Chopping the Tomatoes and Onions for Tabouli Salad

Mohammad Karimy: Hello, I am Mohammad Karimy with Lebanese Taverna Cooking Class And Catering. We are making our Tabouli salad. We have got chopped parsley and now we are going to chop some tomatoes and onions. Alright, again, make sure you have a sharp knife and for the tomatoes you cut the bottom part, you put it aside and then you cut this part, put it aside, if you want you cut in half this way alright you see, rub the knife against your knuckle, slide the knife. Make sure you have a nice sharp knife so you are not bruising the vegetable, you are chopping and this is how you chop.

Hide the tip of your finger; rub the knife back and forth. You will get nice chopped tomatoes. It is very important to use a sharp knife, so that way you know that you are chopping with the knife instead of bruising it. So again, here chop, chop, chop and here also see, I am protecting my fingers. I don t want to chop my fingers. So I hide them, rub the knife against my lower knuckles, alright. And here the tomato is chopped. We push this aside, you see I am using the back side of the knife moving the stuff off the cutting board.

Now here we are going to chop onion. You could use yellow, purple, white onion. So I like to use purple onion for the color, it adds a lot to it. Cut in half so the onion becomes more stable and you can easily peel it too and you see the onion, nice, very fresh looking onion. This is how you chop. You follow the lines, the green using the tip of the knife so, you will go like this. Use tip of the knife like this, okay, once you get close to the end, it is not done all the way it is still attached, there s one piece. And you cut against these lines and you get cube.

And then you chop a little bit more chop, chop, chop and your onion is chopped. This is the easy way, the safest way to chop onion. Sometimes you might cry because onion is really sharp and sometimes these candles, they look romantic, but it also burns the fumes, you could wear goggles, but you wont look nice, but you wont cry. But sometimes crying is good for your eyes you know, it takes all the stress out. That s what some people they say, and here onion and the tomato is chopped. Next thing what we are going to is we are going to mix them altogether.