Does onion size matter?

[@mitchellhamilton9804]

I’m no chef by any means but this topic is huge for people that may not like onions. My girlfriend adamantly hated onions until I started dicing them fine enough to “melt” into the dish I was cooking. You get most of the flavor without the visual and physical attributes. Since I’ve incorporated this method she has come around to the point that if I make fried rice without onions she asks “what’s missing?” . This is a hugely useful video for many reasons but I thought I would share mine!

[@KenDanieli]

In what other ways is she difficult?

[@gratitudegaming4992]

@@KenDanieli this is a weird ass comment to make about someone you don't know

[@KenDanieli]

@@gratitudegaming4992 Wrong. It's an awesome comment.

[@agirlisnoone5953]

@@KenDanieli not liking the texture of onions is not being difficult. Having preferences isn't being a difficult person. I feel bad for your SO as YOU sound like a difficult and intolerant person

[@KenDanieli]

@@agirlisnoone5953 It is being difficult. He'll dump her soon enough.

[@pandabooish]

Honestly, as a chef who has worked in 3 Michelin star kitchens... Your "home cooked" onions are far better than what I think most home cooks would do lol

[@poltronafrau]

Honestly, as someone who’s only cooked for his family, I think you’re right lol

[@harsharya08]

The way I see it there's three levels to every skill; Casual, Enthusiast, and Professional. Casuals just do the the thing with little thought or worry because they either have to, or enjoy it just enough to do it in some capacity but they rarely push themselves and don't think of the skill as something they want or need to put energy into. The Enthusiasts intrinsically enjoy doing the thing and they spend a lot more time and energy honing their skills and expanding their horizons driven by their passion. The Professionals makes their living through their skills and as such works to an consistent undeniable standard of quality. Additionally they spend by far the most amount of time performing the skill day in and day out for decades and are as such almost universally the best at the skill. This guy is an enthusiast and most home chefs are casuals. thanks for coming to my Ted talk

[@gutterspeak]

Boo! I know plenty of chefs and cooks who have zero knife skills as well. You could have just said better than most people.

[@gutterspeak]

Typical chef mentality

[@cathunter3874]

Ex was Blanc's head chef, used to drag me in on my day off because I was the only person in the kitchen who could get the peppers to the size of grains of rice, in a kitchen full of guys who claimed to have worked in great kitchens. They just didn't have the patience for him.

[@JimFaindel]

I've been loving these highly technical videos you've been giving us of late. I am honestly learning a lot and itching to try a lot of new things back in the kitchen.

[@EthanChlebowski]

I find them a lot of fun to make, so glad you are enjoying!

[@Adam-ur1qw]

@@EthanChlebowski Yea Ethan I sort of stopped watching your videos for a while but these types are making me click and I think it’s because it’s more relatable and practical questions that we all have. Nothing wrong with a. good mix of content though

[@perfmusic]

@@EthanChlebowski try fine dice vs in a blender?

[@zoulzopan]

I too like these theoretical cooking videos

[@j_freed]

@@perfmusic - yeah, I wonder if the extra heat and air exposure would oxidize the onion more? ? shredded raw onion soup versus tiny onion cubes… Less freaky French control of the result. Not inferior, just different. For a sauté maybe proper dice matters.

[@justinrazon7200]

I've done this but on a far smaller scale. My mom makes a dish with onions but she doesn't dice them, she just makes onion rings and add it to the dish. But whenever I do the same dish, I dice my onions and I have always noticed that mine has more flavor. So I'm just glad to see this video actually validates that I wasn't just making it up and the dicing actually does add more flavor.

[@MrTheWaterbear]

Easy rule: It depends on what you want to use it for, and how important the texture of a particular ingredient is to your meal. If you're making a slow-cooked onion soup, use quartered onions. The large pieces of onions are a feature, and the juices will have all the time in the world to disperse into the stock as it cooks. If you're adding onion to a pan-fried dish, using raw onion in a relish, or using onion in a curry paste, chop them very finely. This will give the biggest cut surface area, with rather small pieces, letting the flavourful juices readily leach into the other ingredients. In this case, onions will add flavour, but no texture to speak of.

[@Killerkraft975]

I get this similar idea from Adam ragusea using his 'heterogeneity' comparing table salt to kosher salt. It depends on what dish is being used for e.g You might want an evenly distributed flavour or you might want chunks of a certain flavour. for example a chocolate cookie vs chocolate chip cookie

[@MonkeyCycle13]

@@Killerkraft975 Exactly. I like my fried rice with 1/2 inch wide, sweet onion rectangles in it. Also this shouldn't stop us from using even both techniques in one dish.

[@SL-vs7fs]

So goes the hypothesis. Now somebody (Ethan?) has to test if this is true.

[@MrTheWaterbear]

@@SL-vs7fs And that's why he made the video. I'm just trying to be helpful and get people to think about cut ingredients more in the comments :) I hope everyone takes a little time out of their day to think about their cooking.

[@imakickurazz]

I like chunky raw onions on my hot dogs.

[@loreleikring5188]

Thanks for the advice. It's exactly what I needed. Trying to survive cancer without the help I need at home is quite a challenge when I have good days and bad days. On the good days, I'm pretty good with a chef's knife; on the bad days, not so much. I love onions and use them as often as I can, so what you've given me is a way to use them as often as I want to when I can't cut them nearly as often as I want them. You may have actually saved my life by making it more worth living. It may sound silly, but I mean it; that's how much I love onions! Happy solstice to you and everyone who matters to you!

[@Mordecrox]

And you gave me a reason to watch it now instead of later, since I'm quite comfortable with chopping onyos significantly finer than usual (thanks Gordon Ramsay), I thought this was going to be simply a matter of diminishing returns of taste vs. effort, not taking into account the curveballs life throws at you so you have to make do with diminished capabilities at some point

[@apedrazzoli]

On your bad days you can use a grater for smaller onions without too much effort. I hope you get well soon

[@loreleikring5188]

@@apedrazzoli - Hate to break it to you, but what I can and can't do on a bad day is not actually yours to know so well.

