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When I'm in the kitchen, my cutting board is one of my best friends. I use a large, sharp knife and quickly (but carefully) chop my way through my onions, celery, potatoes or peppers. However, I have a good friend who prefers to ignore the cutting board for everything of the large job, instead using her fingers and a small paring knife to make fruit slices, potato wedges and carrot rings.
I tend to think of that 'in hand' slicing as a kitchen technique that comes from an earlier era. I can imagine my Auntie Tunkel standing in her tiny rowhouse kitchen, slicing root vegetables directly into a roasting pan, using a callused thumb to catch the blade on the other side of the turnip or rutabaga. My own mother is somewhere in between, having used the same old cutting board for so many years that she's worn it thin in the middle, nothing like my own hurried smash and chop.
Are you a cutting board devotee or an in hand slicer?
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10-22-2008 @8:06PM Dana said... Cutting board. If I tried to use my hand, I'd probably lose a digit. :D
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10-22-2008 @8:26PM Scott said... I'm a cutter. My wife is a slicer. It's kind of a handy pairing, actually. She peels things with a paring knife, and then I chop them quickly on the board. I would just use a peeler if I was her, and she would just slice things over the bowl if she were me, but hey it works!
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10-22-2008 @8:42PM Dr. Electro said... I use botyh techniques for different purposes and different foods. I hand slice my potatoes directly into the pot or skillet after washing. I hand slice bell peppers the way my wife likes them. I chop everything for stir fry. I slice meat on the board.
I have learned not to cut my thumb but that doesn't mean that it will never happen again. Carrots are not good candidates for hand slicing! Just ask my right thumb.
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10-22-2008 @9:18PM Tamara Kaye Sellman said... I learned the old school way, mostly: peeling and slicing with a paring knife. Cutting boards were for bread in my house when I was a kid.
I do both: in fact, I use one of those chopping devices for onions and remove the knife entirely from the occasion, I get so teary-eyed with them!
But there's something more homey about sitting over a waste basket, peeling apples, or leaning against the kitchen counter, hand-slicing carrots or potatoes into a pan.
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10-22-2008 @11:54PM Sara said... I used to hate chopping and mincing until I got a decent knife set. I would read people saying that they enjoyed the simple, menial tasks in cooking like that, and I realized that they must never have been stuck with second-hand knives that weren't any good to begin with.
The most-used item in my kitchen has to be my cutting board and my favorite knife.
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10-23-2008 @12:29AM Pyrofish said... Cutting board singular? How about cutting boards! I have one of those 4 packs of thin ones for traveling and light duty work. A large plastic one for breaking down big stuff, a small plastic job for lemons and limes at parties, and a large wooden one for, well, everything else.
However, when I cook while on camping trips, gotta go with the hand slicing. Stumps don't make good cutting boards.
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10-23-2008 @11:01AM victor said... I'm usually a chopper (I'm quick with the knife, so usually it's just about getting to job done), except when I'm making stews or chunky soups, where apart from the meat, I'll peel the vegetables with a paring knife, and then just do the cutting straight into the pot. For me there's something relaxing about it.
For me my skill with the paring knife didn't come from cutting vegetables, but from my Mom instilling the need within me to use the most I can from ingredients, chicken being a prime example of this (cutting all the meat away, and then boiling the bones).
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10-23-2008 @11:05AM victor said... @Pyrofish and Sara: How true. It was only when I bought myself a couple good knives, a proper sharpener, and a nice thick wooden cutting board that I properly realised how fun chopping can be (and what a dork I am).
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