Rachel, The hairy end of the onion is the root end and the other end is the stem--the part grows above the soil line. So glad to know that my way that I have used for a 50+ years is ok with you. That first layer under the skin is most often soft/mushy and is tough and is bitter, so I trash that. If the stem end shoulder is softening, the onion has not been kept cool and the onion is beginning to sprout. If you see a greenish section connected to the stem when you cut the onion in half, dig that out with some of the surrounding soft tissue--again to get rid of the bitter and mushy and tough part of the onion. Once grocers remove onions from a cooler, the natural thing for an onion to do is to begin its growth cycle inside of the onion bulb. Do not buy onions with soft shoulders. Soft shoulders are not sexy for onions.
THANK you for correcting that.. cuz she has it backwards in this vid.. very STRANGE vid.. she seems VERY distracted... and looking like she missed a lot of sleep.
Quite right. If you've ever had an onion sprout on you, the leaves come from what she calls the root end. Anyway, her onion cutting technique is perfectly fine for a large dice. For a smaller dice you should do the horizontal cuts first. That way you cut in all three dimensions. There are lots of ways to cut an onion. I have even held an onion in my hand and diced it when there was no cutting board available. Cut off the end, hold the onion with the cut side up, cut one way then the other, about 1/2 inch deep, making a criss-cross pattern on top. Then slice the cut part off into the pan. Repeat as needed.
@@WastrelWay Yeah, the little rooty hairs are the root end. I never use a cutting board. I cut off some of the root end, enough to peel off the papery skin and one layer. I use the point of the knife to cut down into the stem end, going around in a circle to gouge out the stem. Then I start widening out that stem-end hole by cutting around and around. I either make thin slices, or thicker cuts and twist the knife to break off chunks. I leave most of the root end in place to hold the onion together. It ain't pretty, but I don't mess up a cutting board.
Did you just think that it simply didn't occur to expert chefs that they are doing something that serves no purpose? There is a reason culinary schools teach the horizontal cut method... because if you do only vertical cuts... you get sections that are inconsistently long... and requires follow up dicing if consistency is important. If it isn't... your lazy method may save time... but it isn't a hack... it's just skipping a step. But as it turns out... there is a hack... and that is to do radial cuts instead of vertical cuts... this results in a great consistency without having to do horizontal cuts or any follow up dicing, because there are no abnormally long pieces.
I asked the same question in a slightly more roundabout way when I was new in the kitchen. My trainer gave me this long uncomfortable stare and explained that it’s okay to Rachel Ray around the kitchen if you’re cooking for yourself but a meal has to be presentable if you are charging people money for the meal.
My eyes are extremely sensitive to cutting onions (although I love eating them, raw or cooked); I always get my husband to cut them while I am out of the kitchen. I tried Rachel's way and was done so quickly with my one onion, I didn't have time for my eyes to respond! Fantastic! Thank you, Rachel. :)
I bought one of those tiny fans you use for manicures in warlmart they are like 3.99 and the are super tiny I turn that on and facing m to cut onions, peppers, etc. Its also a way to keep you cool while cooking i love it. I always do my prep on center island and my window is over my sink so I don't get the breeze..
I watched your show when my oldest was one year old and he learned to recognize your voice and would cheer, “Rachel Ray!” He’s now 18 and a big help in the kitchen.
You want to remove that layer that she leaves. This is the way we learned in my culinary school. French chefs have been doing this for hundreds of years. Not really a "hack". Also, she is wrong about which is the root end.
@@skateurself Gained that money from housewives who use her as a source of knowledge because they don’t know any better. My husband, a professional chef, can’t stand her.
Two things reduce onion tears: 1. A really sharp knife. A dull knife crushes the onion making the juice spurt into the air and into your eyes. 2. Turn on the fan especially if you wear glasses. Have the fan pointing at your back or the ceiling fan pointing to your feet so the air is moving away from your eyes, you don't want to push more onion juice into your eyes. So if you start crying, get out the sharpener and flip on that fan and stop suffering! xoxo from sunny Arizona. 76/56f today.
I was 13, with an older sister who watched a ton of food network, and I learned to cook. 20 years later, I’ve been a professional c*** for 10 years, and this is basically how I cut an onion mostly (I actually use a radial cut - but that’s nitpicking). Thanks Rachael!
