Brunoise () is a
culinary knife cut in which the food item is first
julienned
Julienne, , or french cut, is a culinary knife cut in which the food item is cut into long thin strips, similar to matchsticks. Common items to be julienned are carrots for , celery for , potatoes for julienne fries, or cucumbers for .
Trimmi ...
and then turned a quarter turn and
diced
Dicing is a culinary knife cut in which the food item is cut into small blocks or dice. This may be done for aesthetic reasons or to create uniformly sized pieces to ensure even cooking. Dicing allows for distribution of flavour and texture ...
, producing cubes of about or less on each side. In France, a "brunoise" cut is a smaller 1 to 2 mm. Some typical vegetables for a brunoise are
carrot
The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', nat ...
s,
celery
Celery (''Apium graveolens'') is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, lea ...
,
leek
The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek ( syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. The genus ''Alli ...
s, and
turnips
The turnip or white turnip (''Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''rapa'') is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, fleshy taproot. The word ''turnip'' is a compound of ''turn'' as in turned/rounded on a lathe and ' ...
. The diced vegetables are
blanched briefly in salty boiling water and then submerged in salted ice water for a few seconds to set the color. The brunoise is used as a
garnish in many dishes; it is often used to garnish
consommé
In cooking, a consommé is a type of clear soup made from richly flavoured stock or broth that has been clarified, a process that uses egg whites to remove fat and sediment.
Consommé has three English pronunciations: traditionally in the UK, t ...
. A brunoise should be consistent in size and shape, as this helps to create a pleasing and professional presentation.
A brunoise cut is also used in stocks and soups to rapidly increase the rate that flavours and aromas are transferred to the surrounding liquid. This is due to the increase in surface area over a traditional chopping method and is preferred for recipes that do not benefit from the texture of chopped vegetables.
References
External links
How to Dice and Brunoise - Video
Cutting techniques (cooking)
Culinary terminology
{{cooking-stub