(laughing)
- Alright so, most requested
vegetable that we cut up
is always an onion, right?
And every recipe's cursed with an onion.
Absolutely every recipe and sometimes,
that's the hurdle for
me, for making dinner.
It's like ugh, I've gotta
start with the onion.
They freeze really well.
If you chop a whole bunch of 'em.
Medium onion chopped is one cup.
So, chop a whole bunch of
onions, put em in a freezer bag.
One cup, throw them in the
freezer, they freeze forever.
Okay, not forever but
like six months, easy.
And you don't have to thaw
them when you start cooking.
Frozen onion right into a
pan with some heated oil
and you're off to the races.
So, that's a good trick.
A lot of people like to
cry when they chop onions.
This is for you.
- [Woman] Or just in general.
- Because those vapors
that are released when you
slice into an onion
really affect your eyes.
So you can, instead of doing
that, you can look cool
like Bridgette.
- These are onion goggles.
Literally onion goggles.
That's like the other day,
I saw a banana slicer.
- I saw that.
We were in New York and saw that.
- That's what that is, right?
- There's no resistance
in a banana either.
- These have a little
gasket around the lens
to keep those terrible gases
away from your sensitive eyes.
We both wear contact lenses
which is why we don't
cry on camera.
After the show's done though,
it's a whole other game.
- No but the onion's, ya know,
the fume's can really hurt
and one thing, you're
gonna look like an idiot
but if your eyes are really
burning, stick your head
in the freezer because it's really just,
it's very soothing and you're kinda--
I'm not kidding.
- [Bridgette] She actually does it.
Don't matter if she's
cutting onions or not.
Where's Julia? She's in the freezer again.
- Alright so, onion,
whole onion, not peeled.
First thing I'm gonna do
is slice off the tip end
and take it away.
Now I'm gonna cut the onion in half again
right through that root
part so there's equal amount
of root on both halves.
That root is what holds
those layers together.
So you go right through that.
This is when you peel it.
I like to take the
outside peel and also that
first layer away.
First layer is often
slimy, thin in places,
can have some bruises.
And now, this is what I like
to call the Bridgette Lancaster
method because she taught
it to me the other week
and I think it's the
best way to teach someone
how to cut an onion.
- [Bridgette] And you
have to pay me five bucks
every time you use it.
And you have to say, "Thank
you, Bridgette Lancaster,"
every time you do it.
- So usually, when you have half an onion,
you have to cut it three ways.
You have to cut it this way, this way
and that's the kicker, right?
That's the hard one, that's
when things start falling apart.
And then this way.
So, this is how you get around doing that.
Instead of using half
of an onion, you cut it
through the root end again and
you do a quarter of an onion.
So you start cutting towards
the root, but not through
that way and then look,
flip it on it's side.
I know, right!
It's a game changer.
And then you do that again and
then you can just go through
and mince it up.
I've got tiny hands, right?
I mean, I'm like I should work
at a carnival or something.
Really small hands.
- So onions, even like
a regular sized onion
which is the size of a tennis ball.
That's a medium onion, by the way.
Sometimes they're just
too unwieldy and it's that
horizontal cut that always got to me,
usually while we were doing television.
- Yeah and also, if
you're slicing an onion,
ya know there's two
ways to slice an onion.
Slice it so you get the rainbows
or you slice it pull to pull
where you get sort of nice
or elegant looking lengths.
That actually makes a different
texture when they're cooked.
If you make the rainbows, they
will melt down and break down
the texture a bit more.
So that's good if you're
trying to hide an onion
in a soup or let them break down.
If you want the onions
to retain their texture,
slice them pull to pull.
- Alright so next, the
most exciting vegetable
in the entire produce
section, it's celery.
And did you guys know
you're gonna eat this?
It's not just a swizel
stick for your bloody Mary.
It's kind of cool, I just found that out.
The problem is that a lot of
recipes, including some of ours
will call for a specific amount of celery,
whether it's chopped or minced.
And you take off one stalk
and you chop it and you
mince it and you measure it out
and that's not quite enough.
So you take another one
off and then it's too much
and you end up composting
it or throwing it away.
You don't have to do that anymore.
So, this will get you
exactly the right amount
every single time.
So, always buy celery like this.
It's gonna stay fresher than
the one at a time pieces
that you find at a supermarket.
The leaves are great.
If you find the whole heads
of celery with the leaves on,
it's a lot of flavor in
there and you can use it
in just about any recipe
that you're gonna chop celery
but here's what I do.
I hold it like this, whole thing.
I'm not taking off one stalk at a time
and I cut through and this
all goes into my freezer
right beside the onions
and I'm gonna use it
for soup, stews, ya know, or
just really fantastic dinner
for the kids.
Great job on the report card, kids.
Guess what's for dinner.
(laughing)
What a mom.
So lucky I haven't been reported.
And now, you can just
chop off every little bit
that you need from all of these pieces.
This is how they do it in the restaurants.
- [Woman] Chop what ya need.
- Just chop what you need.
You can go back in there,
make it as fine as you want.
And then the rest of this,
you just wanna wrap loosely
in aluminum foil.
It will keep forever
in your crisper drawer
if you do that.
Aluminum foil has magic powers.
You can wear it as a hat
and you can wrap this
with aluminum foil.
It's also great for rhubarb as well.
It will keep rhubarb a lot longer.
But that is just a simple
restaurant trick that we're
using now for celery.
