How To Slice Every Fruit | Epicurious

oh I'm frank I'm a chef at the culinary education institute and today we're going to learn how to cut each

fruit

when you hear the hammer alarm you know what that means use the hammer have I ever cut a grill? I can cut a grape that I have and if you are a professional chef your cooks hate you for it, but if you ever want to cut a grape, get a small paring knife, there are two ways to do it: you can cut along where the stem. You can also cut it into thin

slice

s, but you should cut them right before using them.

Also, they're going to turn into really weird, slimy strawberries, this is a strawberry, okay, a couple of things you want to do, you want to remove the skin. Twist it a little bit if there's still a hard piece in there, get a very sharp paring knife and just the tip goes in here and you can turn the strawberry over and get that little hard piece out of the stem, if you want you can cut it off. half into quarters or if you want to cut it to make a nice pie or a salad but you just don't want that little bit of stem left there it's kind of like what's the word I'm looking for, I guess they're big and big.

They are figs many times you will see that these fresh and dried figs are a delight, just remove the stem, cut it in half, but look how beautiful the pulp is and basically

every

thing in this fig is edible, you just have to be very careful with them because they tend to break down so if you are going to put figs in a salad or on a plate I would cut them up and then put them in later if you are going to roast them that's great just remember they don't like to be hit. too much, this is a plum, it has a little stone in the center, it's very easy to take out, so all I'm going to do is cut it down the center from the end of the stem, follow it around, give it a twist, it comes out the seed.

If you want, you can take your knife and scoop out the seed this way, but I also like to cut it into quarters, so I'll cut it one more time, give it a twist, and the seed will come out of here. Cut the plum into nice thin

slice

s. I recommend leaving the plum skin on. I think the skin really adds some kind of texture and flavor. Lime. This is a lime. I'm going to show you how to cut them for tacos or beer. this is how I do it, I cut it in half, put it on the flat side, cut it in half again and then I usually cut it into smaller pieces because I'm going to serve it on a plate or I'm going to fill it with a beer and this is how you cut a line this is a lemon there are many different ways to cut it I'm going to cut it into supremes I cut both ends right after where the pith is and then I'm going to peel it all Along the way, I'm going to follow the outline of the lemon trying to get all the pith out, get rid of our skin and then we're going to take this and cut it between the segments just to get those supremes, you can come back. then and I take out the seeds I'm just trying to cut on the edge to get nice, even lemon slices and this is how I cut a lemon kiwis these are kiwis they're adorable what we're going to do with The kiwis are just remove the little stem right in your mouth, but let's cut one and see how beautiful it is, there is not much to do with them, cut them, serve them, delicious and adorable kiwis, this is a longan

fruit

. or a langen that grow on trees obviously have the stems there and is a close cousin of the lychee fruit.

Really all you want to do is pierce the skin, you can just tear it open and then open it up, just squeeze. in your hand you can cut it to separate it from the seed, but they tend to stick to the seed a little bit and the pulp is a really fresh kind of translucent pulp, it's sweet, it's fragrant, it's juicy, great for cocktails, great for desserts. Gooseberries, these are gooseberries. They have this beautiful type of peel that actually when it hangs from the plant it looks like a kind of lantern, you take the peel off and basically you're going to cut it up, they have an almost citrus flavor and a little bit acidic, but they would be a great seasoning for things greasy or even something a little salty.

Pear. This is a prickly pear. The prickly pear is basically the fruit from the top of a cactus. All you really need to do is cut both ends. You have beautiful pulp inside. You make a small incision and the skin should peel off immediately. You get this beautiful, beautiful piece of fruit. Most people just eat this hole like this, but you can cut it out and it's a prickly pear carom. This is a star fruit there is not much to do with star fruit it basically comes in its own wrapper or you eat the wrapper all you really need to do with star fruit is cut it up you take the end and the top all there is in the star fruit it is edible and you just slice it, you don't even need to worry about the seeds, you eat it, this is a rambutan or a bunch of rabbits, so what I like to do is make a little incision there and then you can peel the Remove the skin from what is in the center, although it is a very hard seed, but if you want to remove the pulp from the seed, what you can do is cut around the seed, it is fragrant floral, it is also very juicy and combines very Good with gin and vodka. you take a bite you're not so sure what it is it has that kind of sweet fragrant caramel flavor passion fruit this is a delicious sour passion fruit it's not hard to process chef's knife cut it around the equator open it oh Looks good, this is basically what you want to see.