[@apedrazzoli]

@@loreleikring5188 I am very sorry that I offended you in any way. I just wanted to make a suggestion that might help you. I hope you forgive me

[@Drsavation]

healthiest person on american healthcare:

[@tommosseri2815]

I'd love to see the difference between the fine dice and a grated/ microplaned onion or onion paste. Arguably that's both easier and has the same/ more of the same benefits

[@atatdotdot]

I was coming to ask this; you beat me to it!

[@xilconic]

+1

[@methyod]

Not sure what the word is, but the individual holes of a microplane are much less sharp than a well maintained knife, and therefore you rip into the food rather than slice it. For things like lemon zest or cheese I don't think it makes a difference, but it definitely does with things like garlic. Microplaned garlic tastes nothing like finely chopped garlic.

[@BernStoogin]

@@methyod was just about to comment this, well put.

[@samiracle]

Some dishes in Bengali cuisine call for onion paste, I use a microplane to do this since the recipes that require it (for a modest size dish) usually only call for a couple spoons’ worth, which you’ll get with less than half an onion.

[@OlDirtySam]

For everyone interrested: i sometimes dice it in different sizes to get extra features. Small cuts for the taste in general in the dish and then big chunks to get a bite of the taste while eating to give the dish some little taste bombs

[@stringlarson1247]

Yep. This is something that is left out of most recipies created for 'home cooks'.

[@thursded]

Aside form cold applications where you still want the onion texture, it's probably easier to grate or grind the onions to a paste. Ginger / onion / garlic paste is actually quite common in Indian and Indonesian cooking 🙂

[@Niyucuatro]

I got a ceramic garlic grater as a gift a while ago and i've really took a licking to it. Using it every time i add garlic to something.

[@ypsilonick8738]

The problem with grating, or even just chopping onions instea of cutting them, is that the cell structure gets damaged a lot more. The enzymes released because of this damage will result in a bitter taste. If you store them, they will also go bad faster. If you dice them correctly, they will be just as firm, not a lot of water coming out, but add tons more flavour.

[@smellypatel5272]

@@ypsilonick8738 this is a myth. You are damaging the cells and releasing enzymes with cutting as well

[@danielbuzi7742]

You didn’t mention the important step where you sharpen your knife. A lot of home cooks have knives that are too dull to do this without crushing the onion as you try to go this small

[@jasonfuentz8717]

@@Niyucuatro It doesn't hurt your tongue when you lick it?

[@grim3897]

I love the crunchines of the onion together with the rice or whatever I'm cooking, so seems like I will be doing twice the work from now on, mix both big chunks for texture and small ones for flavour LoL!

[@darcieclements4880]

Just a heads up, if you fine dice the aromatics vaporize quickly so use it quickly. I tried high end onion powder vs fine diced and it is closer than I care to admit. My experiments lead me to actually use a mix, larger diced for flavor and texture bursts with grated or onion powder for diffuse flavor. My bad hands prevent me from fine dicing my own, and purchased fine diced usually has lost its benefits by the time you use it, but onion powder is surprisingly similar to fresh diced in final cooked dishes. If you dish is a quick cook, just soak the powder first.

[@kaldogorath]

I don't understand why so many people shun garlic powder and onion powder - they're great!

[@lqr824]

DONT LISTEN, DARCIE IS A JUST A SHILL FOR BIG POWDER!

[@rk28984]

"Perfection is lots of small things done well" is a great quote that can be applied to pretty much everything, including work/sports/relationships! I sometimes use a fine chees grader to grade garlic, ginger or onions if I have to cook for a bigger number of people, as it saves time. I think this gives you the same result as fine chopping the stuff, but you only need a fraction of the time doing it.

[@richmondvand147]

not the same result but in most applications does as well or in some cases better - all depends on what you're doing with it

[@ElizabethChronis]

I recently started making my grandma’s meatloaf recipe and learned that the recipe called for grated onions, even though my dad always used rough chopped onions. It’s SO much better with the grated onions (especially since I’m not a big fan of the raw onion texture)!

[@ayushsingla1038]

Hey can you give us your grandma's meatloaf recipe. If it is not a family secret.

[@IQzminus2]

Oh grating onions sounds like a job for a person who wears contact lenses. Because grating onions sounds like something that would make me cry buckets and buckets. Or maybe it’s not as bad as I’m imagining. Is it worse or about the same as finely dicing onions?

[@yousufrahman7985]

@@IQzminus2 it's a lot worse, I don't cry no matter how many onions I cut, but grating onions is awful... But 100% worth it, I use it in lots of recipes and marinades

[@Vexelpops1]

is your dad a cajun? I am just guessing because those lazy bastards are always cutting corners in cooking (anecdotally speaking)

[@esoteridactyl]

@@IQzminus2 Put saran wrap around your eyes (like he did with his shirt as a blindfold). If you wear glasses, like it sounds like, put them on over the saran wrap around your eyes.

[@mattvarner5825]

If you wanted to test how the onion was being distributed in the rice.. why also dice the tomatoes and garlic too? You changed two additional variables in that experiment, which I found really odd given that the flavor of garlic depends a lot on how you cut it.

[@hugolopes10]

100% agreed

[@felipew101]

True, counterpoint would be that the overarching topic is "does the size of the vegetable pieces we cut matter".

[@jayhan9971]

fair point, but he already did controlled experimentts in the first two. I think using it a real dish for the last one is a better way to truly determine whether onion size matters in a practical setting where there would be other ingredients

[@kohio1992]

You’re right, he’s never going to get published in a scientific journal with these shoddy methods. 🙃

[@Westwardsir]

Consistency of bite.

[@deusextoast]

Rather than vertical cuts, I've found the best middle ground for me between speed, convenience, and fineness of dice is doing radial cuts. As in, cutting from the edge straight to the center of the onion when it's halved. This also means that I don't need to put any horizontal cuts into the onion either before cutting across to get my dice. It takes some practice to be able to do it consistently, uniformly, and safely while still being somewhat quick, but it works beautifully IMO. I believe I learned it by watching Kenji, and I think he might have an article or video on it floating around somewhere.

