What it is: A mandoline is the tool behind the perfect slices of fruits and vegetables you see in restaurants and on cooking shows. It comes with various blades and cutting edges.
Why it’s useful: The mandoline allows you to make any kind of cut you need, from razor-thin slices to flawless julienne matchsticks, with machine-like precision.
Cool cuts
Here’s a mandoline blade bible of all the different cuts you can make:
Small julienne blade: Creates long, thin tendrils for salads or as a garnish. It works best with hard foods like carrots or apples.
Medium julienne blade: Makes short or long matchstick strips, ideal for shoestring potatoes or quick stir-fries.
Large julienne blade: Cuts thick zucchinis, cucumbers, and potatoes. Flat blade: Makes long, slablike cuts (think eggplant slices for grilling) and round “chips” (for some DIY potato chips or crudites). Quarter a head of cabbage and use the blade to make fresh coleslaw.
Crinkle cutter: Most mandolines have a wavy blade, which gives firm fruits and veggies a decorative ruffled edge. To make waffle cuts, first slide the food once across the cutter, rotate the food 90 degrees, and then slice it again.
Jill Davie’s chop-chop salad
Ingredients
1/2 head Savoy cabbage, cut in half
1 carrot, peeled
1 small jicama, peeled
1 medium beet, peeled
1/2 English cucumber
Directions
1. Using the flat blade, run both halves of the cabbage down the mandoline plate to shred.
2. With the small or medium julienne blade, cut the carrot, jicama, beet, and cucumber into strips.
3. Divide ingredients equally into two large salad bowls and toss with your favorite dressing.
Nestpert: Jill Davie, Chef de Cuisine at Josie Restaurant in Santa Monica, California
-- Colleen Rush
Aug 05, 2010
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