So easy! Thank you Miss. Obviously (well it is obvious now!) you cut the onion in half before you peel off the skin and it saves you having to chase the slippery beast around the kitchen!
Good one! I dislike the arrogant way "professional" chefs tell us their traditional method is the only correct way and the rest of us plebs are wrong! Nonsense... The traditional "Choice of Chefs" method is unsafe because of the dangerous cutting toward the fingers. Further, it shows an astonishing disregard for the nature of the material being cut into, in that onions are layered, and they will separate along their natural fault lines anyway. Don't need a college degree to figure this out but it is so refreshing to hear you affirm this, Rachael. I've always recognized this through personal observation, not through studying at some toffee-nosed college for chefs. Yet so few of the "pros" will admit to this! Tell it the way it is, Babe! I liked this so much I hit the Subscribe button. An admirer from The Land of Oz (Australia)
I just really really love how you break it down like visually or by using associations, like picturing the little man. That's something I can remember and use. Thanks!
So funny, I figured out to do it this way when I started cooking at 16 and didn't know any better; once I saw how "real" chefs do it I have always been a little embarrassed that I do it "wrong", so happy to see you do too!!
I can’t believe it! I have been cutting my onions this way and always wondered why these people that went to culinary school always slice across the onion. That is such a hard way to dice it! The smaller the dice the smaller you cut the first layer.
I just learned this way of chopping an onion, but if some onions aren't fully ripe, then the pieces stick together in chunks and you kind of need that horizontal cut. But it's a difficult and dangerous cut to make, so I learned a variation of it on America's Test Kitchen: Take the half onion as Rachel did, make those vertical cuts toward the root end as she did, and when you're half done, slice the onion all the way through so you end up with two onion quarters. Then flip the quarter onion 90 degrees and make new vertical cuts----these would be horizontal cuts if you didn't flip it 90 degrees. Safe, fast, more precise, and brilliant!
Rachael is my favorite Chef. Ramsay gave me the gist of it, but there's just something magickal about watching Rachael. She really does go into everything I make, and I mean that in the least crazy way possible.
Thats the same technique that i thought of. The step that she skips is probably for more consistent dices, but i think when someone cooks at home, it dont need to be Done. I think that the layers are already thin enough and dont Need to be cut more with the horizontal slices through the onyo. Chef pierre also mentioned it. Very informative technique 👍🏻
That skipped step doesn't make for more consistent dices. Even if you look at onions cut at "Michelin stars" restaurants, they're not using this step. It's just a bad technique.
@@youuuuuuuuuuutube okay. I saw gordon Ramsey doing the other Method. I think it depends on the way they learned it in Cooking School or whatever Institution
hi Richie Ray actually the part with the hair that's actually the root part the top end that you called the root that's the top part of the onion have a blessed day I learned so much from you thank you
Ermm... I'm pretty sure that's not the root end. Also, the horizontal cut, while not necessary, is useful in maintaining a more even dice if I understand it correctly. I have found it to be reasonably safe when using a sharp knife- not so much if I fail to maintain my knife's edge.
Yeah, actually, I did listen. She said she thinks "that's stupid because the onion came out of the ground already in layers." I simply made a comment about why the horizontal cut is NOT stupid. In fact, if you just draw a diagram, it's pretty intuitive that the horizontal cut helps with consistency. And regardless of whether it's HER WAY of cutting an onion, she's still wrong about which end is the root end. So don't correct me again.
What are you even talking about? You don't get a "your way" when you're talking about which end of the onion is the root end. The root end is the end with roots. Period. Don't talk about me being on a high-horse when you are trying to tell me I didn't listen. I simply explained why people would make a horizontal cut. I didn't even say her way of cutting it is wrong. So just go away.
Pardon me, but you commented less than an hour ago, and I replied to that. It's not as though I came back to some random comment I made months ago. Still, you should find something better to do with your time than acting like you're too stupid to understand what I said.
I've always been baffled if people say something like "that way of dicing an onion is wrong". If it's safe effective and fast, what else is relevant? I've never been one to follow the crowd, and I slice my onions in an even less conventional way. I cook to achieve results in my food, not to impress culinary school graduates.
I like it in theory, not in reality, because it almost gives me the same feeling I get when I hear "if I'm going to get in bed again at night, why should I make my bed in the morning?"