[@swimfan752]

Kenji literally made a mathematical model of an onion to figure out the best dice technique lol

[@swimfan752]

I will say that imo this method is not more convenient or faster than the vertical and horizontal cuts method. But you definitely get more consistent sized dice which is most important

[@toin9898]

I do radial cuts too but I cut the onion whole, with the root tip up in the air. Then I just cut around it. I find it easier than trying Kenji's method with the half onion on the board and aiming for off-centre.

[@zoulzopan]

What's the channel or the video called?

[@WanderTheNomad]

@@zoulzopan "J Kenji Lopez Alt" iirc

[@scuro691]

Personally i prefer my vegetables sliced in larger pieces in most dishes because it gives a broader range of flavor for the dish instead of the more uniform flavor you get from having them diced finely. also gotta love the crunch. This is probably because i make a lot of vegetarian dishes that don't have the chunks of meat.

[@gvteja4908]

I felt like the video didn't do justice to this case, i don't think chefs suggest cutting every vegetable finely except for onions. He should've compared the two dishes with just the onions but the tomatoes being normal size cuts

[@kroakish]

You have no idea how long I've tried to cut and mince my onions in the best and finest way to get a onion-flavour packed recipe, thank you for the insight on the matter

[@invincible2847]

I also use the "traditional" dice technique, but I found it much easier to make the horizontal cuts first, then the vertical ones.

[@behemothokun]

This is the way

[@mmoolloo]

I was just about to make the same comment. You can actually see how the onion loses its shape when he tries to make the horizontal slices. If you tackle them first, you avoid that problem and the resulting cuts are more even.

[@davidsizemore5642]

This is what I was coming to say. I'll not go up against a Michelin Chef, but when I cooked, we always made the horizontal cuts first.

[@misterb6]

Absolutely yes. Also, if you add more horizontal slices, and as you go up, angle them down toward the root, and then make your vertical slices closer together, you can get a very fine dice much faster than you can with the MBS technique. Source: Worked for years as a line cook in a high end Italian restaurant.

[@MissJean63]

I agree.

[@vimalmollyn]

Won't an onion paste (made by blending onions with water) crush the most cells and release the most flavour? I wonder how that would compare. Great work as always!

[@ganda673]

This guy is asking the real question.

[@Trizm707]

IF you look at dishes "traditionally" prepared in a mortar and pestle (mocajete) thats what is achieved, for example , guacamole made in a blender vs grinding it all with stone.

[@WanderTheNomad]

I feel like it would probably depend on whether you're making it fresh yourself or using premade

[@amandaamarawansha]

You make garlic oil in restaurants through a similar process (minus the water)... to use instead of standard cooking oil even your oil becomes a flavoured fat rather than a neutral one by blending in (and emulsifying) elements like garlic or onion at high power proportional to the oil quantities.

[@wilsonjubin35]

Exactly what I was thinking

[@driiifter]

I pondered about this while making omelettes over the years. You definitely will realize a finer dice is better in an omelette lol. This is one thing my grand mother didn't understand. She would just have the most gigantic onion chunks, it was really off putting.

[@Otokogoroshi]

They're like flavor bombs. You get a nice dish, enjoying it them BOOM you hit the onion bomb and now all you can taste is onion!

[@otm646]

Depends on the person. Just like how you've got ham and green pepper chunks in your omelette having those big pieces of onion not only break up the texture which I think is critical and also gives you a variety in flavors. While I admire the technique the French style omelettes that are completely uniform throughout are not what I want for breakfast every morning.

[@socringe2217]

@@otm646 a normal omelette has a mild taste and putting onion in it is risky since they have stronger flavors. If you like crunchy big chunk of potent onions on soft mild tasting eggs then im sorry to say this but your palette is ass.

[@chrisjordan213]

You should be off pudding.

[@paulblichmann2791]

That's Silent Gen for ya. WORST taste, culinary musical literary architectural, you name it, in history! Globally!

[@florian1001]

I really like the way you are looking through a magnifier on the how and the why! You‘re not only showing some interresting recipes for me to cook, its always focus on technique and detail. Fantastic content! I hope to see you again with Andong, trying real german dishes. Greets from Germany ;)

[@MatthewSmith-cp3hu]

Hey big tip I learned by accident. Storing diced onions in a glass container makes them last forever compared to plastic. I think the pores of plastic hold germs or fungus and make the raw onions and other vegetables spoil much faster.

[@anderander5662]

My mom had a glass onion keeper that I inherited, it works great.....she also had a glass cheese keeper with raised fins in the bottom which you put a tablespoon of vinegar in. The cheese would keep almost indefinitely.

[@novasolarius8763]

When storing fresh, cut food for extended periods, especially fruit, I recommend always using glass, just in case. Glass is very resistant to attack by acids and other reactive compounds that naturally occur in food. It also cleans more easily and thoroughly, without permanently turning orange if you store tomato products in it. Plastic is fine for short-term storage, or for dried or intact foods (such as rice or grapes) that aren't leaking acid.

[@evanharrison4054]

I have a very keen sense of smell and taste. Like, super refined. People come to me to evaluate meats and soups for spoilage. I have yet to meet the food item that didn't change taste after a couple of hours of being in contact with plastic. Fruit, vegetable, meat, bread...all become "worse"(for lack of a better word) from it. The least affected of course are things like potatoes and melons and pumpkins because they have hard outer layers, but after a while, even popcorn kernels get a "plasticy" taste just from sitting in a bag. Bragging aside, my point is that whenever you can avoid plastic, you probably should. Heck, basically anything manufactured from crude is poison. Plastic bags, fruit yoghurts, the paracetamol in your headache medicine(I'm no doctor)...point is if you wanna be healthy, cut out any derivatives of the black sludge from your life. You'll thank me when your skin clears up, your hair starts growing back, your injuries heal faster, you are less irrit...lotsa "modern problems" are caused by people getting poisoned by the stuff.

