Originally published at: How Michelin star restaurants cut their onions | Boing Boing
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Like onion jello.
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Having a really really sharp knife is very much needed. For me i’m ok with roughly chopped onions, very rarely do i need to cut them into anything finer 
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I’m baffled that he lifts the knife on every cut rather than holding the tip against the board and rocking the knife on the tip. Is that the ‘right’ way to use a chef knife? I could never keep a knife steady for chopping without an anchor point.
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How to make onion pudding.
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Surely you can get the exact same result by just grating them. This just seems like an unreasonable amount of effort for no reason.
…which, I suppose, is par for the course of most Michelin restaurants.
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I’m no expert but from what i recall from other vids i’ve seen in the past… The type of knife is going to inform the technique. The technique with rocking the knife is better for the chef’s knife that has more of a curve at the tip like this:
The one in the vid that he uses seems better suited for a straight up and down chopping technique
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Ah yes, the kind of knife that I mentally refer to as a ‘why do they make this kind of knife?’ knife. Possibly other people have more balance and less tremor than I have and so can move a knife in three dimensions reliably.
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Apparently the preferred technique varies from country to country. France is a “chopping” country and Germany is a “rocking” country, but unfortunately I don’t know about other countries.
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My coordination isn’t great either, but i have nothing to prove with fancy quick knife work. I’ll take my time and carefully make my cuts regardless of what i’m using.
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Just be careful around the fingertips
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Two hours in a stew, and it doesn’t matter how you cut them.
/sniffs at fast food.
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$200 dollar entrees, now I know why, it’s the friggen onions.
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I hope he gets enough views to pay for fixing his glasses.
I pretty much do his home technique. Never did understand if the chef want the onions to dissolve into a sauce, why not just puree them in a food processor.
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The important part is how to pronounce “onion”. Similar material. How to cut an onion.
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Rock-chop is fine for stainless. But with carbon steel knives the edge could groove in to the board and chip when the twist happens with each cycle. So it’s better to lift and push-cut. You can anchor against your knuckles instead. Kitchenknifeforums will go into lots more detail…
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Notice how he angles his fingers so that the knife cuts down against the finger nails? That’s crucial for avoiding bloody onions.
(I’m talking about the chef in the OP. Vinnie, on the other hand, is totally doing it wrong)
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I just cheat and use a device with a sharp grid- slice the onion into rounds, put them on the grid, press down on the lid and perfect diced onion cubes every time. It’s a specialized device that does what a knife could theoretically do, but it’s so much faster and easier that I find it well worth the effort. Also doesn’t require throwing away large chunks of the onion as scrap.
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Try picking those onions off your pizza, I dare you.
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To save the click -
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