Recipe Writing Tips #1:
Designate the size of the cuts.
Hooray! You have just found a delicious looking recipe for dinner tonight. You’re very excited and can’t wait to share the delicious food (or not) with your family and/or friends. You gather all of your ingredients and prepare to start working all of the vegetables, meats, etc. into the right sizes for cooking.
But, there’s a hitch in your plans. The author of the recipe didn’t tell you what size those pieces of food need to be. When they say “chop” did they mean chop the food into teeny tiny pieces? Or, did they mean to chop the food into very large pieces?
What about the next ingredient? It says to dice the vegetables. But, there are at least 3 sizes of dices. Did they want a small dice, medium dice, or large dice?
And, just what do they mean by minced?
Well, here’s where we as authors of recipes can help. We can be clear in our recipes. We can learn what those terms actually mean and then actually say what we mean in our recipes.
Here are some of the most basic cuts you’ll need to know for writing a recipe for the masses.
Julienne- This is also often called a matchstick cut. The correct size is a 1/8 inch by a 1/8 inch by 2 inches in length. These are lovely as a garnish, can be used as an ingredient, or can be cut into a brunoise(discussed further down).
Batonnet (bat-on-nay)- This is kind of like a french fry. It’s a 1/4 inch by a 1/4 inch by 2 inches in length. Like a julienne this can be used as a garnish, an ingredient, or can be cut into a small dice (see below)
Dice- The dice is a perfect cube of a particular size.
Brunoise (broon-wa)- The mother cut of the brunoise is the julienne. There should be 16 brunoise in one julienne. These aren’t really used as an ingredient. They are better left for garnish.
Small dice- The mother cut of a small dice is the batonnet. This dice is 1/4 inch by a 1/4 inch by a 1/4 inch. Out of one batonnet you should be able to get 8 small dices. A nice garnish or ingredient.
Medium dice- Another perfect cube, but with a size of 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch. For me one of my finger is half an inch across at the tip.
Large dice- A cube of the dimensions 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch.
Chop- To cut into rough estimates of uniform size. There is no need for perfection here, but rough uniformity in size is a good idea. You can do a fine chop, small chop, a medium chop, or a large chop. The chop is good for cutting vegetables to make a stock where the size and appearance of the vegetables isn’t a big factor. A chop like a fine chop is also good for cutting herbs (like finely chopped parsley).
Mince- To chop very finely. Exact uniform size isn’t important, but you do need to have the food roughly the same size.
It’s important to have cuts of a uniform size and shape not only for appearance, but also because foods of differing sizes cook at different rates.
I’ve reference the cookbook “The Gluten Free Vegan” many times here on Gluten Free Maui, but something I wasn’t aware of until I started school was how the recipes weren’t quite as clear as they should be.
Last night I cooked the Potato and Pea Curry from the book, and I noticed that the recipe called for “6 large red potatoes, cubed.” Well, what’s a large potato in the author’s eyes (a future post in my Recipe Writing Tips series)? And, what exactly does she mean by cubed?
Well, clearly she means diced. But, what size of a dice? Does she mean a small dice? Probably not because the potatoes will dissolve. How about a large dice? I don’t think that’s quite right either because the potatoes will most likely burn on the outside before the inside is cooked. I guess she means a medium dice, but she didn’t say that. I was left in the dark, and so are other cooks when they run into directions that are vague.
Before we post another recipe to our blogs let’s make sure we have very clear directions on how to cut that food up in order to maximize appearance, cooking accuracy, texture, and flavor.
For more help with the cuts listed here, and other cuts, here are a few resources:
The New Cook on Non-Precision Cuts
The New Cook on Julienne and Batonnnet
The New Cook on Dices, Paysanne, Lozenge, and Tournet
In the Hands of the Chef on Google Books
Search the web and find even more!
