How to Chiffonade

Chiffonade is a cutting technique that you can use to cut up any flat leafy food. It works great on things that you are going to eat fresh, like basil and lettuce and helps you cut uniform, curly, strips of food quickly and elegantly.

Step 1: Stack the Leaves

I am going to demonstrate this cutting technique with basil, but you can use it for anything you like.

First take a bunch of leaves and stack them all them all together. They don't all have to facing the same way, they just all have to be flat.

Comments

[companero_cal]

i use this technique at work in a restaraunt kitchen all the time. we use it for 3 different varieties of lettuce, basil, etc...i never knew chiffonade referred to the technique rather than the plate you put it on, (i thought it meant platter or something) my cook told me wrong this.. this is also good for stuffed grape leaves im pretty sure... when you use romaine lettuce though, you have to crush the stem with your palm before rolling it up....awesome idea for an instructable!!

[andrew.camp]

Just so everyone knows the basil was cut to hard, you want to use a chefs knife and let it glide. You can tell because it has black edges. also it is much easier to cut if you arrange the leafs from biggest on the outside to smallest on the inside with the steams facing down. Just some constructive criticism.

[Kotazo]

Women in Central Africa do this with a vine leaf called (in the Sango language) Koko. The leaves are about the same size as Basil, and they will make somewhat larger rolls. Since this is one of the staple foods, they cut huge quantities. I was always amazed to watch them in the market Chiffonade cutting (thanks, I never knew this term before) all day long. As it only grew in the rainforest region and I lived up in the savana, I'd buy 10 kilo sacks of the dried Chiffonade cut leaves to take back up country with me.

[TheCheese9921]

sweet I LOVE basil just could never figure out how to cut it up