How to Chop a Mushroom – into chunks or slices

If you haven’t already, please make sure you’re familiar with basic knife safety before starting this tutorial. (link)

We have a bit of a love/hate relationships with mushrooms in our house. By which I mean, two of us love them, one is indifferent, and one of us hates them.

 

 

Mushrooms are a type of fungus, and there are actually a lot of different varieties. However, the ones you’ll see most often in supermarkets are closed-cup, chestnut, or button mushrooms.

These mushrooms have already had some of the prep done for you. All that’s left are the stalk and cap, so you can eat the whole thing!

 

 

 

You don’t even need to wash mushrooms; in fact it’s best to avoid getting them wet. Not only will it make them feel kind of slimy, it makes it very easy for mould to grow on mushrooms. (Mould growing on mushrooms has always amused me, a little fungus growing on a big fungus, but I digress.)

 

 

 

If your mushrooms are getting a little old, however, you may want to peel them. It’s actually easiest to do this with your fingers! Start by pulling the stalk off the mushroom. You can then reach into the middle of the mushroom and get hold of the edge of the skin, close to where the stalk was. Then, gently pull it off.

 

 

 

To chop your mushrooms, it’s easiest to start with them lying on their caps. For chunks, you can just quarter them.

If you’d rather have sliced mushrooms, start by chopping them in half. Then place the mushroom on its cut side as you slice it. I like slices about half a centimetre (1/4 inch) thick.

Mushrooms can be eaten raw or cooked, but an overcooked mushroom is rubbery and chewy. To fry mushrooms, simply heat them in a frying pan for anywhere between 5 and 20 minutes! It really depends on how well-done you like your mushroom.

How to Chop a Bell Pepper – diced bell pepper

If you haven’t already, please make sure you’re familiar with basic knife safety before starting this tutorial. (link)

We used strips of bell pepper (cutting tutorial here) in February for stir-fry (recipe here), but bell peppers are also perfect for adding a little extra sweetness and richness to tomato-based sauces.

Just like before, start chopping your bell pepper by cutting it in half. Steady your knife in one of the pepper’s grooves, and cut straight down.

Cut each half in half again, and remove the pith and seeds.

Cut each quarter into strips like before, but try to hold them together for now. Then, as you cut in the other direction, you’ll have diced bell pepper in no time!

Diced bell pepper can be fried in 15 minutes, or less if you like it crunchy. It’s great added to omelettes, but I like it best mixed with a load of other diced vegetables, whether cooked in a sauce or mixed into a salad.

Remember to use up peppers once you’ve cut them so they don’t go off!

How to Chop an Onion – 2 Ways to Dice an Onion

If you haven’t already, please make sure you’re familiar with basic knife safety before starting this tutorial. (link) Please remember to give onions special consideration because of their shape, texture, and tendency to make your eyes water!

We’ve been gradually reducing the size of our onions – going from onion chunks (link), to onion slices (link), and now diced onion! Dicing onions is a great way to get a lot of flavour out of them in a short cooking time.

This tutorial contains two different methods to dice an onion. The first method is simpler, but it does take a little time. The second is so fast your eyes barely have time to water, but it is a more advanced technique.

Method 1

Start by chopping your onion into slices. Just follow the tutorial from last month (link), although you can skip cutting the onion into quarters and just slice the halves.

Once you have your slices, lay them down to dice. I like to cut a sort of lazy grid pattern, but you could also cut it into triangles (sort of like a mini pizza; see picture below).

To save time, you can cut through multiple slices at once. I would recommend you start with just one and work your way up slowly to find how many slices you’re comfortable chopping at once. Make sure if you’re stacking slices that you have the largest one on the bottom and the smallest on the top – it’s important that your stack doesn’t fall over during cutting.

 

Method 2

I actually learned this second technique from the anime sweetness & lightning. It’s a little tricky, because it involves breaking my second rule of knife safety (see my earlier post here). But it’s so much faster that I’ve diced onions this way ever since.

To start, remove the skin and top of the onion, but leave the root end on. (This will help the onion stay together as you chop it.) Cut the onion in half.

Next, cut into the onion towards the root end. You don’t need to cut all the way through, but you’ll need to use your non-knife hand to steady the onion.

Now cut downwards. You don’t need to cut right to the edges, because of the layers in the onion. I usually find just three cuts is plenty.

Finally, cut as if you were slicing the onion. Perfectly diced pieces of onion will simply fall off the end!

As you get towards the end of the onion, you may find that it starts to fall apart a bit. Hold it together if you can, but you can always deal with those parts that do fall off separately.

This technique definitely takes a bit of getting used to, but if you can master it it’s so worth it!

 

Diced onions can be used to add flavour to a huge variety of dishes, including stews, soups, and curries. They’re especially great in dishes where you want a little bit of everything in every spoonful.

You can fry diced onions in about 15-25 minutes, although it rather depends on how soft you like your onions! Onions can be eaten raw, or very well-done, so it’s really a matter of taste.

How to Make Stir-Fry (or should that be Steam-Fry?)

We love stir-fry in our house, in fact it’s kind of the default meal option! Now a proper stir-fry is cooked hot and fast, and preserves a lot of the vitamins and minerals in your food. This dish that we call stir-fry is really more of a steam-fry – it starts with a little frying to really get the flavours going, then gently steams the vegetables in their own moisture.

