Cutting basics.

[jeff]

Each post reply will have a short how to as with pictures for each style.

I'm going to cover.

Fine Julienne
Julienne
Batonnet
Brunoise
small dice
medium dice
large dice
paysanne
Lozenge


This first post will be on both holding the knife

Holding the knife.

I like to hold the knife handle with 3 fingers, then I place my thumb on one side of the blade. and index finger on the other side of the blade (see picture)
You should hold your knife in whatever way is the most comfortable feel.
Just make sure you DO NOT place your index finger on top of the blade.

your knife hand does the cutting and chopping. nothing more.
your guide hand allows the knife to slide on the front side of the fingers. the guide hand also uses the thumb to feed food to the blade.

When cutting, try to keep the tip of the blade on the cutting board, this will allow for better control over the blade.

For anyone wondering what type of knife I use, you can find it at amazon.com Amazon.com: J.A. Henckels Pro "S" Chef's Knife, 8": Kitchen & Housewares

[jeff]

Most uniform cuts start out by shaping the items you're working with.
I find that carrots make for great practice, are cheap, and you can eat them as you work. Because of those reasons and the fact that I wanted to snack on some carrots I used carrots for this guide.

Since they are round you need to shape them into something workable. to do this, cut them into 1 to 2 inch pieces. then cut all four sides off so you're left with a 1/2 inch x 1/2x by 2 inch piece.

If working at the top of the carrot you can make it bigger, or if working at the bottom, make it smaller. the idea is to make nice clean blocks.

[jeff]

Julienne and Batonnet style cuts,

there's 3 different types sizes of julienne.

Fine Julienne (also known as matchstick) 1/16x 1/16th x 1 to 2 inches.
Julienne 1/8x 1/8 x 1 to 2 inches
Batonnet* 1/4x 1/4 x 2 to 2 1/2 inches.
(*same style as julienne just with a different name)

Take your carrot, and slice off pieces, size them accordingly for what style of cut you want.
Once you have your slices of carrot. lay them over on their sides and slice them into strips.
When you get good you can stack them and slice 2-3 layers at once.

[jeff]

brunoise, small, medium, and large, dice are all the same shape. Only difference is size.

Brunoise 1/8" cube
Small dice 1/4" cube
Medium dice 1/2" cube
Large dice 3/4" cube

Take julienned or batonnet veggies and lay the strips together. then cut even cubes out of them.

[jeff]

Lozenge is a diamond shaped piece. standard is 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/8"
I like to take, if smaller, two strips and place them side by side, if the strips are larger I will split them down the middle to have two smaller pieces to lay side by side, then cut at a 45o angle making diamond shaped cuts.

(note) in the picture I pulled the pieces away from each other to show you how I had it layed out. also, sorry for the focus on the 2nd picture.

[jeff]

Paysanne is a piece cut 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/8"

This one is the easiest of them all!

I'll let you figure out how to do it based on the picture.