Rach is totally wrong about the life hack on cutting onions without crying. I saw a tictok video a friend of mine put up on FB and she said she tried it and it worked. I was like REALLY?! All you do is take a paper toweling get it wet and put it on the cutting board. Then Cut the Onion on top of it just like Rach did. THE CHEMICAL Component that MAKES YOU CRY goes to the WET PAPER toweling NOT YOUR WET WATERY EYES. I was SHOCKED when tried this. You have no idea how damn happy I was that it was TRUE! YES TRUE! I'm the type of person that had the goggles and they didn't work very well I tried so many things and spent money and TO FIND OUT A DAMN WET PAPER TOWEL UNDER the ONION is the TRICK I was so over the MOON it was not ONE MORE THING I had to buy. I even put my eyes within about 2 inches from the onion after just cut and NOTHING!!! Enjoy everyone :)
Goggles do work! As long as you stuff tissue in any area that might be open to air. I cut 30 onions using safety glasses, tissue and blue tape, without a tear! It did fog up a bit, but I could still see enough to chop. 😁
Wes Mix thought that's how you are suppose to cut an onion? Never done it any other way. Beside watched my mom who is a chef so guess that's why I was cutting it right the first time.
I don't recall who told me this or if the logic is true. But it works. Grab a paper towel, scrunch it, Wet, I mean drench the paper towel. Place dripping and all on the cutting board. I haven't cried in years. Apparently the wet paper towel draws the acid instead of your tear ducts.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong I did this exact method and the onions are not all diced. A lot of it sticks together and just doesn't dice... Maybe a sharper knife?
You absolutely can chop an onion without crying by leaving the root intact... The root is the hairy bit.. Not the other way round like you said so lots of misinformation in this video. Use a pairing knife to cut out the root first { similar to opening the top of a pumpkin) before you slice the onion in half and voila no tears
When I started home ec in school at 12 this was the first thing we learned in class , American people usually do it the more complicated way but in Ireland nearly everyone is taught how to chop an onion like that
I hope Rachael actually does know which end is the root and growing tip and just misspoke, 'cause she got it ass backwards (twice!) in the video!! But I like the method of cutting in just 2 directions 🧅
To be honest I never understood why “chefs” were cutting onions horizontally (nature had already done it) so it was a pleasant surprise to see that I wasn’t the only one to skipping that step…I’m amazed though that not a single person in her team mentioned that the “hairy bits” were in fact the roots!
@@kevinportillo5751 I’m afraid you don’t, if you introduce horizontal cuts you are in fact dicing into 3, the downward cut, the horizontal cut that you suggest and finally the natural “cut” with the curvature of the onion.
I prefer the alton brown radial method. Onion layers are round, so just make every cut toward the center of the bullseye and each piece will be identical.
Crying?....Great song by Roy Orbison. KD Lang did an amazing cover of this song. I found that if I put a fan blowing across the area I'm cutting, the gasses end up taking a hike. If your kitchen's cold, put on a sweater, if your kitchen's hot, well it turns out it's one of those win win things. This really does work. I discovered this when my dog was farting all the time, I got out the fan, put him down wind, problem solved...true story.
Bowl of vinegar and water, 1:1, nearby will help with an “older” onion and lessen the effects from the gas that’s emitted while chopping/slicing. It won’t eliminate it completely but it’ll help if you’re working on a lot of onions. She is right though, just work fast and be done with it.
The "hair end" IS the root end! So you take off the "tip end" (blossom end). RR's method is in no way different than that used by trained professional chefs. Some of them just add a horizontal cut (parallel to the cutting surface). TBH, that horizontal cut, also called "suicide cut", is an unnecessary show-off move to show how sharp your knife is.
I always love watching you and your shows, when I started out watching, you always been my favorite!! Thank you for keeping it real and entertaining me for 20 years!! I forget sometimes you're on at 1:00 here, I need to remember and watch you!! I loved your 30 min meals!!
There is a bulb inside at the root side. If you cut down diagonally around this bulb and then pull it out, the rest of the onion will be much less eye tearing.
Apart from not knowing the root from the top, she is right that the horizontal cuts taught in (some?) cookery schools are unnecessary. Cut out both the root and the top turning the onion around the tip of the knife. The close 'grain' next to the root will hold it together. Then halve, cut down, and lastly across.
