How To Peel and Chop Ginger

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Break off as much ginger as you'll need. Lots of recipes that call for fresh ginger will specify the amount in inches. Just break off a piece about that long.



Peel it with a vegetable peeler.



Because of the odd shape, you may end up with spots where the peeler won't fit.



For those spots just use a paring knife, or whichever of your knives has the narrowest blade.



It should be clean when you're done.



Slice the root into thin slices lengthwise.



Yes, it's easier to do the first slice across, but then the second slice is much harder. So now that you have long, thin slices, turn it a quarter turn and slice again in the other direction.



And that's it. Unless you need it minced, in which case you just go back through it again.

How To Chop Romain Lettuce

I've spent more time than I care to remember laboriously peeling off leaves of Romaine one by one. Then splitting them down the spine so there weren't any big, nasty pieces in the salad.

This week I suddenly realized I'd been wasting a lot of time doing it by hand. I must have had the iceberg lettuce post on my mind.

So this time, after peeling the few outer leaves that were a little bruised, I just chopped off the tips.



The ends of the leaves are always floppy and sad anyway. Then cut lenghtwise through the spines all the way around.



Yes, this means I only cut the spines on the outermost layer. It didn't seem to matter. Last was to chop down the length in sections a bit under an inch right down to the core.



And that's it.

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As I mentioned yesterday, there's a delicious dinner salad recipe coming up that's great for a light summer dinner. Sign up to get that recipe and all the rest by email using the form to the right.

How To Peel An Apple

When did you learn the word "apple"? No, I can't remember when I learned it either. But obviously I did.

I also can't remember when I learned to peel an apple. I remember seeing my mother doing it when I was little, usually making Waldorf salad. (Man, she liked Waldorf salad.) So I never thought about not knowing how to do it.

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Directions

This would take about three pages to describe something that takes about 30 seconds to show you. So I'll show you.



Think you can do it faster? I'd love to see it. Drop a link in the comments.

Then you have to core it. (Do it in this order. If you slice it first and then peel it, it will take way longer.) You might have one of these apple corer and slicer tools somewhere in your kitchen. Mine is packed up somewhere down in the basement. I hate it. It only works of the apple is completely symmetrical, it takes a lot of pressure to cut, and cleaning it is a chore.

Cut it in quarters, then cut out the seeds.



Okay, I'll show you that one, too.





And that's it.

How To Core And Chop Lettuce

Some people swear by ceramic or plastic knives for cutting lettuce. The idea is that metal knives cause the leaves to turn brown at the edges faster. Actually, it's not the metal that does it. What happens is any cutting will cut cells, which then turn brown. If you want your lettuce to last longer don't cut it. Rip the leaves by hand.

I usually don't see the problem, though. When I buy lettuce, I have salad at every meal until it's gone.

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Directions

First up, the core. You can cut this out if you really want to. But it's way easier this way:



Set the bottom -- the side you just pulled the core out of -- down and cut it in half.



Then in quarters.



You could stop now and serve what the trendy restaurants are calling a "wedge salad".



If you haven't seen it they literally take those wedges you see above and pour some dressing over it. Yeah, that's a salad. Okay.

But for normal people who aren't trying to impress anyone, it's better to do just a little more work and get the lettuce into bite-sized pieces. So put one half -- two quarters -- down flat, start at one end, and chop about an inch wide all the way across.



And that's it.

How To Peel A Cucumber

If you already have a vegetable peeler and you know how to use it, you can go ahead and click "Back" on your browser now. You won't see anything exciting here. (Seriously. Sometimes a cucumber is just a cucumber.)

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Directions

Still with us? Okay.

This ...



... is a vegetable peeler. This version works left- or right-handed. The blade is the inside of the hole in that long metal piece.

Press it lightly against middle of the cucumber and slide it toward the end you're not holding.



You could go toward your hand, but it would hurt. So don't do that.

Rotate the cucumber a little and do another strip. Keep going all the way around.



You'll probably have a bit at the end that isn't peeled. I wouldn't worry about that piece. It's probably not worth the trouble.



Flip the cuke around and start over on the other end.



Keep going until the whole thing is peeled.



Okay, fine, peel the end if you really want to.



There, see? You can peel the end.



Or you can cut it off.



Want to fly without a net? Try doing this with a knife instead of a peeler. Just don't brag to your grandfather, he'll tell you about the time he got busted smoking behind the barracks and got K.P. duty for two weeks and peeled every potato in Idaho with a knife. And you really don't want to hear that story (again) do you?

So, if you really want to do this, stand the cuke on its end on the cutting board. Starting at the middle, hold the knife nearly flat against the cuke and slice the thinnest piece you can.



Yes, you can do this, but don't expect it to be fast.



If you have a really skinny cuke, slice it as is. Otherwise, cut it in half lengthwise first. Stand it on end and cut down through the middle.



Place the two pieces side-by-side and slice them as thick as you want.



Check out the previous post about how to slice an onion for a tip on guiding the blade with the knuckles of your hand. I'm doing the same thing in the photo above.



And that's it.

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Come back tomorrow, or subscribe via the link in the side panel, for the exciting conclusion of Cucumber and Onion Salad.

How To Slice An Onion Into Shreds

If you're making onion rings, you really have to have rings. It's kind of in the name. For almost anything else it's better to have all the pieces be just about the same size and shape, and the way onions are built that's just not going to happen with rings. (Unless you mince them and mechanically extrude them to make perfect little uniform rings like certain fast "food" places do.)

