The roll cut, also known as an oblique cut, is an extremely useful technique that I feel doesn’t really get used nearly as often as it should. I primarily see it in Chinese and Japanese recipes, but it’s great for any dish where you want pieces with an interesting texture (ie, not just cubes or strips) with lots of surface area.
The roll cut is very simple: all you do is hold your knife at an angle while you cut, rolling the vegetable ¼ of the way after each cut, so you get a different angle on the vegetable with each cut. The result gives you little triangles that are irregular but still have a consistent volume, so that they cook (or absorb sauce) at the same rate.
The video above demonstrates making relatively small pieces, using a Persian cucumber, but this technique can also be used for larger vegetables like a lotus root or a potato—just use a larger cleaver and cut larger pieces using the same movement.
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