[@Itstime1231]

@@evanharrison4054 Yeah we have tried to switch to glass containers as much as we can and found that it helps a lot and they clean better. Of course plastic is really nice for taking stuff on the go, but glass is better for the world :)

[@relativisticvel]

@@anderander5662 that’s because the acid in the vinegar kills the bacteria.

[@temsmoss3925]

I like how you break down the more technical stuff that I wouldn't otherwise really understand or even take into consideration normally. Even for things that seem like they're kind of obvious it's still nice to know the reasoning behind why chefs make the decisions they do since like you said we can apply this to a variety of dishes and cooking methods.

[@Swim2TheMoon]

Have you ever tried dehydrating and grinding onions? I made an onion and mushroom powder by drying them thoroughly, grinding them in my coffee grinder, and storing in a mason jar. It adds that umami flavor to all kinds of dishes. Good stuff.

[@morehn]

I think that's called onion powder

[@Swim2TheMoon]

@@morehn I think you need to re-read. Onion powder doesn't have mushrooms in it.

[@kristynloggins7569]

That's where we came up with onion powder, excellent ingredient. There's a few "Magic Spice" recipes that are just this: onion powder, mushroom powder and often salt or red pepper flakes. Just try not to breathe the mushroom dust cloud when you grind it, not pleasant.

[@morehn]

@@Swim2TheMoon so why'd you ask just about onions?

[@EricLeafericson]

I'm using a blender on my onions after large rough chop. I love the blender, especially for marinades! Onion is such a good ingredient in marinade, it tenderizes meat much like pineapple.

[@BigSnipp]

Use a food processor instead.

[@swimfan752]

Rough chopping an onion is chaotic

[@Contextual_Christian_Church]

The reason why dice size matters is because of blending... thicker slices standout more, where as smaller slices blend more... I hate the flavor of onions separately, but when its flavor is blended with other flavors it's better

[@DoeintheThicket]

Your videos have really helped me. I wouldn’t say I’m a super picky eater, but I used to find myself going out to eat all the time just because my own rendition of a dish would disappoint me by comparison. Your videos are slowly but surely helping me build confidence in the kitchen and save money by eating at home. Thank you.

[@schrodingerscat1863]

A good chief will dice an onion into many different sizes depending on how it's to be cooked. What you are attempting to demonstrate is a 'fine brunoise' which is ideal for garnishing salads or in sources with each piece being around 1.5mm. For caramelising you wouldn't want pieces that small as they would tend to burn so you would cut a 'macédoine' 6mm or 'brunoise' 3mm. For something more rustic where you want the pieces to be clearly identifiable after cooking then 'parmentier' is better with 12mm pieces. The main feature of a good chiefs dicing will be the consistency in size of the pieces no matter the size required. For something that will cook for hours then the onion can just be quartered as it would cook down anyway. So it is all very much dependent on use.

[@beepboop212]

Yeah. So exactly what he said in this video (other than some details in size which most homecooks won't be doing anything with)👍

[@VoIcanoman]

The way I cut onions 100% depends on the application. For fajitas and other wraps, I like long, thin pieces, usually cut orbitally so that part of the onion flavour is transferred to the sauce. For stir-fries, I like large-ish (~2 to 3 cm) petals (because I want to char the surface a bit, to get it nice and blistery, and having a big, flat surface is conducive to this goal, while leaving the final product a bit crunchy). Also, I like petals for good, hearty beef stew. For Indian curries, I go with a normal dice - fineness isn't an issue here for me, because I'm going to be using an immersion blender on the sauce, and regardless of the size of the pieces, they're going to be pulverized into nothingness. A rough dice works okay for some chunkier Italian red sauces (including pizza sauce) and meat sauces too, because onion is a textural element in these, so you don't want it to be too small - this is also true when making salsa (I use a VERY rough dice in this latter application, as it lends even more of that pleasant crunchy texture). The only place I find myself consistently going finer still, perhaps even using the MPW method (never knew that was a "thing" as it were, but flattening onion petals out and finely dicing them is something I sometimes do) is when I'm making a mirepoix - and I mainly use mirepoix when I'm making soup. Whether you're straining the broth, or serving it with onion pieces inside, there is no better way to get the flavour of onion into a broth than by doing a fine dice. However, sometimes I find it easier just to do a rough dice, before going in for a thorough mince (rocking my chef's knife over already-diced onion pieces, further breaking them up and releasing their juices). This is FAR less fussy than the MPW method, and a bit faster...and honestly, it would take real, side-by-side scrutinizing of the final products to tell them apart. If I was cooking for kings, maybe I'd care...but for every day use, any differences in taste and texture are imperceptible. To me anyway.

[@camalex7782]

%100

[@brent829]

You like onion texture. Many people do not. I literally had to do the fine dice for weeks to convince my girlfriend that onions are delicious. It was 100% texture dislike, but she didn't even know it. She just knew she didn't like onions without knowing why.

[@VoIcanoman]

@@brent829 Oh I get it. My own personal textural nightmare is mushrooms. I cannot stand their slimy, rubbery grossness, and avoid them in all dishes. I have never been a picky-eater, but I draw the line at mushrooms...and at cheeses that are _deliberately_ moldy. You could say I'm not a fun guy.

[@brent829]

@@VoIcanoman have you tried different mushroom species such as oyster or lions mane? I used to hate mushrooms also, but now I love them (as long as they are fresh).

[@VoIcanoman]

@@brent829 Yup, I have. I've tried a lot of different varieties cooked in a lot of different ways, searching for a decent mushroom. And I actually did find one - Enoki are the only mushrooms I will currently eat, but they are very pretty unique amongst edible fungi.

