If you receive Sara Kate's weekly Kitchn Email (quick, sign up here!) then today you're in for a treat. She's sharing the Korean grilled ribs we had a couple nights ago at an Apartment Therapy editors' retreat. They were delicious and totally addictive. But the side dish we prepared to go with them was nearly as good: a simple salad with lettuce, Asian pear, and julienned scallions.
I sliced up all the scallions, and I have to admit that I had never julienned this particular vegetable. Here's how I did it, but I also want to know: how would you julienne these thin little onions?
To julienne a vegetable or fruit is to cut it into long, thin strips like matchsticks. This is more commonly done for hard vegetables like carrots, celery, and potatoes. I had never done it on the long, tender scallions.
I used a basic but time-intensive method of simply cutting each scallion into thirds then slicing it carefully into small slivers. This is a great shape for scallions, we discovered; you can wrap the scallion strips around the meat, if you want, and it gives them a more delicate texture and taste than the usual little chopped rounds.
But how would you do this? Would you use a mandoline or perhaps a negi cutter?
Related: Product Review: Benriner Mandoline
(Images: Faith Durand)
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This is the only way I cut up green onions. If you slice across the onion, the little rounds will fall off your fork.
P.S. Have you ever written a column on scallions, green onions, and spring onions. What you call scallions, I call green onions. I believe the maturity of the onion has something to do with the designation----that once the onion begins to show a bulb shape, then it's a different name. But I don't know which is which.
This may also be a regional thing.
It wouldn't help with wrapping, but for salads I cut them on a really steep diagonal. Pretty fast, good texture.
I would be terrified to cut a scallion on a mandolin! I need a lot more vegetable between my fingers and the blade.
Generally, I face the bulbs farthest from me in a bunch (after lopping the roots off, of course) and, keeping a firm hold on the white parts, I drag my knife with my other hand in a stiff diagonal across the greens.
When you're down to the whites...they're easier to chop because they're firmer. It's kind of like spearing lettuce leaves.
Gourmet.com has a new video on how to shred scallions, Korean-style. About half way through.
To julienne them, I slice them on a very extreme angle as thinly as I can. You get long deep rounds rather than little squat rounds.