My homework for tonight, as assigned by Chef Husband, was to take the smoked chicken breasts from last night and prep them for lettuce wraps, specifically cutting them into a “small dice”.
Knife skills are one of the hallmarks in cooking, with “knife cuts” focusing on the execution of a particular shape and size. The small dice cut is a 1/4” cube.
I cut the breast lengthwise into 1/4” strips, then took each of those strips and laid them flat to cut them lengthwise further into 1/4” strips. Now they look like a little 4x4. Line them up and turn them; cut across all of them 1/4” at a time and all of these nice little cubes appear. Of course chicken breasts don’t have perfectly straight sides like a block of cheese would, but I got pretty close. I had my cheat-sheet cut-guide to measure against. Not perfect, but a good start.
Someday I just know I’m going to have to bone out a chicken, but baby steps for now. 1/4” cubes = small dice. Got it!
Until next time...
Culinarily Yours,
Mrs. Chef (Christa)