Small, regular pieces

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).

1) 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.

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

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

That'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.