Today we’ll wrap up our overview of culinary knife skills with some Chef’s Secrets that will help make your kitchen cutting, slicing and chopping chores easier, faster and more consistent. Like so many things in life, these tips are more matters of common sense than they are magic…
The right way to dice an Onion…
Here are some common techniques that let you dispense with the cutting faster and get the most out of your pricey produce…
Round food on a flat board…
Here’s the first challenge we all face when trying to cut food safely and consistently. The cutting board is flat and the food is almost always curved. So it’s likely to roll when you apply pressure with your knife. And that’s going to make for inconsistent, crooked and, well, ugly cuts. Not to mention the danger of injuries to you if the knife blade slips off the food. What to do? Simple. Start fashioning that round Carrot into perfect square-profile match sticks by taking a small slice off one side of the veggie. With that flat side on the flat board, the Carrot can’t roll or wobble. Further cuts will be clean and precise.
And don’t throw out that first slice of Carrot! Every professional kitchen keeps a bowl or bucket on hand to catch otherwise-usable scraps of aromatic veggies such as Carrots, Onions and Celery which can be tossed into the next pot of stock to enrich the brew. Like my grandparents taught my parents in the Depression: Waste not, want not. And in the restaurant business every penny saved is a penny added to the profit.
The right way to deconstruct Sweet Peppers…
The best and most efficient way to dismantle a Sweet Green or Red Pepper is to slice the top and bottom off the veggie off parallel to one another, then turn the resulting cylinder on its side. Place your knife blade inside the Pepper and roll the cylinder cutting the core out by severing the white ribs that hold it to the flesh and skin of the Veggie. You can now fashion the main part of the Pepper into any size of dice or stick shape you want. Toss the core but keep the top and bottom. These end pieces can be roughly cut paysanne style, for soups, stews or other applications such as Tex-Mex dishes or Pizza toppings. If you can’t use them any other way the same day, toss the tops and bottoms into the Stock bowl.
Outsmarting the mighty Onion…
It’s not just the volatile compounds in Onions that make cooks cry. For many, its the frustration they experience when trying to cut perfect dices and slices from this enigmatic Veggie. I don’t have a lot of help for those who want to fashion perfect rings for Salads, Burgers or Deep Frying. But there is one tip that can be applied here, and it is easily transferable to other round veggies that – for o0ne reason or another – cannot be prepared for fancier cuts by cutting a flat on one side. I use a dampened paper towel or Kitchen towel as a cradle to stabilize my Onion for slicing rings. There also tools out there which are designed solely to produce perfect Onion or Tomato slices, but they’re for restos where they need to produce hundreds or thousands a shift. And they’re expensive.
To produce the perfect diced Onion, there’s only one really easy, straightforward technique. It’s also the fastest.
Cut the top (stem) and bottom (root) ends off the Onion and then cut it in half top to bottom. This given you two half-rung profiles. Now is a good time to remove the skins and tough outer layers of the veggie. Lay the skinned onion half on the cutting board and, choosing the end with the most exposure (usually the root end), make a series of parallel cuts the width of the dice you want across the half-rings. Don’t cut all the way through to the other end, though. We want the Onion to stay together through the next step. Now, cut across the parallel cuts to free up perfect, consistent diced Onions. (See the photo, above.)
Rock, don’t roll…
One reason I and millions of other Chefs worldwide prefer the classic French knife is its curved blade. With a flat, straight blade, you are limited to up-and-down cuts, while the curved blade can be rocked on the cutting board to ‘automate’ repetitive cuts such as producing Carrot ‘coins’ or slicing Celery or Scallions for Soups, Stews or Stir Fries. The rocking motion is also useful for manually mincing or fine-chopping Herbs and Spices. You may find other uses for this time- and energy-saving technique!
Now you know everything…
Well. not really, but you do know some Chef secrets that will make your cooking endeavours faster and less tedious…
~ Maggie J.