How to Slice a Potato
Potato dishes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes….and recipes. Some of those recipes, like potato lyonnaise, require that you slice the potatoes into a thin disks. While professional chefs and many experienced home cooks might use a mandoline, most folks don’t have one, and have to rely on a standard chef’s knife. In this cooking video, I show you how you can slice through a whole burlap sack of potatoes quickly and safely. As your knife skills develop you'll be come a better, safer, faster cook. And, let’s admit it, I’d rather spend my time eating potatoes than slicing them.
HOW TO SLICE A POTATO
- It doesn’t matter much whether you peel the potato or not; but if you’ve decided to leave the skin on, make sure the potato is well cleaned before starting.
- Really the only hard part of slicing a potato is that there are no flat edges; that means an unstable base. So our first cut is to create a base
- Place the potato on the cutting board, and slice off a ¼ inch from one of the long sides
- That becomes the first slice, and creates a flat surface on the potato
- Flip the potato on it new flat side, and you’ve got a much more stable base
- Then, working from one end of the potato to the other, slice disks the desired width – super thin or thicker
If you use this “create a base” technique, and a good safe grip on the knife, you’ll be able to mow through a bunch of potatoes in no time at all. Happy slicing.
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