Inspired by a truly awesome Captain Awkward post

[commodorified]

About 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.

Comments

[james_g4clf]

The Victorinox small paring knives are great too - stainless, but can be kept sharp with a steel (and have dishwasher safe handles).

[dreamwaffles]

My mom has two of them, I've been hinting about them for Christmas or birthday gifts for a while. The paring knife I have is one of those ones with a bright-colored blade and it seems to be holding its edge just fine without much honing, which is nice because I want it to keep its pretty colors....

[james_g4clf]

Nice thing about these Victorinox blades (see post on knives in dishwashers above) is that Victorinox use a variety of stainless steel which [A] holds an edge; [B] refreshes with a steel (note, says the irritating pedant, that a honing steel does not actually hone knives, but simply realigns the metal along the edge - everyday English is at odds with the actual physical process); and [C] keeps its edge in a dishwasher if it's put somewhere where the cutting edges do not bang against other stuff during the wash. It's a long time to your birthday - so there's one in to post to you from my stash of "Victorinox paring knives for giving away" which I get my sister in Switzerland to replenish for me from time to time when they appear in a supermarket clearance sale.