Cooking 101: Non-Precision Cuts

September 4, 2008

This post is part of a series called Cooking 101, which introduces the basics of cooking. The series follows the book Culinary Fundamentals, with supplements from The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America. Check out the previous posts here.

Unit 8: Basic Knife Skills

Part 3: Non-Precision Cuts

Non-precision cuts don’t require exact sizes or measurements, and therefore are the kind I use most. Many of you probably use them already in your everyday cooking, but if you’re just starting out, hopefully this guide will help you understand the various terminology in different cookbooks.

Preparatory Cuts

Often there are preliminary cuts you need to make to prepare the food for the actually cutting.

Peeling:

Peeling food can come in a surprising number of techniques depending on the food, but the easiest for most is a simple peeler. Just hold the food in one hand…and run the peeler over the skin in the other…

For foods with thick skins, like butternut squash or melon, you will have to use a knife for peeling.

Trimming:

Trimming also varies from food to food. For example, bell peppers need their stem, seeds, and ribs (the white part sticking out from the sides on the inside) removed. Excess fat needs to be removed from a chicken before roasting. You’ll need to be aware of trimming techniques for individual foods, which I can’t cover here.

One tip I read that has been useful occasionally is to trim off a small strip from the bottom of round foods for cutting. It will give you a solid base for the rest of your cuts, making you faster and safer. It works for a variety of foods, so keep it in mind the next time your food is rolling around.

Non-Precision Cuts

As I mentioned before, these cuts do not require precise measurements – just approximate the thickness or size you’re looking for and get it done quickly.

Chopping:

This is one of the most common cuts you’ll see. The goal is to get your food into pieces of similar size, but not worrying about small variations between them. For my potato here that I want to cut into a large chop, I began by cutting it in half, and then the half into three strips lengthwise.

To finish the chopping, I simply line up the three strips and move from right to left, cutting the pieces to approximately the same size.

Note that chopping is usually bigger than mincing.

Mincing:

Mincing more or less makes things really small. Use it mostly for herbs, garlic, ginger, shallots, or things of that nature. Remember that once you have the food in somewhat small pieces, you can move your off hand to the top of the knife to get a quick rocking action going.

Rondelle:

It sounds fancy, but it is really just round slices of a round food – think making slices of a carrot. Just get them all close to the same thickness for even cooking.

Chiffonade:

The chiffonade cut is used mainly for leafy herbs, like basil. I don’t have a picture (because I don’t have any herbs), but I’ll try to explain as if you were using basil. First, stack your leafs in the same direction and roll them from tip to stem. Then, make thin slices parallel to the visible cross section of the rolled leaves. You should end up with stringy shreds of basil. For further illustration, check here.

Oblique:

The oblique cut is a little strange, and I’m not actually sure where you would want to use it. But it is kind of fun and maybe it will impress people. This cut gives you wedges of whatever round vegetable you are cutting. Start by chopping off the end of your vegetable at an angle (in this case I used a carrot).

Then roll the carrot forward and make another cut at the same angle as the first cut.

How much you roll depends on how thick you want your slices. One book recommends 180 degrees, which produces thick slices. Another book says 35 to 40 degrees, which creates thin slices. I’m not sure if there is a standard way, but more roll seems to give thicker slices.

Diagonals:

The last non-precision cut that I want to cover is the diagonal. This is like the rondelle in that you are just making slices of whatever food you are working with. The difference is that the slices are at an angle to the food. This creates a larger surface area, which helps with quick cooking in foods like stir-fries.

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