[@kriskolo]

I've never seen any of your videos or to be honest, heard of you before. But I thought I'd check out this video out of curiosity. I have to say I loved every moment of it. I loved how technical you got, I love how thorough you were, I loved your personality throughout the video (you seemed very genuine), I loved the experiment aspect of it. It was honestly the best 10+ minutes I've spent on KZbin in a long time. You have definitely earned yourself a subscribe. I look forward to seeing your other videos. And thank you

[@filmsarefriends1950]

Ethan I must say-I love that MPW video. But I never really saw the benefit in cutting my onions using this method. You’ve brilliantly explained everything as usual and your meticulous research is spot on and so well presented. I’ll be adding this prep to my weekly routine to try experimenting! Thanks for another great video-hope you’re enjoying Paris!

[@dwintster]

Cool video, I actually been doing this for the last 14 years, noticed the difference. Being Jamaican the first thing I did this with is things like escallion, Scotch bonnet, ginger and thyme when seasoning my chicken and other proteins. Over time I started experimenting and preparing my rice and peas the same way. The fine dice always intensifies the flavor. Never understood how oil or fats worked in prolonging flavors until now.

[@DamageIncorperated86]

I would be interested to see the difference between a Michelin star dice and pounding in a mortar and pestle. It almost seems like a way to try and get mortar and pestle results with a knife

[@azfortuna9398]

that or the difference between the super fine dice or just using a cheese grater.

[@cameronknowles6267]

But it won’t crush it as much

[@ticklezcat5191]

@@azfortuna9398 Microplane would be a better than cheesegrater

[@schrodingerscat1863]

Dicing from a Michelin star kitchen is all about uniformity, you have a fine brunoise at 1.5mm pieces, brunoise 3mm, macédoine 6mm, parmentier 12mm, they you have thing like paysanne which is the fancy cuts that look like flowers or roll cuts with angled edges. It's all very technical and has to be absolutely precise. If the cutting isn't perfectly even it goes into the trash.

[@austinhadley6086]

I'm just going to put in the extra effort from now on. I really want to do a fine dice with some curry and see how it comes out! Great video, excellent quality. First video of yours I've ever seen and I'm glad I watched it! Thanks man

[@Ld_277]

Ethan, the rice recipe you made had me thinking. I've made several dishes where flavor homogenization was desired and the recipe involved putting your aromatics first in a blender and then frying off the resulting slurry in some oil. I'm curious how blender slurried onions might compare to the Michelin-star ones in recipes where you're simply trying to melt them down into the dish. Seems like it would save a decent amount of effort.

[@katrinaalison2511]

Yes, I just commented that a lot of Indian dishes call for a food processor for onions. I never really thought about why, I was just glad to not have to hand chop them. 😆

[@qriusjorj38]

That's a great idea! For this rice dish, I'd bet blitzing up all the garlic, 1/2 the onions, and 1/4 of the tomatoes and rough dicing the rest would give you the best of both worlds. Put the blitzed veg in the oil for frying the rice and the rest in with the broth. Great homogenization of flavors throughout with pops of flavor and texture also!

[@motc4944]

I went to the comments to write the same thing :-)

[@joschtuegs2562]

In my opinion a food processor rips up the onion too much, so it kind of loses flavour at that point. You also run the risk of losing a lot of the juices, and it’s not as uniform as hand cutting

[@genieinthepot2455]

@@katrinaalison2511 in my experience for a lot of Indian dishes onions are simply called to be added into the curries first. They are put on the heat for quite a while so they usually dissolve completely by the end of it. Diced onions that is.

[@user-tl9wv6wu9h]

Yes, size cutting really important to make the taste precise according what recipes you cook. Let say you make glaze from sautéed onion using deglazing technique. Superfine chopped onion will make glaze taste plain but coarsely chopped onion will add few aroma to the glaze (burnt + cooked onion + hint of undercooked onion). Onion cutting size also main role to ensure thickness & texture to any kind of soup/broth/gravy according what recipes we cooked. Sometimes uneven chopped onion have few roles to a dish like to thicken & adding texture to the soup without preparing 2 methods, mincing & dicing.

[@dbattleaxe]

This even makes a difference with things like potatoes. I recently started using my mandoline to slice my potatoes into extremely thin potato-chip thickness slices to bake them and it makes such a difference. The butter and herbs are able to penetrate between the slices and absorb, so you're always tasting the seasoned parts.

[@a9fc]

makes sense just from the exponentially increased surface area from smaller cuttings

[@argonwheatbelly637]

Fractals are good food.

[@theamazinglandshark]

Man I really hate having very large chopped veggies in dishes. I just hate the crunch you get from it. This is going to confirm my bias even more that fine chops are superior in every way. Texture and even flavor 👍

[@martinlaursen7972]

Great video. No one wants to chew on a large piece of red onion. I thought I made a fine cut myself until I watched your video. They don't teach you this stuff in most cooking schools. When my kids were young I used to grate the onions to a paste to make them disappear. Thanks for sharing.

[@frenchfriar]

I've been finely dicing onions and everything else, for nearly forty years now. Lots of people think my dishes taste better than those of my family, who don't care about dicing and make large chunks. I much prefer small diced to large chunks of everything, it just makes for a better overall quality of a dish, in my opinion. It also makes it so much easier when making salmon patties or meatballs to form them hen you do small dices, and they don't fall apart as easily. I've diced my onions much as you showed since I started cooking. You just get better results. The only time I don't dice that mall is when I want large chunks for things like shish kabobs. Thanks for backing me up, Ethan!

[@Qya7uu]

I've been wondering: If you want the onions to melt into the dish anyways, then instead of doing a super thin dice, wouldn't the effect be the same if you just grate them? Great video by the way. There's so much more potential even in simple ingredients.

[@valentinsalvermoser6671]

yes been doing that for marinades and such works great with yogurt. a bigger grater meaning size of the holes works better

[@wulfywulfynrir1296]

Interesting! I have some issues that make knofework very hard for me to learn, but i always use something like a slamchop to get really small pieces and ive gotten a lot of compliments on food i make that way. I never thought using that tool might actually be making my food more flavorful!

