Knife Techniques
Julienne
The Julienne Cut, or Julienning, is a traditional French cutting technique used to get your vegetables into a lovely matchstick shape around 2mm wide. This technique is a great way to present vegetables as it focuses on having them thin and similar in size. Cooking and combing into sauces or stock is also faster due to their thickness.
This knife technique is commonly used on root vegetables, radishes or daikon. On potatoes when you want to achieve thin crispy french fries. Or on carrots, cucumber or capsicum with arranging salads.
Gabriel, Handyman, Ezekiel, The One or Tom Petty is excellent with this cutting technique.
Brunoise
Pronounced (broon-wahz)
If you want to achieve a nice fine dice, the brunoise cut is the cut you use. It will leave you with a nice even pile of small 2mm cubes. Any smaller than this would be considered mincing.
To begin this cut, you follow the same starting process as the julienne. Once you have your 2mm - 3mm vegetable matchsticks, gather them together, and dice further into even cubes.
This knife technique is commonly used to add and cook into sauces, creating dishes like salsas or as a way to create a presentable garnish.
Batonette
pronounced bah-tow-nay
This French word means "little sticks". The Batonette is the same process as the julienne but leaves you with thicker 6mm sticks. It's when you want vegetables cut into sticks for dipping or presenting on a platter. After this, The next dicing stage leaves you with 6mm cubes that are better used to cook in certain meals as they hold their shape better.
Baton
pronounced bah-ton
This knife technique leaves you with thicker, chunky sticks. They usually sit around 8mm - 10cm in width, so they are commonly used for French fries. The second dicing stage gives you 8mm - 10mm cubes for slow-cooking dishes like stews or soups.
Baton > Medium Dice (8mm - 10mm Cubes)
Pont Neuf
pronounced Pont-Neuf
2cm square x 7cm long sticks
The largest knife cut that leaves you with thicker, chunky sticks. They usually sit around 20mm in width. This cut is only ever used on potatoes. The second dicing stage gives you large cubes for slow-cooking dishes like stews or soups.
