Loaded Onion Dice

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Does dicing onion get you down? 


dice onion
Dice it like you own it. Dice like a boss.

If the instruction "2 onions, diced" fills you with woe, let it be known that by the time you have finished reading this post, I will have changed your life, forever.

Do you remember, way back in the mists of time, when someone took you aside and said "Your handshake is like a dead fish?" Hitherto, and probably unbeknownst to you, you had been skulking about proffering your limp wrist as a lame caricature of greeting. But no, our hero's life is about to change forever through the acquisition of a startling new skill; a technique passed down through the ages, making men. Henceforth, having "grow[n] a bit of backbone, boy", shoulders back and eyes psychotically locking into those of your interlocutor, you have seized prehensile limbs like a diminutive French President... And life has been glorious!

I remember too, how onions would bounce around the cutting board, exerting a rubber-like defense to the dulled blade, all the while conspiring to have me cut myself. How did those bastards on Top Chef get it done so efficiently? Was it all #FakeNews?

I became a born again onion-dicer when my friend, THE CHEF, having witnessed a performance of pathetic hacking and stabbing that had produced a pile of oddly shaped, dice-like onion (much of which was on the floor), placed a hand on my shoulder and said "You dice onions like a dumb fuck. I'm going to change your life forever". 

Some said that a bush was burning on the horizon. The air grew strangely warm - almost hug-like - and the lights dimmed, uncannily so. 


Now gather around children, and listen to my tale of wonder: -


THE CHEF said unto me: Stand upon your feet, and I will speak dice unto thee. 

I did it; I stood on my feet. 

Cut the fucker in half, he said, from root to stem.


Lay each half flush to the board, and cut off the stem-end. Leave the root-end attached, FOR IT IS YOUR FRIEND.

Remove the offending outer layer of the onion, and behold! the virgin flesh below.


Using your non-knife hand, hold the halved onion, stub-end facing the blade which is now brandished parallel to the cutting board.

Insert the middle of the blade into the onion, moving it, still parallel to the board, toward the root-end. Do not cut through the root-end, FOR IT IS YOUR FRIEND. Repeat this with a couple of duplicate incisions above your initial effort. 


Now, turn the blade of the knife perpendicular to the board, and insert a number of incisions across the width of the onion, once again carefully avoiding the root-end.


Witness the glory of the cross hatch you have imposed on the onion where the stem-end once lurked.
Sweet Jesus

The coup de gràce: Re-position the onion with the root-end to your left [lefties, obviously do this to your right]. Cut across the onion from its right edge, in line with the wound that guillotined the offending stem-end. Repeat, moving the blade with each incision towards YOUR FRIEND, the root-end. Stop before you decimate the root-end, and your fingers. Discard the root end, as your friendship has sadly been exhausted.


Behold, the wondrous dice!

Dice onion
Goddamned genius, that is...


Go forth my friends!


**Note the cunning positioning of the knuckles and finger ends as you execute the coup. THIS is the key to dicing quickly while diminishing the prospect of dismembering your digits. No, Top Chef is not fake news, and you too - with quite a bit of practice - can work up sufficient velocity to incite observers to say things like "Whoa! Did you go to chef school?", or "Hey girl, your knife skills are boss!". 

***Yes, you can dice other vegetables with this very same technique.

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