[@mascatrails661]

Loved this comparison video. I always consider what I'm cooking and if I want an ingredient to be more of a 'chewer' or 'flavorer' in my dish. Most things I cook have onions, peppers, mushrooms, and carrots... sort of my version of mirepoix. Although I'm almost always using these same ingredients, I vary how I chop them to play with flavor and texture and I'll even sometimes incorporate various cuts of the same veg in a dish. Like finely diced onions in the rice and then medium slivers of onion in a veggie stir fry to top it... I get the onion seasoning well spread in the dish but still get distinct bites of onion from the stir fry; this introduces another set of flavors since the slivers tend to be cooked more to a blackening rather than just sweated.

[@60gregma]

I used the fine dice in my summer tuna pasta salad and it was a HUGE improvement in texture and flavor. It's like a brand new dish.

[@robinsimon4176]

12:00 small advice, add both thin and large cut pieces to a dish, he flavour is there and you have some great texture

[@johnhalo512]

Pp

[@deriansilva368]

This is so funny, because it's very similar to using a whole spice vs a ground spice in your food, but also similar to that stock thing James Hoffmann did where the intensity of flavor in the end depends on how much you're able to extract from the original. Which is how coffee is generally made!

[@lqr824]

10:20 Sautee garlic until fragrant, then in with the onion... when close to transparent, THEN in with the rice... when smelling toasty, add tomato (I prefer sauce), water and Caldo de Pollo bouillon from Knorr.

[@mattaberpena]

As a former hater of onions that loves to cook. I have learned that a great alternative to say 1/2 onion diced is to finer dice a 1/4 onion. Taste is still going to be there but the actual onion disappears in the the food

[@AG-xn2ff]

Try a nice sharp nikiri knife if you want to avoid the “splaying out” you described in the beginning. They’re much thinner than a chefs knife so there’s less pressure transferred when making cuts

[@antonjjohansson]

As a chef myself, storing cut onion in a container for a week will give it more than enough time to oxidise and go bad. Keep it fresh, cut it when needed.

[@bratwurst_addict]

yeah I've been wondering about that. You really don't want cut up onions stored...

[@TheClassicalSauce]

I just cook for my family, but I’ve often wondered what turns a dish from good to sublime. It’s little tips like these that I really appreciate. Great channel! Keep it up!

[@TheRatchetnclank]

So would blending the onion take this to the extreme? Rupture all cells for more flavour, increased surface area and no texture at all?

[@EthanChlebowski]

Yep exactly! It's a spectrum of flavor depending on how the vegetables are first prepared (chunks, dice, blended) and then how they are cooked.

[@williamstda]

won't the nutrition value go down when cutting it that thin?

[@simplyburak3483]

I have been watching you vids for abaout 2 years now and cant stop saying "What a great channel, indeed" every time!

[@johancancino2410]

Interesting video and makes a lot of sense. But now the question is, what if the vegetables are processed in a food processor. Everything will break even smaller than what we possibly could do with a knife, and create like a vegetable paste to season your food. Will that be the maximum blizz of flavor possibly obtainable from these aromatic vegetables?

[@parkerbrown7753]

was wondering the same thing

[@DerEchteBold]

@@parkerbrown7753 As far as I know that doesn't really work, just makes for a pretty nasty taste.

[@IndecisionTelevision]

Just tried my first finely chopped meal earlier today. The cutting itself can be meditative. Im going to practice slowing down and really sinking into it. Great Video thank you. New fan

[@thegreatfbi]

When I make homemade beef patties, I use a food processor to blend up onions until a paste when mixing. They really do make huge difference

[@Derekzparty]

Noob chef: Chef Ramsey that's onion powder? Chef Ramsey: Now you're getting it!

[@whatisup37]

I also made some Mexican rice the other day using my partner's grandmother's recipe which called for blending the tomato, garlic, and onion. I'm curious if the same findings hold true for a super-fine dice vs blending into a puree. I'm thinking there's some air that gets incorporated when blending, so would that still get a similar amount of flavor dispersion as a fine dice, or does the air wipe cancel out the gains?

[@joseph-ow1hf]

The KZbin algorithm suggested this channel and boy am I glad. I love learning about cooking technique rather than specific recipes. Will definitely apply this onion dicing suggestion. Thank you for these vids sir. Well done.

[@jiddyification]

It’d be awesome if you also compared this to pulsing in a small food processor. I’ve sometimes done then when using bulk onions and find it works well but takes way longer to caramelise because more water comes out - even though the onion still isn’t super fine!

[@ivyrose779]

I came to comment the same thing!

[@tibormalinsky8751]

I really love your way of describing and talking about "flavor molecules". When you're not a chemist but have to talk about chemistry. Dont get me wrong. It's... kinda cute :D What I love in particular is your careful way of describing the stuff. Like I said, "flavor molecules" for example. You obviously know what you mean, but at the same time you don't want to get something wrong. Super awesome.

[@feithreewang13]

My brain: how can you play with onion chunks without crying??😂

[@ajkulac9895]

Wear swimming goggles

[@Bullets_Ouchie]

I really appreciate the detail in understanding how the ingredient provides flavor to dishes. That helps so much learning new skills in the kitchen.

[@TheTrace89]

I have historically cut my onions as finely as possible due to a serious dislike of al dente texture of onions. Now I will attempt to get them as fine as possible! Thanks for the video.

[@karelkeim3383]

Love your content dude! Had a year with less inclination for cooking but your content is super inspiring!

[@olbaze]

"Perfection is a lot of small things done well". This idea was also present in Alex's onion chopping record video. In it, he quotes a professional bicycle team coach, who focused on making small improvements in a lot of things, that added up to the team becoming great. It's a principle called aggregation of marginal gains. And that doesn't just stop at chopping onions. We talk a lot about high quality ingredients, because that's another area where a small improvement can be made, and it can be made immediately. Then there's things like experience in cooking methods, to know how temperature interacts with your ingredients. And knowing which ingredients pair well and achieve the flavor profile you're looking for. And that's why you don't always need Gordon Ramsay to be making your food at one of his restaurants: Because a lot of what goes into his dishes are things that aren't unique and immutably Gordon. Anyone can use the same ingredients, be taught the same techniques, and gain the necessary experience.

