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But is uniformitiy the goal? If you want diced onions, the cook generally wants onion chunks below a certain cubic mass, so they cook and dissolve easily and u
by tetha 1y ago
But is uniformitiy the goal?
If you want diced onions, the cook generally wants onion chunks below a certain cubic mass, so they cook and dissolve easily and uniformly. It does not matter if some pieces are 50% of that size, some are 20% and some are 80%.
With that, 1-2 horizontal slices and a bunch of straight downward slices are the safest and easiest way to achieve that.
That technique also expands to onion rings, sauteed onions and such.
- account42 1y agoYeah it's an interesting theoretical problem but the practical applicability is limited.
- IAmBroom 1y agoBurnt bits add unpleasant acridness to the finished dish. And pieces that are 20% of the general size are very like to be overcooked when the rest are properly cooked, so limiting those is important.
- sdwr 1y agoYeah, measuring standard deviation from the average isn't an accurate way of scoring - "too big" pieces are worse than "too small"
- joshwa 1y agoJust the opposite! When sautéing, too-small pieces have burned by the time the larger ones have cooked, giving the dish a bitter burnt flavor and ugly black flecks.
- account42 1y agoIf small pieces burn then so will ends of larger pieces. Just lower the heat and give it enough time instead.
- throwawayffffas 1y agoUniformity matters for even cooking. If some pieces are twice the size of your average size, these pieces will be raw, when the others are done. And if you have some pieces that are half the size of the average they will burn by the time the rest are done.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jmrm 1y agoIMHO yes. Sometimes if the deviation is too big yo can get coocked, overcooked, and mostly raw pieces in the same pan, and that's heavily undesirable.
- Jarmsy 1y agoWhen cutting potatoes into chunks, for something like a stew, I often find myself thinking about this problem, and how I would write a program for a robot to do it. They are fairly well approximated as ellipsoids of different sizes. Typically, I want pieces around half the volume of the smallest potatoes, but with the range of sizes, this means cutting the larger ones into at least 5 pieces. While it would be simple to make parallel slices giving equal volume, these would have very different shape to the halved smalls. Some can be quartered to give nice chunks, others into thirds with 2 perpendicular cuts...
- RataNova 1y agoAs long as no chunk is big enough to stay crunchy while the rest caramelizes, you're good