Day 3

Today was all about the science behind flavors and we learned four more knife-cut techniques. We discussed the 5 known flavors: salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami. For those of you who are unsure of what "umami" is check out my March 16th (2010) blog entry dedicated to the subject. As for  practicing our knife skills we used potatoes and turnips to execute the following techniques:

#1 -  Allumette = 3mm thick slices cut into 3mm long potato sticks

#2 - Paile = 2 mm thick slices  (smaller version of the Allumette cut)   

#3 - Brunoise = 3 mm square cube cut (we used a Turnip aka Navet)

#4 - Brunoisette = 1 mm square cube cut (also done with a Turnip)

You've got to nail the basic fundamentals before you can even think about moving on! 

Here is a look at my final cuts...

Consistency...Consistency...Consistency!