[@methyod]

@Jimbo Jimbo It's more true of cooking than most things. No individual task in a kitchen is very difficult, even advanced techniques can be learned pretty quickly. The difficult thing is maintaining focus 10 hours into getting your ass handed to you.

[@noob19087]

Lol espresso brewing taught me this more than anything. It all started simple, just throw coffee in the basket and squeeze it with this plastic tamper thing, and you're good to go. Today my derangement has reached the point where I have to make my own water from scratch to get the optimal mineral composition.

[@Zyczu55]

Introducing to you the almighty grater, it makes michelin chiefs obsolete. Why even bother making the pieces so small when you can just make a paste with 1/4 of the effort.

[@hal9thou001]

I do this when a recipe calls for minced onions. Diced is a bigger cut in my opinion.

[@SoftSpokenStrongLove]

I appreciate what you present here, Mr. Chlebowski. Specifically, I enjoy your scientific approach and the fact that you cite your sources. You make clear you are a "home chef" while simultaneously educating us less informed amateurs. Thanks, and cheers to your next dish!

[@fangdog29]

Yeah. Willingness to accept that your average home chef doesn't mind getting a bit technical.

[@JWinger62]

I just throw the onion in a food processor and pulse it a couple times. Boom super fine onion. I used to dice onion by hand but it is faster doing it this way. Does this change the flavour at all?

[@carolynthornton8017]

IN MY VIEW I cut an onion wedge out of a whole onion and store wrapped with plenty of paper towel for fridge storing. After watching your onion video I can't wait to cut an onion in half, experiment chopping sizes, and separate slices and cutting them. You are a GENIUS.

[@trudgemankPhD]

I hate biting into a raw chunk of onion in any dish, so this technique is perfect for me. I'm slow at it now, but I used to be slow at slicing garlic thin, and now I can fairly consistently do a whole clove near-paper-thin in like 5-10 seconds.

[@vinny142]

Get a stick-blender. That's what the michelin star chefs use when you're not filming them.

[@peadookie]

Really digging this more-advanced-than-basic-knife-skills type stuff if that makes sense. More advanced than 'advanced' home cook. For example, my knife skills are pretty good, cuts are very uniform, mastered 'the claw' etc, but never thought about disassembling the onion to make it _more_ uniform. Subbed!

[@sirahh5170]

MUCH easier to make the inwards cut before doing the many vertical cuts :)

[@justinwhite2725]

1:57 just a tip for people who don't know, doing this with your fingers doesn't just guide the blade. Your fingernails also shield yourself from injury of your blade slips. Leanred this when I was a dishwasher and sometimes assisted the chefs with preps. I saved myself from major injury at least twice because the blade nicked my fingernails instead of my skin.

[@MeatSnax]

I've seen that MPH clip, and I've worked in some extremely fussy kitchens, but I've NEVER seen anyone separate onion petals before mincing an onion. It's just not a good use of labor hours, and the same effect can be achieved through the "traditional" method. Protip though, that no one ever seems to know about - If you have a knife that's sharp all the way to the heel (semi-bolster), make your vertical cuts on an onion with the heel, the tip facing away from the root. You'll have much more control and be able to get much smaller slices, and the heel of a knife is usually the sharpest part.

[@BiigDaddyDellta]

Watched this video today. Decided to keep it simple, did my best to micro dice some red onion and cooked them of in some oil. micro diced vine tomato, garlic, and a jalapeno (threw some seeds in the onions and oil to simmer a bit) with some salt and pepper, mushed those really well in a mortar and pestle keeping the water. Melted about 16oz queso blanco Velveeta, 4oz smoked gouda, 8oz of asiago (the cheeses I had in the fridge) in a double boiler. Added in my veggies and all the liquid, some more salt and pepper, and maybe 4oz or so of cream, for a hard won but simple cheese dip. Now I am just starting learning to cook at a higher level. I can say, the consistency wasn't perfect but, fuck man, the flavors were amazing. Thank you so much for this video and many more. I'm learning a lot from you and I really appreciate it.

[@ranysaab]

Would be interesting to see this idea taken to the furthest extreme and completely pulverize the onion/other ingredients into a fine paste to see how much that effects the flavor.

[@aaronmarko]

I mean, it generally wouldn't have a significant effect on the flavor. There are lots of different factors you can take into account here but if you're comparing largely diced raw veg to finely diced raw veg, it probably won't make a difference in terms of flavor. You can probably experience significant difference if things are cooked (small pieces of food have more surface area exposed to get caramelized than larger ones) but I don't think you'd find a significant difference in flavor. Where I think you'd find the difference is in terms of cooking time. I think an onion paste would develop caramelization much easier than a solid piece of vegetable. But then again, you have to leverage cooking a paste vs cooking a piece of vegetable and why you're cooking it. There's a lot more to flavor than just the cut of a vegetable.

[@Voodoomaria]

I do that for my Turkey stuffing, I get better diffusion of flavour, and it takes less onion to accomplish. I also eat a piece of any onion I cook with, I need to know how it tastes and smells raw do determine how it's going to cook down. I've never seen a celeb chef do that, so I wonder how do they know if a particular onion is going to be too sweet, too hot or too pungent? Buy four onions from the same bin and you can get four different flavours and you need to know how to adjust otherwise your meal will be either too bland, or too sharp. You can't do that unless you know how the onion tastes raw, and know how that will change as it cooks.

[@TheLordboki]

Kind of an idea behind vegeta, the food seasoning. Dried and finely ground vegetables and mixed in condiments makes a nice seasoning for almost anything. I love sprinkling it on cooked eggs.

[@cathunter3874]

it does, but it isn't good

[@brendanroberts4866]

I just liquify everything : i have 4 stars

[@ZEROmg13]

i can feel my skill set grow each and every day............your help is appreciated.

