This is a little cooking school/restaurant trick for cutting lots of cherry tomatoes as well as small round produce things like seedless grapes, pitted olives, tomatillos, etc.
Start with two 5″ or larger, clean plastic lids – the kind from yogurt, cottage cheese or margarine tubs….
....place one lid upside down on a cutting board and fill it with the washed fruit or vegetable you want to cut....
....place the second cleaned lid on top, lightly pressing down with your hand....
....use a serrated knife to cut through all the produce at once. If what you're cutting is very small, you can rest your knife along the edge of the bottom lid, otherwise, cut straight through the center....
....there you go!
Cutting is done in less than half the time. This is also a safe way to teach younger chefs at home how to cut this type of round produce.
Ha! Fantastic – thanks! Now, do you have a handy little tip for removing the stones from olives? I crush them gently with the flat of my fist, then ease the stone out but have always wondered if there’s an easier way…
By: Ruby on November 15, 2011
at 6:25 am
I do it pretty much the same way you do, but using the flat edge of my chef’s knife to smash the olive – I have a fancy olive pitter with a “splash guard” but don’t think it does a better job than knife or hand -
By: scootrah on November 16, 2011
at 3:25 pm