Shelf · Knife & prep · No heat
Julienne
Cutting a vegetable into even matchsticks, roughly the thickness of a coin edge and a couple of inches long.
Why it works
Everything the same thickness finishes cooking at the same moment. Thin sticks also give a lot of surface for very little mass, so they soften in a minute or two — which is why stir-fries and slaws want this cut and not cubes.
The tell
The pile looks uniform enough to be boring. If some pieces are visibly fatter than others, those are the ones that will still be raw.
- Chunk
- Baton
- Matchstick
How it fails
Skipping the first step — squaring the vegetable into a flat-sided block — leaves rounded offcuts that roll under the knife and cut unevenly. Trim to flat faces first; the scraps go in the stockpot.
In the app, the card opens on the recipe step that names it, with the tell drawn.
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