It’s Getting a Bit Dicey!

Now we know how to hold your new knife with a safe and controlled grip, its time to explain the different types of cut you may need to use day to day. In this blog we want to demonstrate the differences between a Julienne and a Brunoise cut and to learn some of the common cutting techniques we may find in a cooking book but don’t quite understand.

A great cook knows that the shape and size of an ingredient can make subtle changes to any dish. Ingredients cut to varying sizes not only affects cooking times but can also, change taste, while adding texture and flare to any recipe.

Today you will see I’m using the MO-V range of knives. The MO-V series boasts Aus-8 steel and are great all round kitchen tools. The razor-sharp hand worked edge provides the perfect instrument for the precise cuts we will be discussing.

Julienne/French Cut

The ingredient is cut into long, uniform strips like matchsticks. Julienne cut is often used for salad ingredients like cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots etc. This is probably the simplest of cuts, and simply requires even spacing on cuts to ensure all strips end up being roughly the same width. The Julienne Cut is shown top right of the image above.

Slice

Slicing is used to cut ingredients into thinner pieces.

To slice you just need to make one type of cut. Looking at our carrot example, hold the carrot with your non dominant hand in the claw (See last weeks blog) and use your other hand to hold the knife in 1 of the 3 techniques we taught in our last blog. The slices will be thin circles of carrot.

You can adjust the look of your food by changing the direction of the slice as shown in our picture to add flare to any dish. We have added some plateau slices to demonstrate different way you can slice if you want to get fancy. The sliced carrot is shown bottom right of the image above.

Chiffonade

Use this technique for leafy greens like spinach and kale.

The chiffonade cut is achieved by cutting your leafy green or herb into long ribbons. Roll them up tight and thinly slice across said ingredient to achieve your delicate chiffonade slice. The Chiffonade is demonstrated in the top left of the image above.

Diced

Dicing is a cutting style aimed to chop ingredients into cubes, similar to Brunoise which we will explain next.  Dicing takes more than 1 type of cut and first you will need to slice horizontally along your vegetable, making sure to always using the claw grip to keep your fingers safe. Once you have finished your horizontal cuts chop along the vertical using a rocking motion to create cubed diced vegetables.

Diced Carrots are shown top middle of the above image.

Brunoise

The Brunoise is the finest of dices. Any smaller than this and the cut is considered a mince. As you are trying here to create a finely diced vegetable care should be taken and appropriate knife grips and techniques used to avoid the plasters coming out.

To achieve Brunoise first cut your food julienned along the horizontal, then along the vertical chop again to create fine cubes. This cutting technique is shown here with carrots bottom left of the above image, but can be applied to vegetables such as onion, peppers, celery as examples.

Plateau Cut

If your recipe calls for plateaued carrots, follow the squaring-off guide. Instead of slicing the carrot horizontally, slice it vertically to create thin plateaus. These plateaus are flat, elongated pieces that add visual interest and can be used in various dishes. This method is shown in the above image, bottom row middle.

We hope this week’s blog has been a help and your vegetables are now sliced and  brunoised to perfection… remember it’s not all about speed, technique is much more important.

Next week we will be sharing how to care of and sharpen your Precision Knives.