The delicious dishes during Tet holiday at your home will certainly not lack decoration. To help you, the Kitchen Tips section of TasteVN will show you how to carve lotus flowers from onions, tomatoes, and kiwis to decorate the upcoming Vu Lan dishes. Are you ready to cook?
1 Carving white lotus flowers from onions
Ingredients and tools needed
- 1 onion
- 1 small slice of carrot
- Carving knife
Steps to follow
First, peel the onion clean, peel the carrot, wash them and let them drain.
Divide the onion into 8 equal parts, using a knife to cut vertical lines along the onion so that each cut separates a layer of onion skin, leaving a small section about 1cm from the root of the onion.
Gently separate each thin layer of onion skin to create tiers of flowers, with the upper tier’s petals alternating with the lower tier. Repeat the process until you reach the core of the onion.
Note: You should separate each layer and shape the lotus petals tier by tier, being gentle with the upper layers to avoid breaking the petals underneath.
For the onion core, cut off half of the core horizontally. Use a knife to create small round holes in the onion core, and carve a little carrot to place in as the flower’s stamen.
Thus, you have created a beautiful white lotus flower from the onion to decorate your dish.
2 Carve a pink lotus flower from a tomato
Ingredients and tools needed
- 1 tomato
- Carving knife
Steps to perform
Tomato you bought should be washed clean, then let it drain.
Starting from the top of the fruit, use a knife to make a light cut just enough to pierce through the thin outer skin of the tomato vertically to split the fruit in half, stop cutting about 2cm from the stem.
On each side of the tomato, use the knife to make 2 additional diagonal cuts, intersecting at the midpoint of the initial cut, to divide the tomato into 6 equal parts.
Then gently peel each tomato petal out. After peeling each petal, slowly curve the tip of the petal outward.
Repeat the process with the remaining 5 petals.
Note: Do not cut too close to the stem, as doing so will cause the flower to bloom too widely, which is not aesthetically pleasing.
Next, you cut the inner flesh to create another layer of flowers, the upper layer also alternates with the lower layer.
The deep cut touches the tomato seeds inside, gently separating each petal will give you a beautiful pink lotus from the tomato.
3 Carve green lotus from kiwi fruit
Ingredients and tools needed
- 1 kiwi fruit
- Carving knife
Steps to implement
Kiwi after purchasing, you cut off both ends of the fruit, then use a knife to make sawtooth cuts dividing the fruit into two equal parts, each cut should go about 2cm deep to separate the kiwi.
Note: Depending on the size of the fruit, each sawtooth cut should be evenly divided, thus the finished lotus will look more beautiful.
At each edge of the cut from top to bottom, gently make another cut with a knife just enough to pierce through the thin skin of the kiwi, with a cut length of about 2mm.
Gently slice thin lines from top to bottom to separate the thin skin from the flesh (without cutting it off completely). Adjusting the spread of the petals, you will instantly have a simple green lotus flower made from kiwi.
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TasteVN hopes that with detailed suggestions on how to carve lotus flowers from onions, tomatoes, and kiwi will give you many ideas for decorating dishes this Vu Lan festival. Wishing you success!
