science

I've seen a few ways for chopped onion. Chopped meaning that we want reasonably small consistent size pieces.

1. Root on, halved through the N & S poles, one half laid flat, vertical N/S cuts, leaving connection to root intact, cuts parallel to table almost to root, latitude cuts moving to the root end. Then a final cleanup chop of the large pieces from the root end.

2. Same as 1 but no parallel to table cuts. More cleanup chop at the end.

3. Same as 1 but radial longitudinal cuts instead of vertical.

4. Same as 2 but radial longitudinal cuts instead of vertical.

5. Same as 1 but without halving the onion first. Done in the hand.

6. Same as 4 but without halving the onion first. Done in the hand.

7. Same as 4 but root off before halving.

8. Same as 7 but latitude cuts before radial.

9. Same as 8 but latitude slices laid flat before radial cuts.

10. Same as 7 but root off after halving.

11. Same as 8 but root off after halving.

12. Nana method, higgledy piggledy paring knife action in the hand.

Classical western method is 1. Both 2 and 4 are very common in restaurant settings in my experience. I like method 8. Any other way feels either too fiddly or too sloppy. But I have seen each of these in action.