Potato Tourne Technique

Impress your family and friends with a technique that can help make you look like a culinary professional. It is called a Tourne. Tourne refers to "turned" vegetables cut into a football shape with seven equal sides and ends left flat. It is great for roasting, steaming, or boiling. You can use them in a variety of ways. Chef Jon-Paul Hutchins from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts demonstrates this cooking technique. For the knife positioning, place across the pad of the hand with the forefinger wrapped around the blade. Not touching the sharp end of the blade but holding it in place. When making the cut, take the potato and peel it. Then cut the ends off. All the trimmings can be used later to make mash potatoes or potato soup. So keep them. Slice the potato down the middle. Pick up the potato and turn the potato into the knife. It is the same motion as taking the lid off a peanut butter jar. The motion is to squeeze the knife into the potato. Visit http://www.chefs.edu and join our Facebook community for more techniques and cooking techniques and demonstrations.