Chopping skills
Key Summary
Good knife technique is one of those skills that carries across every single meal you cook.
Uniform cuts aren't just for aesthetics. They help ingredients cook evenly and reduce waste.
Finger placement is everything. Get that right and everything else follows.
A sharp knife is safer than a blunt one. Counterintuitive, but true.
You don't need a class to learn this. A good YouTube video and a bag of carrots will do.
Learning the names of the techniques helps. It gives you something to search for and build on.
How It Started
I wanted a Project 50 skill that was culinary and practical.
Not mastering one specific dish, but something I'd use every single time I cooked. Chopping felt like the obvious answer. It's the foundation of almost everything that happens in a kitchen, and I'd been doing it in a fairly haphazard way for years. I didn't really recognise how much time I would save.
As someone who's much more comfortable being a sous chef than managing all the timings of the main event, I thought it was also something I could realistically get better at without it feeling overwhelming.
A bit like touch typing. Learn it properly once, and it stays with you.
I used a mix of YouTube tutorials, reading The Four Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss and a lot of practice.
The Epicurious 101 video by chef Frank Proto on 9 essential knife skills was particularly good and is a great place to start if you're curious.
The Experience
The first thing I learned was that I'd been holding a knife wrong for most of my life. I needed to wrap my finger around the top of the blade, not just hold on to the handle.
The claw grip is where you tuck your fingertips in and rest the flat of the knife against your longest knuckle. It feels awkward at first, but it means the knife can never slip onto your fingers. Once you've learned it, you can't really go back to chopping any other way.
From there, I followed the main techniques:
Rough Chop
The informal one. Imprecise, quick, used when the exact size doesn't matter. Most of us have been doing this our whole lives without knowing it had a name.
Dice
Uniform cubes, cut to a consistent size. Sounds simple, but getting it even takes practice. The payoff is that everything cooks at the same rate.
Julienne
Long, thin matchstick strips. Great for stir-fries and salads. Also, the starting point for the brunoise cut. (carrots, celery, peppers, courgette, cucumbers and potatoes for French fries)
Brunoise
Tiny, precise cubes derived from julienne strips. Used for garnishes, soups and sauces where you want an even texture without any large pieces. (think onions, carrots, celery, leeks, and turnips)
Chiffonade
This one was a game changer for herbs. Stack the leaves, roll them tightly into a cigar shape, then slice across the roll. Rolling them first means every ribbon comes out the same size and thickness. It also means you're slicing cleanly rather than pressing down, which bruises the herb and turns it black quickly. Very fine slices are the goal here.
Mince
Very fine chop, mainly used for garlic and herbs. Uses a rocking motion with the knife tip staying on the board.
Bias cut
Cutting at a 45-degree angle rather than straight down. I particularly use this with spring onions. Offsetting the angle gives you a much nicer result, both in terms of how it looks on the plate and the texture of each piece.
Roll Cut / Oblique
Used for long vegetables like carrots or courgettes. You cut at a 45-degree angle, then roll the vegetable a quarter turn and cut again. It gives you pieces with two different angles but a uniform size, which increases the surface area and helps the vegetable absorb flavours and cook faster.
One of the things that surprised me most was discovering I could chop without looking at the board. Once the claw grip is in place and the knife is resting on the knuckle, you develop a feel for where the blade is going. This almost certainly wouldn't be encouraged, but it's cool to know you have the motion down.
What I Took Away
This was one of those skills that I underestimated before I started, and now I use it constantly.
Better knife technique has made me waste less food, cook more evenly and feel safer in the kitchen. Three genuinely useful outcomes from watching one video and practising with a bag of vegetables.
The biggest shift was around uniformity. When everything is cut to a similar size, it cooks at the same rate. No more biting into a piece of carrot that's somehow still raw while the rest of the dish is done. It sounds obvious in hindsight, but it made a real difference to how my food actually turned out.
I also eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, so having the confidence and technique to chop them quickly and well has genuinely sped up how long it takes me to cook. It's the kind of skill that rewards you every single time you use it.
The confidence it's given me in the kitchen around other people has been an unexpected bonus, too. Being able to help someone out, or just not look like a complete amateur when someone else is watching, is a small thing but a satisfying one.
If you cook at all, even occasionally, this is worth an hour of your time. Grab whatever vegetables are in your fridge and just practise. You'll notice a difference faster than you think.
Special Thanks
To Frank Proto and the team at Epicurious, for making a very useful cooking tutorial.
To Tim Ferriss, for writing The Four Hour Chef, which approaches learning to cook in a way that actually makes sense for people who don't naturally think of themselves as chefs.
To every vegetable that was sacrificed in the name of practice.
