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.

▲

sdwr 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, measuring standard deviation from the average isn't an accurate way of scoring - "too big" pieces are worse than "too small"

▲

joshwa 3 days ago | parent [-]

Just 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 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		If small pieces burn then so will ends of larger pieces. Just lower the heat and give it enough time instead.

▲

throwawayffffas 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Uniformity 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.

▲

shakna 4 days ago | parent [-]

But you don't want an even flavour profile. You do want things cooked, but not perfectly the same as each other.

	▲	zdragnar 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		That depends entirely on what you're using them for. In most cases, consistency and control go hand in hand.

▲

IAmBroom 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Burnt 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.

▲

4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲

RataNova 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As long as no chunk is big enough to stay crunchy while the rest caramelizes, you're good

▲

account42 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah it's an interesting theoretical problem but the practical applicability is limited.

▲

jmrm 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

IMHO 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 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		When 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...