Julienne is one of several ways of cutting in the kitchen, mostly of vegetables and sometimes fruits. Here is the definition and some related cutting styles.
Julienne basically means cutting your veg into matchsticks with a length of three to four centimeters (1 - 1.5 inches) and a thickness of about 2 millimeters. The art of julienne cutting is really to make each matchstick the same thickness.
The general technique for this is to first cut the vegetable in thin slices, then stacking a number of slices and cutting the matchsticks.
Things to cut julienne:
- Carrot, to go into a salad raw (1 mm would be great)
- Apple, for a salad (slightly thicker, as apple sticks break more easily); try julienne apple or pear with blue cheese in a salad - it is magical.
Brunoise
Another way of preparing vegetables is cutting brunoise. In this case, you will want to cut little cubes (2 - 3 mm). Generally you would cut vegetables brunoise for a sauce or a soup; in both cases starting off with frying the brunoise vegetables in a bit of butter or oil.
A Mirepoix is a mixture of vegetables (onion, carrot, celery) cut brunoise.