Fat guy of EGullet Forums asked me:
I’ve been dicing celery more often lately than in the past, and I’m realizing that it’s a time-consuming and tedious process. Anybody have any technique/efficiency pointers? I’m trying to achieve a small dice.
You are right, cutting a lot of celery can be a pain in the ass. If I asked you for a 20 liter pail of celery small diced, you would probably choke. Fear not though, here is a trick to cutting a lot of celery small diced. It is really just a trick of your mind.
Clean off the top and the bottom of the celery.
Separate out ribs of celery.
Wash ribs. I was in the juice, so please excuse the less than immaculate sink!
Slice all ribs in 1 CM strips. Continue until all are done.
The importance of continuing this step through is to maintain a “flow” of work. If you stop to dice the little bit, you are interrupting your flow. It is easier to repeat a task until finished than to start, stop, start another task, stop that one, then return to the first task. When you are done, you will have a nice pile on the top of your cutting board.
Cut across in 1 CM slices to make small dice. Continue until you are completely done the celery.
Cut across in 1 CM slices to make small dice. Continue until you are completely done the celery.
There you have it! How to get through a load of celery for small dice. Now go out there and dice me a pail! I’ll race you!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This is exactly how I cut celery. It’s good to know I am doing it right, cuz I sorta made it up in my mind (or so I thought) because nobody ever showed me before. Thanks for showing me. GREG
It is good to see someone else knows about the assembly line theory. Now, something as rudimentary as dicing celery seems mundane, but hey! We all got to where we are today somehow.