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Food for Thought Friday: hold the cutting board 🍑 save the JUICE 🍅
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Hello!
I've got a quick cutting-technique I want to tell you about today, in two variations. Hopefully you are already doing at least one of these, but in case you are not, I figured I'd point them out!
I use this technique for prime summer produce: stone fruit and tomatoes. There are two variations on it, with one version just more slightly advanced than the other. The advantages of this are 1) no cutting board required, which means one less thing to wash, and 2) you get to save all the JUICE from your summer stone fruits and tomatoes!!
Let's call this technique:
"Hand-held cutting with a small serrated knife (over a bowl to catch juice)"
Here's how to do it:
Variation 1: Stone Fruit
Use when: cutting any stone fruit into slices or pieces
To make: desserts, or for cutting peach(es) into a bowl of yogurt/granola/oatmeal/etc!
1) Get out the bowl or dish into which you are putting your cut stone fruit, and also select a small serrated knife (a steak knife or the like works best. A serrated knife has a scalloped or tooth-like edge. In this case you can use a dull-ish one, it will do the job on your juicy, ripe summer fruits!)
2) Hold the stone fruit in your hand over the bowl/dish. Carefully, staying aware of the blade and keeping your eyes on your work, make slices into the pit from the stem to the bottom of the fruit, working your way around the center in your preferred thickness. Your knife should hit the pit on each slice. After you've made it all around, if desired, make another cut at the equator (perpendicular to the other cuts) to create half-slices. (In the top photo, I did my equator cut first.)
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^
^this is what it should look like as you're cutting!
3) Put the knife down and gently twist the fruit pieces away from the pit and into your bowl/dish. That's it!
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^
NOTE: Depending how ripe the fruit is, it will be easier or harder to cut using this technique. If the fruit is very ripe, pieces may fall into the bowl as you slice. (If this is the case, you may want to do the equator cut BEFORE the slices.) If it's the about-perfect ripeness- it should hold together lightly while you cut, and then the pieces off easily into the bowl! If the fruit is more firm, you may have to use a little more effort to pull the fruit away from the pit. Of course, always be careful as you cut, and you'll want to use a small knife with a blade that's roughly the size of the fruit.
Variation 2: Tomatoes
Use when: dicing tomatoes and you want to save the juice/make less of a mess (for me, this is ALWAYS!)
To make: fresh salsa and "marinated salads" with tomatoes are my favorite dishes with which to use this technique
1) Get out a small serrated knife, and the bowl or dish into which you are putting your cut tomatoes. (I often do this over a bowl of salad or other already-prepped ingredients, as pictured below.)
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^
2) Keep the stem ON if there is one (makes it easier to hold the tomato). Hold the tomato in your hand so the stem part is touching your palm and the bottom is facing you. Holding it over the bowl/dish and cutting carefully, make cuts in a grid, going left to right and then top to bottom, cutting towards your hand but not going all the way through. Do this carefully, as fast or slow as you feel comfortable, gently keeping the tomato in tact with the hand that's holding it.
3) When you've completed your grid, rotate the tomato 90 degrees over the bowl, holding the top/stem part with the tips of your fingers, and gently resting the tomato on top of the contents of the bowl. Now make your final dice-cuts down through the grid, starting at the outside and moving in towards your hand. It often helps to rotate/twist the tomato slowly as you make these cuts to get more evenly sized pieces. This time you want to cut all the way down and through, so you may cut a little bit into the other ingredients, or onto the bowl if you're cutting into an empty bowl- this is fine! The cut pieces (and juice!) will fall into the bowl.
4) When you start to get close to the top/where your hand is, put the core into the bowl on top of everything, and cut around the stem/top core to make dice-size pieces similar to those you created in the beginning.
5) Repeat this process for as many tomatoes as you're cutting. Note that your non-dominant hand may get covered in tomato juice :)
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And that's it! Skip the cutting board, cut right into the bowl and savor every last drop of that summer-fruit juicy-ness. This might seem a tad scary at first, but a little practice and you'll increase your overall knife-skills-confidence in addition to your serrated-skill-specialties.
Happy cooking!
Love,
Jess
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All photos are taken by me and recipes written by me, unless otherwise noted.
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Hi, I'm Jess! I help health-conscious, busy people transform their cooking from chore to lifestyle through intuitive cooking, which I teach through online classes, free content, coaching and more. This is my newsletter, Food for Thought Fridays, where I share highly actionable tips and inspiration to help you cook more intuitively (which makes cooking feel easier and SO much more fun!). Once a month, I share a recipe that's really worth making, and I only share those with my email subscribers. Sometimes the text above may include affiliate links, meaning (at no additional cost to you) I get a commission if you click through and make a purchase. This helps me to continue to share free content, so I would love it if you buy through my link! Thank you for supporting Garlic Press Jess!
I currently work + live on land that is the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone. And I can't wait to eat at Cafe Ohlone! Check out this article about them.
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