A little departure today from our usual discussion of cooking methods and techniques. Instead, we'll talk about a piece of equipment that is underutilized in most kitchens: the mandoline.

Why you need

to learn this

Mandolines make quick work of many tasks that normally are performed with a chef's knife, including french fries, veggie chips, potato casseroles and all sorts of other goodies. Using one gives you wonderfully consistent pieces of whatever you're cutting quicker than you can shout, “Watch your fingers!!!”

The steps

you take

First of all, some of you may not have heard of the mandoline, or you're confusing it with the similarly named musical instrument, the mandolin. Note that our device includes an extra letter “e” at the end, like those creepy cats that Hemingway had with the extra toes.

Though mandolines come in several designs, they share their main feature: a flat surface at the end of which sits a stationary blade. By running a potato (for example) across that flat surface into the blade, it produces evenly sized slices.

Now, before I go on, I want to remind you of something I tell my students all the time: Mandolines are very, very, very, very, very, very sharp. (Note: However many “very”s my editor left in that last sentence, you can be sure there were about 37 more that he took out. Those things are all-caps SHARP!)

Full disclosure: OK, I admit it. I cut myself on my mandoline just this past Christmas. I was rushing (of course) to get 5 pounds of potatoes sliced in 5 minutes. Unfortunately, I was moving too fast to notice the slices piling up under the mandoline until they up and blocked the blade, stopping my potato in its tracks. The forward momentum sent my thumb careening off the potato and into the waiting blade like a wayward dove into the window of a gleaming glass skyscraper.

Fortunately, though my poor thumb was no match for the accursed contraption, the jammed potato stopped its forward trajectory so that the blade did not remove completely a thumby slice. Instead, it created a flap that I was able to slam closed and seal with a bandage.

Here's the takeaway: Sure, I cut myself. But, I've cut myself a dozen times with a regular knife. It's part of working with knives.

The good news is, your mandoline probably comes with a safety guard that comes between the food and your tender digits. Personally and ironically, I don't use it because I feel that that extra layer of protection reduces, somewhat, the control I feel over the whole process. On the other hand, eschewing that extra layer of protection comes with the price of possibly removing a portion of yourself. That's your call.

Another protective device you could get would be a glove made out of chain mail, like something Lancelot might have worn if he'd worked in a deli. Once again, I'd rather just practice slowly until I get to where I can work quickly and safely.