A type of juicy passion fruit, super sour but delicious, tangerine. This is a tangerine. Usually what I'll do is I'll put my thumb right where the stem is and I'll peel it by hand and then all you need to do is separate the sections and eat the sections. There is nothing more to do. Tangerine. Cinnamon. This is a persimmon. It's delicious, but it can also trap you if you cut it when it's underripe. and you eat it, it has a very drying effect on your tongue and all I do is open it when I want to take the stem out, I cut it in half and make a little V cut and then you can cut this. sliced ​​you can peel it or you can eat the peel this one looks like it needs to ripen a little more it's a little sweet it's coming in medium sized fruits this is vepino melon when I hear cucumber I think cucumber because cucumber is how you say cucumber in Spanish so we open it oh look That, I'm going to smell it.

It smells like a cross between cucumber and melon. Let me cut this in half, the skin peels very well. I'm going to take some out of the seed pod, it has a nice soft flesh and exactly as advertised, it tastes like a cross between a cucumber and a melon, this is a quince, it looks like a cross between an apple and a quince pear. It needs to be processed before you actually eat it and the way I do it is cut both ends and peel the aroma when you first cut it is just amazing it's super fragrant but you can see it if you look at the pulp is very dry, so it is necessary to cook the quince for a while.

Remove the peel, cut it in half and then into quarters. Then we are going to remove the center as if it were an apple. Get in there. Tilt the knife down. Take out whatever seeds you want, make sure you get all that kind of central pith out and then just dice it up like this or the pomegranate was in the garden of Eden, it wasn't an apple, it was a quince or a pomegranate. little cherimoya trivia this is a cherimoya, I'm just going to cut it in half and there are a bunch of black seeds in the center, it has a kind of creamy white pulp, you have to separate it from the seeds to eat it.

Basically I'm going to take this out and eat it, spit out the seeds and eat the pulp from the skin and that's a pretty good apple, this is an apple, two teams, I have a peeler and a knife, the first thing I do is peel the apple, remove the top with the peeler in a round ring, remove the bottom in a round ring and then just remove the skin, okay, peeled, cut my apple into quarters and then I core the dragon fruit, this It is a dragon fruit. We will see them a lot in Chinatowns in the United States, but it is very easy to care for and open, you just want to cut both ends, look at that beautiful inside, in the end the skin has beautiful colors, you want to cut both ends. and then all you really need to do is mark it and the skin should peel off, you just put your finger under the skin and it peels off and then you have this beautiful inside.

I'm going to cut this in half, but look at that. Sesame seeds seem to remind me a little of cucumbers. It is a dragon fruit avocado. This is an avocado. I cut it in my hand. I take my chef's knife and I go to cut and instead of moving the knife I move the avocado. I just roll my avocado, leave the knife still, okay, spin, beautiful, that one is perfectly ripe, this is where people get stabbed and cut, I mean, they make special knives for this, you don't have to hit it, just a nice little hit and you will see how.

How far does the knife go, twist it and then to remove the seed instead of grabbing it, just take your index finger and thumb, pinch it and it falls out, give it to your kids. Put a glass of water on some chopsticks. and 11 avocado tree when it comes to this there are a couple of ways you can do this you can cut it in half and usually the peel will come off immediately and this is you can cut it into cubes and put it in salad , you can also get a paring knife and do the cross-hatch method, if you're going to make guacamole, put the knife in one direction, go the other direction and then usually what I do is I just squeeze it and it comes out immediately if you squeeze it.

To start with some nice diced avocado and you don't have to take it out and dice it, it's just already diced when you remove it from the peach skin. This is a peach and this is how you cut a peach. two types of peaches, a pitted peach and a sticky stone peach that I have here, the pit will actually come out just by twisting it and a little bit of sticky stone for leverage, you have to cut it and all I do is cut it in half . of the paring knife, I give it a twist and I see the hole comes out and instead of digging in there and stabbing myself, I'm going to cut one more time and get this out and then the hole just comes out and goes in the trash and then you can cut it like If you want to make a cake, you can just cut it or just eat it straight. pomegranate, this is a pomegranate, there are many different ways to process them, I'm going to show you two ways, the first, I have a bowl, I have a spoon and I have pomegranate.

I'm going to cut it in half so that some seeds get cut off, but it's not a big deal, I put the cut side of the pomegranate in my palm and I take a spoon which is quite heavy and I tap and as I tap you can see I'm spinning, keep going tapping until the entire support sees that I got most of it out and you can go back and if there are small pieces of the inner membrane you can remove it that's how you cut an orange pomegranate this is an orange most people just peel it by hand and eat it like this I'm going to show you the way the chefs do it what are we going to do?