You will need:

• a sharp knife
• a chopping board
• a wok or deep saucepan with lid

and the ingredients (for four people):

• a little oil
• 2 medium onions
• 2-3 carrots
• 1 bell pepper
• beansprouts
• leafy green vegetable such as baby spinach
• frozen prawns or unsalted cashew nuts

 

Start by placing your pan on a gentle heat. Add a little oil (less than a teaspoon is fine), and slice your onion. (You can find more detailed instructions here: onions)

Add your onion to the pan, along with any spices you want to use. This recipe gets plenty of flavour from all the lovely veggies, but a little ginger or Chinese five spice is also nice.

While your onion is gently frying, cut your carrots into sticks, then add them to the pan. (More detailed cutting instructions here)

Once you’ve added your carrots, put the lid on so the vegetables can steam. The dish will take about 20 minutes from this point.

Cut your bell pepper into strips (chopping tutorial here), then add them to the pan.

While your other vegetables are cooking, check your beansprouts and leafy greens over for any that don’t look tasty.

Five minutes before serving, add your prawns (if you’re using them) and beansprouts to the pan.

Finally, add your leafy greens. (You could use frozen peas instead, but they’re harder to pick up with chopsticks!)

The stir-fry is cooked when the greens wilt down ever so slightly, and turn a brighter shade of green – this usually takes less than 5 minutes.

Stir everything together before serving. If you’re using cashew nuts instead of prawns, add them now.

This dish looks like a rainbow on a plate! I like it with rice or noodles, but it’s also delicious just as is. Serve with soy sauce; you can add some during cooking but I think it’s nice to let everyone season to their own tastes.

If you want a sweeter dish, try adding a tin of pineapple along with the beansprouts. And if you fancy a little chilli kick, some sweet chilli sauce goes beautifully!

If you make stir-fry with this recipe, I’d love to see a picture of your finished dish!

How to Chop a Bell Pepper – into strips

If you haven’t already, please make sure you’re familiar with basic knife safety before starting this tutorial. (link)

 

 

Bell peppers are actually a fruit, but they’re great in savoury dishes. Like carrots, you can eat them both raw and cooked, so you can use them in dishes from salads to stir-fries.

 

You can wash bell peppers if you want, but they have a natural waxy coating that helps to protect them while they’re growing.

 

 

The easiest way to start chopping a bell pepper is by cutting it in half. Bell peppers have smooth, shiny skin, so to prevent your knife from slipping place it in one of the grooves of the pepper. Then cut straight down. (You may also see a small black stick at the base of the pepper – this is just part of the old flower; you can pull it off with your fingers.)

Cut each half in half again, so you can get to the pith – the white parts of the flesh. The pith is edible, but it has a bitter taste so most people prefer to remove it. The pith is found mostly at the top and joins of the pepper, and is easiest to cut out where it joins to the brightly coloured flesh.

Now you’re ready to cut your pepper into strips. Start by cutting each quarter in half from side to side. (You can skip this step if you want, but I find that it’s easier to get even-sized strips when you deal with the top and bottom halves separately.) Then take each of these chunks and cut off strips about 1cm (½ inch) wide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can eat bell peppers raw, or lightly fried. (If you cook them for longer than about 15 minutes they tend to get a bit soggy and fall to pieces.) Bell peppers also work well in rich, tomatoey sauces where they add a hint of sweetness!

Bell peppers don’t last long once they’ve been cut, so it’s best to use them within a day or two. If parts of the pepper are squishy, it often means it’s already started to break down. Cut out these squishy bits and discard them – I find it easiest to do this right at the end.

How to Chop an Onion – into slices

If you haven’t already, please make sure you’re familiar with basic knife safety before starting this tutorial. (link) Please remember to give onions special consideration because of their shape, texture, and tendency to make your eyes water!

The chunks of onion from our previous tutorial (link) are great for slow-cooking, but if you want fried onions then I like slices best.

 

 

 

 

Just like before, we want to take off the skin, top and bottom from the onion. You can start in the exact same way – chop off the root and the top of the onion, making sure to keep your fingers out of the way.

(For slices, you might actually want to leave the root end on for now – try it both ways and see which you prefer!)

 

 

Once you have a flat surface at one end of the ball, you can rest it there to cut downwards, slicing your onion in half. Then deal with each half in turn, starting with a cut right down the middle.

When you’re chopping onions, it’s a lot easier and quicker to work with if all the layers stay stuck together. So, when you’re slicing, work from the thin end(s) into the middle. And if you need to turn the onion around to get to the other end with your dominant hand, try turning the chopping board instead.

 

 

 

Although very thin slices of onion are so impressive (I’ve always loved watching chefs cut off super thin slices at top speed!), slices about half a centimeter (1/4 of an inch) thick are great for everyday cooking.

 

 

 

 

These onion slices take about 15-25 minutes to fry, although it depends how soft you like your onions! Onions can be eaten raw, or very well-done, so it’s really a matter of taste. They’re a great accompaniment to fried meats like sausages or burgers, or (my personal favourite) fish. And they’re a great source of flavour in a stir-fry, which we’re working towards this month!