Chopping skills
Key Summary
Good knife technique is one of those skills that carries across every single meal you cook.
Uniform cuts aren't just for aesthetics. They help ingredients cook evenly and reduce waste.
Finger placement is everything. Get that right and everything else follows.
A sharp knife is safer than a blunt one. Counterintuitive, but true.
You don't need a class to learn this. A good YouTube video and a bag of carrots will do.
Learning the names of the techniques helps. It gives you something to search for and build on.
How It Started
I wanted a Project 50 skill that was culinary and practical.
Not mastering one specific dish, but something I'd use every single time I cooked. Chopping felt like the obvious answer. It's the foundation of almost everything that happens in a kitchen, and I'd been doing it in a fairly haphazard way for years. I didn't really recognise how much time I would save.
As someone who's much more comfortable being a sous chef than managing all the timings of the main event, I thought it was also something I could realistically get better at without it feeling overwhelming.
A bit like touch typing. Learn it properly once, and it stays with you.
I used a mix of YouTube tutorials, reading The Four Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss and a lot of practice.
The Epicurious 101 video by chef Frank Proto on 9 essential knife skills was particularly good and is a great place to start if you're curious.
The Experience
The first thing I learned was that I'd been holding a knife wrong for most of my life. I needed to wrap my finger around the top of the blade, not just hold on to the handle.
The claw grip is where you tuck your fingertips in and rest the flat of the knife against your longest knuckle. It feels awkward at first, but it means the knife can never slip onto your fingers. Once you've learned it, you can't really go back to chopping any other way.
From there, I followed the main techniques:
Rough Chop
The informal one. Imprecise, quick, used when the exact size doesn't matter. Most of us have been doing this our whole lives without knowing it had a name.
Dice
Uniform cubes, cut to a consistent size. Sounds simple, but getting it even takes practice. The payoff is that everything cooks at the same rate.
Julienne
Long, thin matchstick strips. Great for stir-fries and salads. Also, the starting point for the brunoise cut. (carrots, celery, peppers, courgette, cucumbers and potatoes for French fries)
Brunoise
Tiny, precise cubes derived from julienne strips. Used for garnishes, soups and sauces where you want an even texture without any large pieces. (think onions, carrots, celery, leeks, and turnips)
Chiffonade
This one was a game changer for herbs. Stack the leaves, roll them tightly into a cigar shape, then slice across the roll. Rolling them first means every ribbon comes out the same size and thickness. It also means you're slicing cleanly rather than pressing down, which bruises the herb and turns it black quickly. Very fine slices are the goal here.
Mince
Very fine chop, mainly used for garlic and herbs. Uses a rocking motion with the knife tip staying on the board.
Bias cut
Cutting at a 45-degree angle rather than straight down. I particularly use this with spring onions. Offsetting the angle gives you a much nicer result, both in terms of how it looks on the plate and the texture of each piece.
Roll Cut / Oblique
Used for long vegetables like carrots or courgettes. You cut at a 45-degree angle, then roll the vegetable a quarter turn and cut again. It gives you pieces with two different angles but a uniform size, which increases the surface area and helps the vegetable absorb flavours and cook faster.
One of the things that surprised me most was discovering I could chop without looking at the board. Once the claw grip is in place and the knife is resting on the knuckle, you develop a feel for where the blade is going. This almost certainly wouldn't be encouraged, but it's cool to know you have the motion down.
What I Took Away
This was one of those skills that I underestimated before I started, and now I use it constantly.
Better knife technique has made me waste less food, cook more evenly and feel safer in the kitchen. Three genuinely useful outcomes from watching one video and practising with a bag of vegetables.
The biggest shift was around uniformity. When everything is cut to a similar size, it cooks at the same rate. No more biting into a piece of carrot that's somehow still raw while the rest of the dish is done. It sounds obvious in hindsight, but it made a real difference to how my food actually turned out.
I also eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, so having the confidence and technique to chop them quickly and well has genuinely sped up how long it takes me to cook. It's the kind of skill that rewards you every single time you use it.
The confidence it's given me in the kitchen around other people has been an unexpected bonus, too. Being able to help someone out, or just not look like a complete amateur when someone else is watching, is a small thing but a satisfying one.
If you cook at all, even occasionally, this is worth an hour of your time. Grab whatever vegetables are in your fridge and just practise. You'll notice a difference faster than you think.
Special Thanks
To Frank Proto and the team at Epicurious, for making a very useful cooking tutorial.
To Tim Ferriss, for writing The Four Hour Chef, which approaches learning to cook in a way that actually makes sense for people who don't naturally think of themselves as chefs.
To every vegetable that was sacrificed in the name of practice.