[Intro music]
The tourne cut is a challenging one that needs
a lot of practice to master and a lot of patience.
The goal is to shape a piece of vegetable
in a regular form.
Depending on the vegetable the number of faces will vary.
Most of the time the end result is a vegetable piece
with seven equal sides and blunt ends.
This is true for potatoes and carrots.
But sometimes other vegetables, such as zucchini
are partially turned to achieve a better yield per variety.
The length will also vary,
but the most common size is five centimeter or two inches long.
The vegetables will cook evenly
and the presentation will be elegant on the plate.
All you need is a sharp tourne knife.
Tourne is French for turned.
And in this technique the vegetable is turned after each cut.
It's not as easy as it may sound,
so don't be discouraged the first time around.
Keep on practicing.
You will be going through a lot of vegetables.
We are going to practice first with an egg
to get the feeling of the motion.
Hold the egg in your guide hand.
Place your thumb at the bottom of the egg
and a knife blade at the top of the egg.
Drag down the knife,
following the curve of the egg towards your thumb.
Rotate the egg.
Raise the knife back to the top and repeat the motion.
Keep practicing until the motion feels comfortable for you.
It might take a while.
Let's practice now with vegetables.
So we're going to start with a potato.
My potato is pretty small, about six, seven centimeters.
And I didn't peel it
because it's going to be peeled when I turn it.
Trim both ends of your potato to have something like
a chunk that is about five centimeters long.
Hold the potato in your guide hand.
Then place your thumb from the other hand
on the bottom and the top of the knife
or the blade at the top of the potato.
Move your blade outward to the midpoint here
and then inward to the bottom.
Rotate the potato and raise the knife back to the top.
So turn.[slicing sounds]
So repeat the motion.
So here my potato is not really regular,
but I do have my seven sides.
Let's check, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Good. We want to have something uniform, right?
So, you see I can turn it another time
to have something like so.
Do it again.
So go over to make it just a little bit thinner.
[slicing sounds] And voila.
Depending on the size of your tourne potato
they will have a different name.
So we will learn those names in a future course.
You can also tourne zucchini and carrots.
Let me show you a thin carrot first.
You may peel it or not,
depending if you want to use the trimmings.
You will cut the carrot into chunks of about five centimeters.
And then you will turn it.
The same thing that you did for the potato.
So hold it and turn.
So here my carrot is pretty big.
I'm not going to turn it the same way.
So here I will trim the end.
Cut a chunk of about five centimeters.
And this is going to be a very big turned carrot.
So here I'm going to divide it into three pieces.
So from the center. [slicing sounds] There we go.
And on this end here, it's thinner,
so I'm going to do only one piece. Okay.
So hold the carrot like you did for the potato
and just turn it.
It's going to be hard a little bit
because the vegetable is harder.
So just turn.
Don't worry about the skin behind.
Okay, you have to give a first shape.
So it starts to look like a barrel
or an American football, but it's not perfect yet.
So now you're going to work on your outward
and then inward motion. Go slow.
Don't take too much at a time. [slicing sounds]
Okay. There we go. Now let's do another one
from those ones, those are going to be a little bit more tricky.
So hold it. Start at the top, outward to the midpoint
and then inward to the bottom.
And repeat the motion. Okay.
So here this is what we got.
So here then in the center you have to also try
to give it a round motion.[slicing sounds]
What is really important is to have your carrots
the same size, thus they can cook evenly.
It's easier to turn zucchini.
Cut the zucchini into chunks like we did for the carrots.
Cut the zucchini into three pieces. [slicing sounds]
Hold the chunk the same way as the other vegetables.
Start by the green part here. Turn.
Then we don't turn the green here,
otherwise we're going to lose the skin and the color.
Go on the other side and give it a rounded shape.
And this is the seed side,
so here you're going to be turning
outward to the midpoint and inward.
Again, from the top,
outward to the midpoint and then inward to the bottom.
[slicing sounds] Make it flat. Okay.
And again. So outward to the midpoint and inward to the bottom.
That looks good. [slicing sounds]
And the other one over there. [slicing sounds]
It's not straight, so make it flat.
You may turn green or yellow zucchini in the summer.
You may turn cucumber, why not?
You may turn the stem of your broccoli.
You know the stem, you just throw them away
because you use just the florets.
Well turn them and cook them with a little bit of butter.
It's delicious.
Have fun turning vegetables.