You are not especially sensitive about crying when peeling and chopping an onion. Nor is it necessary that you feel alone because crying while you cut an onion it is as common as crying over Chanquete’s death.
However, tears when cutting onions can be avoided or, at least, minimized. Sometimes it goes through the way we cut the onion, other times go through our instrumental and even temperature interferes, but none of these theories is 100% effective.
What is effective, and even Karlos Arguiñano has ever gone through this hoop, is to resort to a utensil that you would never have thought of putting in the kitchen. And if you had thought about it, it is that you are a bit strange, so that we are going to fool ourselves.
It is clear that milongas such as using a match, using a little bread, dipping the knife in vinegar or sticking out the tongue when cutting have little or nothing to do when peeling, cut and chop an onion so we don’t end up crying like a mourner.
The blame lies, of course, with the chemicals that are present in the onions. When we cut them, they release a chemical derived from sulfur which is called syn-Propanethial S-oxide and which, when it comes into contact with the ocular surface, reacts and produces that irritation and tearing that we are so familiar with.
It’s basically a chemical reaction that, in a certain way, we can reduce with some techniques that do work. One of them is to refrigerate the onions or put them in the freezer half an hour before cutting them, as this slows down these enzymatic reactions.
How are these substances quite volatileanother of the theories that professionals usually refer to is cutting the onions near a fan that projects these volatiles away from us, although it is not a panacea.
It is also evident that a sharp knife It will make our task easier, because during the cut it tries not to disperse so many substances, but the more we want to chop an onion, the more we are going to multiply these secretions.
The truth is that the only way that chopping an onion does not become a pain is to use diving goggles, which is what Karlos Arguiñano also taught us, although it is essential that also cover the nose and eyes.
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This is because, likewise, if these secretions reach the nose they will generate a tear response in the same way as if we were chopping the onion in a normal way. It may not be very aesthetic and maybe we won’t chop as many onions, but at least it’s an alternative to suffer less than usual.
Images | Image by stockking on Freepik / Image by stockking on Freepik
In DAP | Basic onion cuts: julienne, rings and brunoise
In DAP | How to cut or chop onions without crying. kitchen trick