What we must do is first remove the top and bottom and then we are going to peel the orange trying to maintain its shape and remove all the pith. What we're going to do today is called supreme supreme, it basically means the best part of the orange and then we take our little paring knife and we're going to cut sections right inside each of the yellow-orange banana supreme segments. This is a yellow banana just like the green banana except it's just a little bit riper a little softer it's had a little time to ripen and become a little sweeter let's process this and take out the pulp which I usually do with this I cut both ends I make a small cut just with the tip of the knife once twice and I stick my finger under the skin and the peel comes off almost like a normal banana, it has a lot of starch, it's actually a little sticky on this one moment, you want to cook this before you eat it and before you cook it, usually.

I'll cut it into nice thick slices. I'll take this to fry it, give it a little bit of a smash and then fry it again. He is a mature man. Ripe ones are generally something of a sweet banana. Green banana similar to any other banana. This one simply. It turns out it's on the young and ripe side, it hasn't turned yellow yet it hasn't darkened and it's actually not super sweet, it's very starchy. I will cut it the same way we would cut any other banana. I remove the ends. the flesh is a little different in color, it's usually a little more pinkish, just the tip of the knife to score the skin, it's a little harder to remove than the yellow banana, but if you put your hand underneath and your finger underneath , you peel it to notice the difference. between this and a yellow banana is that sometimes the green banana tends to oxidize the pulp is much firmer you are not going to eat this so it probably won't be as delicious this is where they make banana chips or you make tostones you take these you cut them into slices you fry until they are soft and then you smash them and fry them again makes a roasted mango this is a mango the way I cut a mango is I need a paper towel, a chef's knife and a peeler and I will peel it in my hand once get here, I'll take my paper towel and put the handle on the paper towel so it doesn't slip.

I don't cut myself with the peeler, I remove all the peel and you will see that if I leave it flat it is a little fat, I want to do it on the thin side so you can see that it is thin, the seed runs this way with the handle. So I'll take the handle, I'll lift it, I'll walk inabout a third of the way in and I'm going to cut a lobe that will fall off. the other lobe falls off the seed, like I said, it will be around so now I'm going to cut the edges with this piece that is the gift for the chef, it you eat with this, you cut it however you want in slices. or diced the same goes for the pulp here you can just dice it or thinly slice it and that's how you cut a mango here's another way to cut a mango you don't need to peel it again you want to put up with it. handle up, don't lay it flat, you cut close to the seed on each side, you cut the flesh on this side, take a paring knife, I'm just going to make some cross marks, I go in one direction, I turn it and I go in the other. and you can turn it over and take out the handle like this, that's a delicious grapefruit, this is a grapefruit, this is a pink grapefruit, I'm pretty sure it's a pink grapefruit, I don't have x-ray vision, but you can usually see. of the skin similar to most citrus fruits, this is what I would do: remove the tips and then I basically remove the skin and then you just find the center and take out the segments and what are we going to do now that we're?

I'm going to smash this grapefruit, ready, it's going to get dirty, oh boy, that's visual, live fruits, durian, okay, you have to be careful, as little dangerous as a durian or a famously stinky durian fruit, not allowed at bus stations, not much on trains or planes. They are patiently kidnapped, they are the scourge of Southeast Asia, okay, so what I'm going to do is take a towel, hold it up and I'm just going to mark it well on the skin, can't you see? much harder than it is, I'm going to mark it all over the place and it doesn't smell as bad, it usually smells a little bit more bad, and then I'm going to get my towels, I'm going to lean on them.

I'm going to separate it, okay, you separate it and this is what you eat inside and this is how you eat it there is a little seed inside that you want to take out and it smells like onions and feet and that's a dorian, this is a papaya, okay, I like to use my knife and what I'm going to do with this is cut off both ends and that's a really pretty papaya on the inside, it should have that nice kind of pink blush. inside so I'm going to cut this in half just to make it a little more manageable.

I'm going to lay it on its flat side and peel it. I'm not too worried about the seeds falling out. on my board the seeds are actually edible, I wouldn't say they are delicious, but they remind me a little of a soft caviar, let me get rid of all the skin. I'm going to leave this one aside for now. The seeds I'm going to put in a bowl, I'm going to take this to the edge, cut it in half, open it up and then you take your bowl, scrape out the seeds and the pulp and you can do this pretty much however.

