Andy Harmer, chef at QT Melbourne's Pascale Bar & Grill, was 16 when he left home to work at the Imperial Hotel in Devon, England in 1996. On day one he was given a five-kilogram bag of shallots to peel.
"I cried my eyes out for an hour but as I did it, I realised how the layers work, how the root holds it together," he says.
![Chef Andy Harmer inside the Pascale Bar & Grill kitchen.](http://web.archive.org./web/20190327124221im_/https://www.goodfood.com.au/content/dam/images/h/1/1/q/4/d/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.h11wwl.png/1531958193184.jpg)
Next, he had to cut them. "That meant more tears, stabbing myself a few times and another hour," he says.
"When I finished, I showed chef proudly. He put them straight in the stock pot. Clearly they weren't good enough."
The next five kilograms – and every onion since – has been spot on.
See his step-by-step guide in the gallery above.