Small, regular pieces


Small, regular pieces
When we cook, bake or pastry, we often have to cut food into small pieces, often cubes, to incorporate them into a recipe or preparation.

How do you get regular pieces fairly quickly?
9,946 4.5/5 (17 reviews)
Grade this page:
Keywords for this post:TechniqueCuttingPiecesKnifeSize
Last modified on: November 28th 2020
For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend
Small, regular pieces

brunoise de légumes



This need for small, regular pieces often arises when you have to cut up a whole heap of food, usually raw, and dice it most of the time. Note in passing that very small pieces = brunoise, larger pieces = mirepoix, in the vocabulary of cooks.

So it happens a lot, and if you're not too comfortable, you'll intuitively cut a first large piece of the food in question, then cut it into smaller pieces, start again, and so on.

This works, of course, but it takes a long time, and above all you'll be very irregular.

Is there a trick to this?


Yes, yes, well actually it's more a method, a way of doing things, a "taille" as the cooks say.

Take a look at how, for example, to obtain small cubes of cheese (of course, this applies to just about anything else).

en lamelles1) Start by slicing or shredding everything you've planned, aiming for the thickness of the slices, the size of the dice you're aiming for.



en bâtonnets2) Stack the slices, then cut them into sticks, using the same size criteria as above.



en dés3) Finally, cut the sticks (in groups for faster processing) into small cubes.



en brunoiseThat's it, by proceeding in this way, you'll get the hang of it, and you'll be up and running in no time, especially once you've had a bit of practice.


You can do this for just about any food.

Tosum up: when you've got dicing to do, do strips, then sticks, then dice. That's the secret of consistency and speed.

Lasts posts
The importance of sieving
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3rd 2025876
The grease spray
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26th 20254,3345
Cake moulds
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?
August 25th 20254,6495
Thinning out herbs
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8th 20252,8605
Add a bay leaf
Add a bay leaf
Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31th 20252,9705

Other pages you may also like
The importance of sieving
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3rd 2025876
85 grams of eggs?
85 grams of eggs?
Some time ago, I already spoke to you about the difference between baking and pastry-making, I emphasized, among other things, the precision of pastry-making which requires grams, cm, degrees and minutes. That's why, on the one hand, you have baking and cooking, where a certain tolerance is...
November 26th 201854 K4.6
The art of the charlotte
The art of the charlotte
In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...
February 27th 201344 K4.3
The Holy Grail of French bakers
The Holy Grail of French bakers
While browsing through the recipes on this site, you may have noticed that while I adore cooking (everything, in fact, to do with eating and drinking), I am particularly drawn to bakery: bread, viennoiseries and all that goes with them – it’s a real passion of mine; I love making them and I...
March 24th 201819 K 34.7
Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.
Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.
Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...
March 26th 201243 K4.5
Post a comment or question
Posted by:
I am not a leaving thing

Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
I am not a leaving thing
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.

Back to top of page