A recipe that calls for you to prepare vegetables (or meat) might ask for you to julienne or cube them. Don’t let the French accent scare you: Julienned vegetables are as simple as they are attractive, and if you can julienne vegetables, cubing is a breeze.
Julienning vegetables
To julienne a vegetable, first trim the vegetable, like a radish or carrot, so it’s flat on all sides. Slice it lengthwise into 1⁄8-inch thick pieces. Stack the pieces, and slice them into strips of the same width. The figure shows an illustration of this technique.
Illustration by Elizabeth Kurtzman
Cubing (or dicing) vegetables
Think of a potato. Trim all the sides until it’s flat all around. Cutting lengthwise, slice off 1/2 -inch-thick pieces (or whatever thickness you desire). Stack all or some of the flat pieces and cut them vertically into even strips. Cut them crosswise into even cubes.
Dicing is the same as cubing, except that your pieces are smaller: 1⁄8 to 1/4 inch, usually.