I covered how to dice an onion a while back. That's great for recipes where you'll be cooking the onion, or for macaroni salad. But for other salads it's probably better to "shred" the onion. No, it's not really shredded, that's just chef talk for "long thin strips". Not only is this the best way to prep onion for salads, it's even easier than dicing.

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Directions

Slice off the root and stem ends.



Lots of cookbooks talk about how to trim really close to the root and stem to minimize waste. If you're working at a restaurant and going through 50-pound sacks of onions every night, go ahead and worry about that last quarter ounce of onion. If I'm only slicing one or two -- or even four or five -- I can live with a little bit of waste. If I were really that worried about waste I'd have a compost heap.

Now set the onion on one of the new cuts and slice it in half.



It should be pretty easy now to peel the papery outer layer off.



If you're having trouble, use a paring knife to get under the edge and peel it that way.

Once it's peeled, take one half and cut it in half again from end to end.



Starting from the center, where you just made the last cut, start slicing until you get about halfway to the edge ...



... and it's too skinny to be stable.



Then lay the end piece down ...



... and keep going, starting from the small side. Notice that I'm guiding the knife with knuckles on my left hand ...



... with the fingertips tucked back.



No one wants fingernails in their food. Keep going until you get to the edge.




Repeat this for the other pieces, or put the rest away for the next meal. That's the other good thing about this way of cutting: it's very easy to cut a half or even a quarter of an onion.

Separate any pieces that are stuck together.



And that's it.

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Don't miss the thrilling followup, How To Peel A Cucumber, and the edge-of-your-seat excitement of Cucumber and Onion Salad, coming up later this week. Sign up for my email or RSS reed in the column to the right.

How To Dice Hard Boiled Eggs

Have you ever seen hard boiled eggs diced into those perfect little cubes and wondered how they did that? It's really easy to do as long as you have a wire egg slicer. I'm generally not a fan of single-purpose gadgets in the kitchen, but this one makes the cut.

Start by cutting perpendicular to the long axis, the way you would if you were just going to do slices.



Holding everything together, turn the egg a quarter turn and slice again.



One more quarter turn -- it's going to be really hard to hold it all together now.



And that's it.

How To Dice a Bell Pepper

There's lots of slow ways to seed and chop a pepper, and a couple simple ways. I like this one. Start by cutting off the top as shown above. You want to cut as close as possible to the base of the stem.



If you got it just right, you'll be able to pop the stem out with your thumb, and then pull out the membrane with the seeds.



Cut it in half and trim out more of the membrane.



Some peppers have four lobes, some have six. Separate all the lobes so you can get the last of the membrane.



Slice the pieces lengthwise.



And that's it.

How To Core a Cabbage

Cutting the core out of a cabbage is pretty easy. But you can also make it hard on yourself by trying to do it the same way you'd cut the stem out of a tomato. Cabbages are too big and too firm to do that. Here's the easy way.

Cut the stem off the cabbage head.



Cut in half through the stem ...



.. then in half again through the stem.



Now you've got a wedge with the core at one end.



Slice the core out.



And that's it.

How To Mince Garlic

In case you didn't already know, the smaller you chop garlic the stronger the taste will be. When you cut or smash the cell walls, you're releasing the oils that carry the flavor. If you want to go a little milder than you get with smashed or pressed garlic, or if you just hate cleaning the garlic press, you'll need to learn how to mince.

As a bonus, this is also a good technique for using cloves that are actually a little past their prime. It's better, of course, to get something perfectly fresh, but if you've already started on dinner when you discover your garlic has started to sprout, this can be a real time saver.

Note in the two cloves below that they're starting to put out green shoots.



These shoots can be very bitter if you include them. They also don't smash the same way the rest of the clove does, and they'll get stuck in a press. Luckily, if you remember that garlic is a plant bulb, you'll see how to fix it. Start by cutting off the base of the clove.



You have to do this even if they haven't sprouted. Next cut the cloves in half lengthwise.



This is what you couldn't see before slicing, and it's what would jam up a garlic press. Pry out the center part with the back of your thumbnail or the tip of a paring knife.



Now that you've got the green out, put the flat side down and hold two or three pieces together on the cutting board.1



Don't worry at first about trying to go fast like you see the chefs do on TV. Just do nice thin slices along the long side.



Once they're sliced, turn them sideways and go across the other direction.



Presto, minced garlic.

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1. A note on cutting boards. Plastic and glass cutting boards look nice and clean up easy, but they're really hard on the edge of your knife. Use wood if you have a choice. You don't want to mince garlic with a dull knife.

How to dice an onion

Lots of recipes have the line "1 medium onion, diced" in the ingredients. Not too many of them show you how to do that. Here's a simple way that's easy to learn and pretty quick.

First, cut the pointy end off.



Then put the cut end on the cutting board and cut it in half straight down the middle.



Now that you have it split, it's much easier to peel the papery outer layers off.



Now comes the real dicing. Cut down and in, starting at one side and moving across to the other. The closer you make these cuts, obviously the smaller the dice will be.



Notice in the picture that I'm starting with the tip of the knife about a half-inch away from the root. You don't want to actually separate all the pieces from the base yet, and it's surprisingly easy to misjudge how the length of you knife will compare to the round onion.

Continue making cuts all the way across the onion.



Once you've made cuts all the way across, cut straight down cross-wise up to about a half-inch from the root.



If you hate waste -- or your mother drilled into you that you should never throw away food -- once you get close the the root, turn what's left on it's end and finish dicing.



The important part here is not to get the solid piece of the root into what you're cooking. It's better to throw out one or two little pieces that could be used than to cook a solid chunk of root.

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If you want long, even pieces instead of small ones, here's how to slice an onion in shreds.