Cutting Your Vegies & Fruits

I some times find it challenging to decide on how to cut my vegetables or fruits for some cooking recipe or  salad, to make it look beautiful.  More often it depends on the size or the shape I cut my vegetables or fruits for that recipe.

Before you start working on your recipe, try to visualize, how you would want your recipe look.

There is a lot of different creative ways and here are some of them:

 

DICE or CUBES

Cut vegetables into slices or sheets. Cut the slices crosswise into batons, then cut the batons crosswise into dice.

 

BIAS OR ANGLE CUT

Cutting fruits or vegetables at an angle is a simple way to enhance their shape.
You can hold your knife at various angles, both slight and sharp to achieve different cuts.

 

BATONS

Cut vegetables into slices or sheets.
Then cut the slices lengthwise into batons that are the same width and thickness.

 

MATCHSTICKS

Cut veggies  or fruits into the 1/8 in-thick slices, trim to desired length. Then cut the slices into 1/8 in-thick matchsticks.

 

COINS OR ROUNDS

Making simple round slices of any width or size is one of the most basic cuts and works best with spherical fruits of vegetables. (Coins are small rounds).

 

WEDGES

Cut spherical fruits and vegetables in half, then cut at an eagle into wedges – shapes with the thick end and a tapering  thin adge – to the thickness you want.

 

OVALS

Holding your knife at an angle slice round or  elongated fruits or vegetables crosswise into ovals.

 

JEWELS

Jewels are small to medium size, irregular shapes like jewels. If working with a slice,  cut crosswise onto batons that are the same width. Then cut crosswise at an angle into jewels. If working with a wedge, cut crosswise at an angle (or various angles) into jewels.

 

HALF MOON

Cut fruits of vegetables crosswise into round slices, then cut crosswise into half moon.

 

SLICE

Cut a thin, broad piece of something (vegetable, fruit, bread, meat, or cake,) from a larger portion

 

SHRED

Strips torn, cut, or scraped from vegetables or fruits.

 

MINCE

Cut up with a knife or grind into very small pieces, typically in a machine with revolving blades.

 

 

OTHER TERMS:

 

BLEND

Mix (a substance) with another substance so that they combine together as a mass .

 

MIX

Combine or put together to form one substance or mass.

 

STIR or STIR INTO

Move a spoon or other implement around in (a liquid or other substance) in order to mix it thoroughly.
Or add an ingredient to (a liquid or other substance) in such a way .