Techniques - Slicing and Mincing

   You won't slice and mince things as often as you'll dice them, but these cuts are common enough to warrant a mention.  Both of them are pretty easy.  In fact, mincing is so easy that I taught my daughter how to do it.  Granted, when she minces parsley, she gets a little over zealous and ends up with parsley powder on the cutting board.  We'll start with slicing because you've already done that motion.
     Remember that video I posted with me dicing the carrots?  Slicing isn't really that much different.  You use the same motion I used to change the sticks into cubes, but you don't cut the section into sticks first, nor do you have to square it off, if you don't mind the peel.  In this video, the gentleman picks up his knife after every single cut, but he still does a great job of what we call "slicing on the bias."

     Slicing on the bias is when you cut the vegetable or bread at an angle before you start slicing.  Then you continue to cut at the same angle all the way down.  When you start slicing, your slices will be fairly thick.  As you get used to it, you'll make thinner slices.  Don't feel like you need to cut on the bias at the beginning, just get used to making even cuts down the length of your vegetable.  Then you can try the tricky cuts.

     Mincing is one of those things that professional chefs argue about how to do properly.  I've seen chefs who mince by picking their knife up off the cutting board between every single strike.  It makes a lot of noise and a lot of mess but is really flashy, but in my experience, it also dulls your knifes really quickly.  The method I use lets you keep your mess contained while being quiet and not providing you opportunity to accidentally cut off your fingers.  First, you'll want to cut your vegetables, fruits, or herbs into smaller pieces.  Then using the flat of your knife sweep them into a pile (using the blade dulls your knife).  Then, hold the tip of your knife and rock the blade over your pile.  When you've gone over the pile, sweep it up and do it again in a different direction.  Do this three or four times until you have a fine pile of what you started with.  Here's me doing it.  You don't have to watch the entire 2 minutes; I think you'll get it pretty quickly: