Everything You Need to Master Vegetable Butchery

Butchery Basics

Before you butcher anything, you have to take care in selecting, storing, and washing your vegetables. This will maximize their shelf life and set up your prep work and cooking for success. Determine your personal sourcing philosophy to focus your options and streamline shopping. Are you interested in joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program or do you prefer shopping at the farmers’ market, a local specialty store, or the supermarket? Is certified organic produce right for you? My best advice: Get to know a general growing calendar for your region and always pay attention to the time of year.

Selection:

No matter where you’re shopping, take some time to choose the pick of the crop. Seek out brightly colored, fresh-looking produce that is in season. It may seem obvious, but take care to avoid vegetables that are discolored, limp, overly soft, shriveling, or dry. (Don’t be afraid of fresh-looking but irregularly shaped vegetables. Nature produces vegetables that are perfectly imperfect, and just fine to eat.) Veggies in their prime have a much better chance of lasting longer and remaining in good condition until you are ready to cook them. Shopping at farmers’ markets and specialty produce stores is a good guarantee of freshness. At the supermarket and big-box clubs, look for in-season vegetables or items that last a long time if stored correctly, like onions, beets, cabbage, carrots, and rutabaga. Procure the season’s best and most vibrant vegetables from the start, and much of your work is done for you. Not only will your vegetables last longer, but they’ll offer incomparable flavor.

Storage:

Most vegetables are at their best as close to picking as possible. Try to use them within a few days of purchase. The refrigerator promotes a humid, moist environment that will help extend the life of most vegetables, but they still must be cared for properly in order to avoid mold and decay. Pierce storage bags or leave them open enough to allow air to circulate (unless otherwise indicated). Some items, like winter squash, tomatoes, onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and avocados, store better outside of the refrigerator. Keep these veggies in the coolest part of your kitchen to extend their life. If you store any vegetables a bit past their prime, try to salvage them by cutting away any discolored, wilted, or soft spots just before using them.

Knives:

Hands-on contact is part of the joy in working with vegetables—ripping leafy greens from stems, snapping asparagus spears, popping beans out of pods, pulling apart florets, tearing herbs, stripping leaves, peeling your way into the heart of an artichoke. The next-best tool—and the essential tool for most vegetable prep—is a good-quality chef’s knife. An 8-inch chef’s knife is an all-purpose utility knife that can take on almost all cutting jobs. It should be as comfortable to hold as it is to work with, so it’s a good idea to shop for your knife at a kitchen store that will allow you to test the grip and performance of several options.

 

A paring knife with a 3- to 4-inch blade is an invaluable knife for precise maneuvering and detailed work like coring a tomato, pulling skin from a clove of garlic, and stringing cardoons. (I like a 31⁄2-inch blade.)

 

A long serrated knife, 8 to 12 inches, with moderately deep, pointed serrations, is essential for cutting some vegetables like artichokes and tomatoes.

 

I also like a Japanese-style vegetable cleaver, which, unlike a long, pointed Western chef’s knife, has a shorter, rectangular, almost completely squared-off blade. It’s a fun (and nonessential) addition to my knife collection— most certainly a splurge—but I enjoy using it and rely on it for clean, smooth, and precise cuts. Its broad surface is also helpful for picking up and transferring just-cut vegetables from the cutting board.

 

You will find knives in a range of prices and materials, but most of the best-quality knives on the market today are made of high-carbon stainless steel. They combine the best of carbon-steel knives (a razor-sharp edge) and of stainless-steel knives (resistance to stains and corrosion). Most reputable manufacturers will offer a lifetime guarantee.

Cutting Boards.

I cannot emphasize enough just how essential the cutting board is to vegetable butchering. A cutting board should provide a firm and stable surface that will allow you to work with ease and control. For the majority of your prep work, you will want to use a large, sturdy board that won’t slip and offers plenty of room to work comfortably and safely—get rid of those small, cramped boards! It should rest securely against the counter and grip your knife just enough to offer you excellent control. You can get away with a board that is 18 inches long by 12 inches wide, but really a 20-by-15–inch board is my recommended minimum. A traditional wood cutting board or butcher block is my top choice. It is an ideal cutting surface (and a beautiful one) that makes butchering any vegetable a joy. Teak wood boards are my second choice, and offer great durability. These boards—especially the large ones—are expensive, but they should last a lifetime if you take good care of them. Look for a reversible board with built-in handles. Thick plastic boards are less expensive alternatives and will get the job done, but they can scratch easily, seem to dull your knife faster, and aren’t much of a pleasure to cut on. Place a damp paper towel underneath plastic boards and lightweight wood boards to keep them from sliding out of place. (Make sure to change out the damp towel between uses, as it can harbor bacteria.) Acrylic and glass boards offer a slippery surface with no control, and they dull and damage the edge of your knife; avoid them. I like to keep around a set of flexible cutting mats, which I place on top of my wood board for cutting small, soft vegetables—especially ones that yield messy juice. You can buy them at most kitchen stores.

Excerpted from The Vegetable Butcher. Copyright © 2016 by Cara Mangini. Reprinted with permission of Workman Publishing.

Author Photo Credit: Matthew Benson