How to prepare onions for batch cooking
This is an overview of how to get your kitchen ready, unpack the onions, cut it into pieces, get the onions ready for batch cooking. If you want the full recipes you can download them for free via the batch cooking page.
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These are some tips on how to get your kitchen ready for a big batch cook. At first, you might think that this is overkill, but these little tips are the result of 2 years of trial and error. You will be faster with this bit of preparation.
Prepare your surface
While you might think there is not a lot going on in this picture it is actually a system that helps me to be fast and clean. Admittedly I have the advantage of having a kitchen island. If you have space, make a trip to IKEA. The kitchen island in the picture was 400 Euro and my expectations around a kitchen island were more towards €1000. Of course, if you live in Malibu or New York this is beneath you, but then you won’t cook yourself anyway. A kitchen island is worth it especially when you cook a lot. Otherwise, these principles apply to any surface in your kitchen.
Get all of your bowls to the left of your surface. Make sure they are empty and clean. This is where all of your prepared ingredients will go. Leave the ingredients in storage. When we started batch cooking we got it all out on the surfaces which clogged up the kitchen. Avoid that. Get the ingredients out per step, put them on the chopping board and place them in a bowl to the top of the surface.
Set your chopping board up in the middle. Just like the TomTom of a drummer, this is your central workspace. Have a bowl to the right of the board ready to dispose of anything that will not go in your food. These can be kernels, vegetable skins, and potato peel depending on what you are making.
Put a fresh cleaning cloth to the right of your setup. Fold it up and make it flush with the corners of the kitchen island or surface you are using. Be disciplined about this. You will use this cloth after each preparation step to clean the surface. This will save time. Believe me clean as you go is faster than cleaning up the mess at the end. I got this little trick from Fred’s visit to the Mugaritz in San Sebastián on BBC two.
The last item is a chef's knife. It is worth investing ina good one as this is the only knife you will need for batch cooking. My wife does not really like it when I use the big knife for peeling, but it less washing up to do and less hassle. Just keep the knife clean during the process of batch cooking.
Prepare the sink
The sink can turn into a problem during cooking. To keep everything clean I wash the knife and the chopping board after each step of preparation. To avoid flooding around the sink I put a tea towel right beside the sink to dry both down and also soak up any excess water.
Not in the picture to the right is a little bin for biodegradables. This is where I drop the leftovers from the chopping when the bowl on the kitchen island filled up. Repeat these steps during the batch cook to keep the area clean.
The last important item is the hand wash beside the sink. Wash your hands after each step of preparation, especially when you have handed meat. This will keep the food clean and healthy. When you are cooking for the entire family for an entire week this aspect becomes even more important than just for yourself.
Have a tea towel on your apron
Get a tea towel with a little loop like shown above. This way you can attach it to your apron when you are working. With this setup, you always have a towel ready to lift a hot pot, wipe away something you have spilled or dry your hands between steps. All of this preparation will pay off at the later stages of the batch cook.
Put on an apron
You can also wear old clothes. Cooking in your good clothes with a nice apron will put you in the right mindset. This way you will be focused and ready for the task. It also makes you feel a little more like a chef and a little less like someone who just has to finish a mundane task for the week.
Hang the recipes above the stove
Whatever cooking station you have, get the recipes to the wall on top of it. Use a bit of tape or blu tac to put them on the wall. Avoid leaving them on a surface as you will put something on them or spill something. This way you can recycle them more often. Cooking with your phone or tablet might work, but puts your precious gadget at peril. I usually keep my phone in my apron as a timer and emergency backup in case anything goes wrong. It also helps with music.
Get your music ready
The batch cooks I do usually take about 3 - 4 hours each. The yield is food for 1 - 2 weeks depending on how it goes. For this time I like to listen to music. The earphones from bose I use have been with me for several years and never let me down. Personally, I do not listen to the radio as we have dogs and people go in and out of the kitchen to do their own thing. This is the best solution for me.
Unpack the onions
Onions usually come in a net. Depending on how many you will use, either just cut the net open with scissors to be careful and able to reuse it or just rip the whole net off. Forme, there always seem to be onions leftover in the house. Together with garlic it definitely pays off to look in your cupboards before ordering more. If you cook regularly, it is very likely that you still have some onions knocking about. They go with many Mediterranean recipes so it is never bad to have them. Don't obsess too much between the different types of onions. Whether you use charlottes, red or yellow onions will not spoil your recipe. Just take care of sizes and quantities as yellow onions tend to be the biggest, followed by red and charlottes.
Remove the top and bottom
Use your chef's knife to remove the top and bottom of the onions after you have unpacked them. I find curring them up this way the easiest to remove the skin. If you don't have a technique to it, peeling onions can be annoying. I also recommend to look up all the recipes in your batch cook and do all onions at the same time as they make you tear up. Onions are usually my second last step in the vegetable preparation. The last being the chillis so that they don't rub off on any other preparation steps. When you have removed the top and bottom of the onions like this you can move on to the next step.
Peel the onions
For this step, I use my hands. You can see it best in the middle onion what I do. Just get the skin with the nail of your thumb and eel it off vertically so that you get a start. A bit like getting a grip on toilet paper or duck tape when you first want to use it. Once You have a vertical start pull the skin horizontally. With a bit of practice, you will be able to peel the onion all the way around. Remove any skin so that you end up with a complete white.
Half the onions
Befoe you start to chop, half the onions with one cut so you can lay them flat on the chopping board. This way you will have more control in the chopping and can move faster. If you leave them whole, it will be a lot more likely that you will cut yourself. Only half the onions if you want to dice them, which is the case for most batch cook recipes. If you want onion rings, try to get smaller onions and cut them whole.
Chop the onions
After this chop the onions as this as you prefer. If you want to avoid tearing up, use a sharp knife. The blunter the knife is the more likely you will tear up. Apart from that, you can also put water in your mouth. You tear up because of the onions letting out a gas that reacts with the water in your eyes. If you have water in your mouth the effect is not as bad. Mostly, just be fast and get it over with. The less you obsess abaout the onions, the easier it will be.
