Kids & Company Blog

Get Chopping!

The culinary arts are all about freedom of expression and hold no absolute rules, however proper knife and chopping skills are essential to helping you prep any meal in the kitchen. Our Kidco Kitchen Chefs are all trained in providing your little ones top quality food day in and day out and have professional training in the kitchen.  Here are our best suggestions on how to cut two of the most commonly used veggies.

The first veggie that is getting the chop is bell peppers! Bell peppers are an amazingly versatile vegetable.  They can be hollowed out and filled with rice stuffing. They can be cut into strips and used for dips for a quick afternoon snack. Or they can be diced and used in any stir-fry, frittata, or pasta sauce. Here is the best way to cut up any bell pepper:

1. Slice off the top of the pepper - This removes the stem without the difficulty of cutting through or around it
2. Use your fingers to pull out the seeds and innards - This removes all those messy seeds in one piece. 3. Slice the pepper in half - Lay the pepper flat on the work surface, with the cut top down, and slice right through the middle.
3. Slice off thin strips lengthwise - You can make these strips thick or thin, depending how you're planning to use them.
4. Line up the strips and slice across - This is easiest to do if you work with just a few strips at a time. Line them up together and simply cut across to make even squares.

The next vegetable we are tackling enhances the flavour of almost any dinner time meal… onions! Here is how the French cut your onions:

1. Cut about a half an inch off both the stem-end and root-end of the onion.
2. Turn the onion onto one of the flat surfaces and cut it in half from stem to root.
3. Peel off the thin papery layers from the outside of the onion.
4. Lay half of the onion flat on your cutting board, so it looks like a dome. Starting on whichever side you hold your knife, make thin cuts angled slightly toward the center. You don't need to actually cut through the center - just work radially from the side to the center gradually increasing the angle of the cuts as you work toward the center.
5. Once you reach the center, tip the onion over so the surface you just cut is now the bottom.
6. Continue slicing the onion, being careful once you get to the very center.
7. Repeat with the second half of the onion.

Remember to always use proper knife safety techniques when chopping. Always pay full attention to the blade and cut away from yourself, never towards!

Posted on: Thursday April 16th, 2015

Posted by: Lisa Ruscica