This is a very simple task, but done wrongly it really can endanger your fingers (which are pretty irreplaceable). Onions are a universally dish enhancing ingredient, providing a reliable and flavoursome base to a myriad of savoury dishes. Here’s my step by step guide to safely chopping this important ingredient.

1. Select a fresh, hard onion from your fridge.
2. Choose the best knife for the job. The key is to select a knife that you are comfortable using and that is sharp. Personally, I like to use my pairing knife (but more on knives later in a different post).
3. Secure your chopping board to prevent it from sliding around whilst you chop your onion. This can be done with a tea towel or a damp kitchen cloth.
4. Top and tail your onion. To do this, you must place your fingers out of the way of the knife, securing the top of the onion by pushing down on it with the tips of your fingers (don’t lay them flat), and slice the top and bottom away from your onion. Discard them.
5. You should now have two flat surfaces on your onion. Sitting your onion on its top (or bottom), carefully slice it in half down the middle.
6. Peel the paper-like skin away from each half of the onion and discard.
7. Taking one half of the onion and laying it flat side down on the chopping board, proceed to slice vertical cuts, approximately two millimetres apart, leaving a two millimetre gap at the top of the onion to ensure that it holds together.
8. Then slice into the width of the half onion three times, creating a criss-cross shape, again without going the entire way through the onion.
9. Then, slice through the half onion evenly, thus creating small onion cubes.
10. Repeat with the second half of the onion and proceed to cooking your dish!