Directions
Chopping herbs may sound easy enough, but there is a right and a wrong way. Many people over chop the herbs and are left with half the flavour going into the chopping board instead of their food. Below I give a few tips to prevent you from making the same mistake.
When Chopping Soft Herbs
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- The trick is to have the knife contact the herbs as little as possible and prevent it from pounding or bruising the leaves and removing all the juice and flavour from the soft leaves.
- To do so, bunch the herbs up into a small pile that you can easily hold together with the fingers of one hand.
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- Then whilst holding the little pile of herbs curl your fingertips underneath your fingers and place the side of the knife blade against those fingers and gently lift and rock the knife.
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- By doing this you will obtain a very fine cut throughout the herbs without having to punish them with continual chopping and pounding.
When Chopping Hard Herbs
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- Strip the herbs from their woody stems.
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- Make a pile of the stripped leaves.
- Hold the front of the knife down with one hand.
- Hold the handle of the knife with the other hand and chop working your way from left to right and then right to left.
- Try to keep the leaves in a pile to minimize the amount of contact with the knife.