If you want, you can cut it into large cubes and this is how to cut a pineapple papaya. This is a pineapple and this is how you cut a pineapple. We have a couple different ways to do this, but this is the way I would do it. I remove the top and bottom of my pineapple, place it on the flat side and I'm just going to remove the skin. I make sure to go deep enough to get all of these little eyes out, so take out most of the eyes. I take the pineapple, I cut it in half, I divide it in half again and I put it in quarters and right here in the middle of the pineapple it is very fibrous and a little woody, what I will do is place it.

Put it on its side and take out the center core, so once you take that core out, you'll make it into nice slices. I have it nice and flat here, very nice and beautiful sliced ​​pineapple. Here's another way to cut a pineapple and if you're going to serve the pineapple maybe on a buffet or something you want a little more visual. This is the other way you can do it. You take the pineapple and you are going to cut it directly in half with the skin. I'm going to go all the way through the top of the pineapple too, okay, it looks really nice like this and then you're going to quarter it all the way through, try not to stab yourself, I'm going to turn it on its side and take it out.

Most of the core I'm going to remove the end and then we're going to cut it, not all the way, you do it with a paring knife or a chef's knife, we're going to cut it almost all the way through and then We're going to cut it on this side and then on this side so they come out and this is how you can cut a pineapple for a buffet or something that you are going to serve and make it look pretty. This is a melon. and this is how to cut a melon in a professional kitchen.

You always want things to be flat. This one is round, it rolls around our board, so what I'm going to do first is cut off the ends and then peel it off. with my knife follow the outline of the melon remove all the skin you don't want any of that green pith it's not bad for you you won't get sick but it just doesn't taste very good it's just a little soft and easy follow the outline to get that nice melon shape We're going to cut it in half and then we're going to remove all the seeds and we're just going to scrape the seeds out and put them on the flat part of it.

On the side you can cut these little ends, those are snacks for you as a chef and you can cut them if you are going to make a fruit plate or you can just slice them like this or dice them, this is how I cut a grapefruit melon this is a grapefruit it's a close cousin of oranges grapefruit uh it's a citrus fruit I remove the top and the bottom I make a small mark not all the way but just to break the skin you can use the skin for candied, but the skin and pith tend to used on the grapefruit as well as the fruit, when you cut it open you get this really cool alien sarlacc look and then you're just going to peel off these little nubs.

I've seen different grapefruit flavored vodkas, it almost has a salty taste but it smells a little more like air freshener than something you actually want to eat, pumpkin, so this is a pumpkin, this is what people classically use to make jack -either'-. lanterns, I'm just going to hit this sapling in half, okay, I'm just going to cut the stem and then I'm going to cut it straight in half and I'm going to do what I call a murderous ax on it, I'm going to stab straight through, push my knife all the way down and just pull my knife down, if I just plunge it in and do a little bit of a guillotine motion, it cuts in half real easy.

Okay, you take out the seeds and when you have the oven on you can toast them. I usually just wash them with a little water to get all this off of the roaster seeds right next to them, how do you do that? This is a molasses and me. I'm going to show you how to cut it, what I like to do with molasses is square off the round ends. The stuff on the cutting boards is dangerous and you cut your fingers a lot and then I use a small chef's knife and I use it with a little bit of a slight sawing motion and then we cut it in half, then we'll take a bowl.

I'm going to scrape out all the seeds and all the pods, what's got the seeds in there and then what I do is I light this up. flat side cut it once again cut it again with this we could cut it like this or we can cut it into cubes and you can just cut it into slices I think these are good slices for a fruit plate oh great watermelon this is a watermelon and this is how you cut one watermelon watermelons can be a little unruly they are very big and roll around a lot so what I usually do is cut the ends, give me a flat side and if you want to eat it you can and then I place it on its flat side so it is easy to cut and then I'm going to cut it right in the center, I'm going to try to make it as uniform as possible so that it looks good, okay, open it, put this on the side, cut it. through the center again and then we're going to cut it like we're at a barbecue, you can cut it one more time if the low watermelon is too big, but then you just cut it into slices, so you can do that too if you want. is that after you have the slices you can make a little cross cut here and remove these little edges so that when you eat it you don't get the watermelon on your face, it will give you a cleaner bite and it will look kind of home, oh boy, You guys are ready for this, okay guys, ready again, we're going for maximum destruction here, okay, you're ready, I should have brought a second chef's jacket, guys, you may not have cut all kinds of fruit today , but if you just look at it and see how it's shaped, you can figure out how you want to cut it each time, there were some easy ones, today there were some harder ones, but don't be afraid, what's the worst that can happen to you?