How To – cut fruit and veg into matchsticks

hi I’m Pete from Jamie’s food team and
today I’m going to show you how to cut
bruton vegetables into matchsticks now
I’ve got my board set up here cloth
under it as usual stop it moving about
I’ve got a cook’s knife which is nice
and sharp perhaps a little bigger than
you might think you’d need but I’ll show
you why later on my first thing I’m
gonna do is an apple so here’s my Apple
as you can see it’s a lovely copses
apple it’s a bit bent and squint but
it’s still going to taste great a lot of
chefs tie themselves in knots trying to
get perfect perfect matchstick pieces
all exactly the same size and they waste
a lot of the fruit and they waste a lot
of time really it doesn’t make any
difference to how things eat how things
taste so we’re gonna use the whole apple
and I’ll show you how so first thing cut
it in half I always say the apples got a
core but I’m not worried about this
chorus fine to eat and extra texture to
the salad so I’m not going to cut around
it and waste half the Apple so there’s
half the Apple here I’ll put it facedown
and then with my knife I’ll just cut
slices of Apple down like that onto the
board now make them as thick or as thin
as you like
so next thing I’ll do take a few of
these turn them on the side like that
see I’ll get the knife made them all
nice and even and then just cut down
again and you’ve got little matchsticks
right as you can see they’re not perfect
matchsticks
they’re not even matchsticks but that
doesn’t really matter if you want to
practice all day and all night so you
can get them perfectly then go right
ahead but for the purposes of this salad
it looks nice it’ll eat nice and work
perfectly well so I just cut the rest
here know a few bits now when you’re
holding the apple slices with your hand
tuck your fingers in a bit so your
fingers out and your nails are on going
eyes you’d only cutting your nails tuck
your fingers in and then you can always
touch the knife the flat of the knife
against the edge of your fingers there
so you know it’s in a right place and
then just cut straight down helps of you
knife is sharp because it’s not sharp
you aimed at home depress and that’s
when things start skinning about and
that’s when fingers get cut so sharp
knife be very careful in your fingers
just cut cleanly and quickly down and
they’re in your matchsticks so I do
these the very last minute before you
only use them because as soon as Apple
gets exposed to the air it starts going
Brown so this is a last minute job don’t
let that make you hurry it because that
when you hurry with nayad that’s when
you cut yourself
now carrots you peel them first of
course take the ends off and then look
at the size of the carrot and I think
I’ll probably get two matchsticks off
that I’ll cut it in half they both by
the right size and then turn the camera
on its side and just cut one little
slice off the edge so that when you turn
it over its steady and it doesn’t rock
so much okay so just like the Apple
fingers in sharp knife thin slices
this is where you’re really glad get a
nice sharp knife
practice makes perfect with this doesn’t
matter if not all of them go straight
through they’ll still eat fine there you
go you might be left with an ND bit but
that’s fine better you’re left with that
then you cut your finger and there’s a
whole lot of nice thin carrot slices so
like the Apple pile a few of them up and
cut them nice and thinly there you go
now they’re not all perfect length and
are all perfect up some chefs get very
precious about this but they look nice
they’ll be delicious and that’s how to
cut carrot matchsticks now there’s some
other tools you can use to help you cut
lovely thin carrot matchsticks or any
other root beds for that matter this is
one of them it’s a speed peeler with
some little sharp edges on it here and
use it just the same way as you do a
speed peeler and I’ll show you how so
I’ll just move this carrot out of the
way who’s a new camera long thin one I’m
going to lay it down on the table and
there really is this imagine you’re
peeling it
you drag that down length the carrot and
you end up with lovely strips these are
quite long but we can cut them in half
after we peeled them
now you can either leave your carrot
bits like that they’re quite nice and a
salad or you can cut them in half if you
want more matchstick size that nice and
English and that’s how you can’t fruit
and veg into matchsticks