- Alright, moving on to carrots.
I'm gonna show you a
really easy way to make
carrot julienne and this
is not the way I learned
in culinary school where
you had to cut it out
to lengths and then you
had to waste trim pieces.
This is the fast and easy method.
Now, these won't look perfect
but they're good enough
for home.
So first, you wanna start
with a bigger carrot,
one of the bigger of the
bunch and you wanna make sure
it's peeled and the first cut's
gonna be at a severe angle
and then you're gonna
continue to slice this carrot
at this sort of severe bias.
You go until you can't really cut anymore.
Save that for stock and
then you take these pieces
and you lie them down
and then you can make
nice julienne, which is good
for a salad or a stir fry.
And if you get really good,
you can just stack them
on top of each other.
- [Bridgette] That is so
much faster than the old
squaring off of the carrot.
- [Julia] Well, it's very rustic.
I mean, you're not gonna impress
your friend chef with this
but if you're not getting graded.
- [Bridgette] I tell you what.
I've said this to Julia before.
If somebody sits down
at my table and says,
"These aren't perfect julienne."
(laughing)
You are outta there.
Sorry buster.
Alright, how bout move on to red pepper?
Alright, so, this is an unripe pepper.
It's delicious but it has a bitter flavor.
This is the same pepper
that's been ripened.
It's sweeter, that's it.
These peppers are bred to
be fancy and they're really
expensive and they should
be grown with dollar signs
on the side of them.
They're milder in flavor, more expensive,
but if you like sweet
peppers, you wanna go with the
red and if you like a
little bit of bitter,
ya know, in a lot of Cajun/creole food,
it just doesn't taste the
same with the red bell pepper.
But I'm gonna show you
roasted red bell peppers
that you've picked with Peter, right?
Taste great, you can
throw em on the grill.
You can do it with a broiler.
Amazing flavor.
And you want nice big pieces
of the bell pepper to do this
so that it doesn't fall
through the grill grates
after you minced it, ya know?
Who does that?
No one I know.
So here's an easy way.
You just take off the top.
You lop off the bottom and I
can see you right through that,
right, so it's hollow all the way through.
Cut down one side.
You're gonna open it up
and see that seed bed.
Rip that guy right outta
there and now, all I have
to do is press this down
kinda flat, make it a bit
more manageable and take
my knife and I'll start
with my finger on one side,
then move it away once that
knife gets right in there.
Then, do the same all the way through.
Just get any remaining seeds
and then, this is ready
to be thrown right under the
broiler or onto the grill.
So much easier and then think about it.
Once you take it out and
you have to let it steam,
it's gonna be so much easier
to get all that charred skin
off of a piece like this.
You can actually also
throw these in as well.
Just break em up into pieces
if you need to get that out.
But they'll go right in too.
So, waste nothing.
Alright, and now, let
me just throw this away.
(laughing)
- Alright, moving onto
tomatoes, we're gonna use this
as our representation of
something that's round
that you wanna make into a square.
First thing you wanna do is
get out the core and that
hard bit right underneath the stem.
Use the tip of a knife, a
chef knife or a pairing knife
would work nicely here.
I'm just angling the blade.
I know this looks a
little funny, doesn't it?
Like I'm using a huge knife.
But this is the go-to knife
if you're gonna have one,
have the chef's knife.
Then you pull out just a little
cone there and then you're
gonna take this and it's the
same no matter what kind of
vegetable it is.
It's round, so you're gonna
cut it into nice slabs
and you're gonna take each
slab, cut it into sticks,
cut the sticks into dice.
And again, this works with
any vegetable that's round
or anything that's round.
Planks, sticks, and dice.
Notice, I didn't seed the
tomato at all because the seeds
and the gel that surrounds the seeds
has the most tomato
flavor in the whole thing.
So you don't wanna get rid of that.
Now if you're really bothered by seeds,
leave them in there and
strain them out at the end.
But don't get rid of them before you cook
'cause you'll lose a lot of the flavor.
Alright, so that's a whole
tomato but we love using
cherry tomatoes because they're
almost always in season.
They're a little bit sweeter.
They have a really long shelf life.
Also, the trick, I should mention,
if you have tomatoes, the
trick to storing them is to
store them upside down, stem side down.
They will last a lot longer
because all the gases
that come out of the stem
actually make it ripen
and go bad more quickly.
So upside down, you'll probably
get about two to three times
amount of shelf life outta your tomatoes.
Alright, so cherry tomatoes.
Now the thing about cooking
with cherry tomatoes
is you usually have to
cut them in half first
and ya know, you sit there
with one tomato at a time
cutting it in half,
cursing at your dull knife.
So here's a different way to do it.
- [Bridgette] Julia's
gonna show you how to dice.
The cherry tomatoes one at a time.
- No, that would take a while.
I've done that actually.
It's ridiculous.
- Bet you have.
- So take two lids from
the deli at the supermarket
and take your cherry tomatoes
and you put them sort of
right in one of the deli lids.
Other deli lid on top.
Take your knife, cut
right through the middle.
Halved cherry tomatoes.
I know! It's a game changer.
This one brings the house down every time.
I love doing this one.
It's like, that just
saved five to six minutes
of work, right?
- [Bridgette] It's like 20
years just added to our lives
with that one.
(laughing)
Now I'm gonna chop broccoli.
Everyone's favorite vegetable.
