA Actually, the take up of tomatoes was much, much slower than that of potatoes. There are only four recipes for tomatoes in the whole of Mrs Beeton's Household Management (published 1860 or thereabouts).
no subject
Date: 2015-03-04 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-05 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-06 07:30 am (UTC)