Corduroy Orange

Dear C. Orange,

Sometimes when I cut onions my eyes hurt so bad that I consider chopping with my eyes closed. Do you have suggestions for preventing this? I’ve heard a few but I forgot what they were!

Thanks,
M. Y. Eyesonfire

I’ve heard of a few suggestions, too—though I don’t know how well any of them work. Peel the onion underwater; chew gum while you’re working with it; freeze the knife before you cut the onion…. Personally, I don’t pay much mind to any of the suggestions and my eyes aren’t usually bothered unless my knife is dull, though if I’m planning on drilling a hole through an onion, I will wear eye protection.

Really, the best way to cut an onion without crying is to improve your technique when slicing onions. The fewer cell walls you break while you’re preparing your onion, the less juice is released; the less juice released, the easier on your eyes. Make sure your knife is sharp. That way, you’ll make a clean incision and have fewer burst cells.

Follow these easy steps to cut your onions while shedding nary a tear:

Begin by slicing off the stem end and the root end of the onion. You’ll recognize the root by the thin, hairy root ends that descend from it; the stem end is opposite and often has the fibrous remains of the stem still attached.

When you peel an onion, don’t use a knife! Instead, cut the onion in half through the root end.

Once it’s pared, simply remove the top couple of layers (which should only be skin) with your hands.

It should just come right off, thereby greatly reducing the amount of damage you do to cell walls. Simply by using this technique to peel your onions, you should greatly reduce your problems with crying.

Next, cut your onion as efficiently as possible, using the fewest number of knife strokes. The less your knife is moving around, splashing droplets of onion juice through the air, the less vapor wafts into your eyes.

If you’re dicing an onion, begin by making a rainbow cut all the way around the onion. This means you make incisions in an arc around the onion so you’re always cutting toward the center, no matter where on the onion’s surface you are.

To dice it, don’t cut all the way to the back of the onion: instead, keep the severed arms connected at their mutual shoulder so they’ll stay in place for you to cut accross all of them at once.

If you’d rather cut your onion julienne, your first step should be to cut out the root of the onion, removing as little apart from the root as possible.

Then, make another rainbow cut, but this time cut all the way through to the back of the onion, because you want the pieces to come apart.

Making the rainbow cut helps you to ensure that your pieces of onion have a uniform shape and size when you’re done. Some authorities will tell you to make your first incisions parallel to the cutting surface, and then to make your second set of incisions perpendicular to the cutting surface; your tertiary step in that case would be to cut crosswise and separate the onion into a dice. I say, why bother with three steps when you can get equal—or better—results with only two, just so long as you have control over the angle of your knife to always cut toward the center.

Best of luck cutting onions tear-free! If these tips don’t help, you can always spring for a pair of swim goggles!

photo credits: Aurora Sharrard, except drilling holes through onions, Jim Sharrard

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 9th, 2006 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Advice Column, How to Use Your Knife Like a Pro (tm). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.