Using a Mandolin 101 | Tuesday’s Tip of the Day!
Mandolin’s are a chef’s best friend as they can create razor sharp pristine accurate slices or juliennes with minimal effort. However their ‘amazingness,’ they can be really dangerous as their razor sharp edge can slice your finger without you even knowing it. Yes, it’s that sharp! Follow along for a few tips on safely using a mandolin for those show-stopping knife cuts.
1. Place a damp towel on your cutting board and use that as a point or anchor from which you can rest one edge of the mandolin. This way, it won’t slide around your cutting board as your slice on top.
2. Make sure you have the blade or julienne attachment, depending on what you are using, correctly attached and the desired thickness locked and loaded. You may need to try a few slices to make sure it’s exactly the right thickness.
3. Holding the top of the mandolin in one hand, the other end being secured by the wet towel on the cutting board, carefully use the mandolin edge as your rail to slide up and down from. This way, you are pushing the protein forward into the mandolin edge (think of the edge as a “wall”) while going up and down across the blade. If you simply slide the item up and down the middle of the mandolin, it can easily slip forward or backward right from under your fingertips.
4. Also, consider using the guard, usually included in your mandolin kit, to push the item up and down remove your fingertips from the equation all together. One other option, is looking for knife protective gloves which give you a nice layer of protection between the mandolin and fingertips.
Now that you are ready to put your mandolin to use, and make a swoon-worthy meal for your family and friends, I hope the above eases any anxiety and keeps your fingers in tip top shape!
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Cheers to starting a new tradition around The Table Together!
Sincerely,
Tiffany Lewis
Founder and true believer in the power of bringing people around The Table Together!