[@jaredgolian98]

I’m curious what it would be like if you blended the onion tomato and garlic together for the rice experiment. Id assume that would have even more flavor

[@Winnders]

Came here for this comment

[@markbidinger55]

would have a constancy more like Jollof Rice, on of my favs

[@Sunshine-Dragon]

I cooked as a Chef and at home,in both places, I cut my Onions depending of the recipe, there are a lot of recipes where it actually taste better when it is cut chunky and there are other recipes where it is really important to cute them really fine.

[@GMBeaulac]

Ethan I've got to say, I really feel like I've got something for you regarding the dice you did at 2:00. Quarter instead of half. Then slice vertically just like you did, but rather than mucking around with that sideways slice business, just rotate the quarter, then slice vertically again. You can get much better results that way and it's super easy. Sometimes the side pieces may fall out doing that but you can just pop them back on before your through cuts no problem. It's my "go to" dice and I highly recommend it. Second, I do feel like you kinda missed talking about the flip side on this one - you mentioned it obliquely, but largely kinda skipped over the potential downside of what is lost. Larger dices lead to less flavor being released, but more texture being retained. Due to larger dices having less uniform flavor throughout, you have more varied flavor from bite to bite. So imho it's a bit of a simplification to conclude at the end 'the finer the dice the more flavor', because it's actually more of sliding the scale between flavor and texture. The finer the dice, the more flavor, the larger the dice, the more texture. It's also sliding the scale between uniformity and heterogeneity. As you say though and I agree, neither is right or wrong, it's about what's right for you and for that dish.

[@skirkurter5269]

Hows the difference between super fine diced cut vs randomly chop fine cut on the onion???

[@rossperk]

What about using a mandolin or food processer's dice blade? If the flavor & texture make a difference in the dish, would either of these dicing methods be equivalent time savers?

[@ex0stasis72]

I think this is my favorite cooking channel. This channel has been so influential for me getting more involved with cooking. And it's also giving me a new hobby to brag about when I start dating again since it appears to be a selfless activity serving others, but really, I've grown to prefer it because I've found that my own cooked food tastes better than a lot of cheap restaurants. And I don't go to expensive restaurants, so I wouldn't know about that.

[@k.a.3877]

Would there be a difference in the second experiment when you don't measure it by time (sweating for 2 minutes) but by doneness (both batches shouldn't be raw anymore)?

[@civilbeard]

This is neat and all, but the problem is: I simply can't be arsed to spend that much extra time cutting vegetables.

[@Trubbas]

Two other onion-tricks are: Putting Onion in water before eating it raw takes away quite a lot of the bitter peppery-ness it has. And Cooking-time matters, even thou dicing it really fine speeds things up, if the dish calls for 30 minutes of really breaking the onion down and caramelise it you cant just go full heat and speed it up - it will take time.

[@DeannaAKADeanna]

Reminds me of an old Cajun crawfish pie recipe I once used. It directed roughly chopped onions (and the rest of the Cajun "holy trinity") to go into a blender! It totally pulverized the aromatics which was used as the filling (along with Cajun seasoning, crawfish, etc. in a double pie crust). I don't know that I would have guessed the filling was that simple because it was so delicious!

[@petrmaly9087]

Fine dicing is cool, but for most purposes, you can instead just throw it into a mixer/food processor and give it a couple of fast spins. Gonna end up with very small pieces anyway.

[@lunu7039]

I guess the thing is to get very small pieces but not too small 🧐

[@petrmaly9087]

@@lunu7039 Even the cheapest food processor, if used correctly, will chop it into pieces that still hold a texture.

[@frankthetank2550]

I tried mincing an onion with my blender. Some of the little dude got stuck in there. RIP half my onion 2022 - 2022

[@petrmaly9087]

@@frankthetank2550 There is no progress without suffering and sacrifice.

[@MinaSalome]

This is a great follow up to your last onion video! I learn and grow a lot from these types of videos that go more in depth on kitchen fundamentals.

[@DanHarasty]

So in my mind this begs the question: for maximum oniony-ness, why not just puree your onions before adding them to the pan? (I'm not saying I think this is a good idea. I'm asking Ethan to contemplate and discuss that -- at some point -- smaller is probably not better.)

[@bhavyakabade]

Yeah you can do that, but the onion needs like WAY more oil and time on heat to even get to a golden brown colour, like 3 to 4 times the oil and 2 times longer on average to reach the same cooked state where it's bordering on golden and no raw taste, but if that doesn't matter to you, then pureeing it does produce a better result using even less onions than normal. Ironically even though the puree takes more time to cook, the thinner edges of the puree in the oil will actually burn faster as well, resulting in an undesirable bitterness.

[@GuidoHaverkort]

1:54 pro tip: make those inward slices first, then the vertical ones

[@jnorth3341]

I'll have to give this a try with several of my common dishes (so I can see the difference). One thing you did show me that I use the heck out of now is those deli containers, makes it way easier to do prep work and I do more of it because of that.

[@yourmajesty3569]

I bought a batch on Amazon and my life is CHANGED.

[@jacquiward2193]

Thanks

[@naeem_bari]

Excellent, informative video. Question: Won't the fine dice reduce the "flavor shelf life" a lot? Since more of the flavor will evaporate out sooner, I wonder if the same fine-dice dish will taste worse the next day compared to the course-dice version.

[@TheBrothergreen]

Yeah. Gotta say i was shocked when he said to keep the finely diced onions for a week. I throw out an uncut half onion stored with a paper towel in an airtight container after 2 days.

[@snifey7694]

After hearing this techniques, my life literally changed, sauce is not clumpy with onion or just a translucent bits in my soup, now just a bits of onions...holy

[@egoboost13]

I would say that there's a massive difference between sizing as someone who is extremely sensitive to texture. I love the flavor of onions but hate the texture of them so being able to have the good flavor without the texture is ideal.

[@brettpeterson8917]

For the bind taste test of cooked oil you can use a coffee filter to ensure there isn’t contamination between the oil and onion. Thanks for the video