How to chop cabbage correctly and quickly and not cut yourself

It is often required to chop cabbage very finely in order to make a delicate salad from it, ferment, salt or boil borscht. You can do this with a cutter, or you can use kitchen gadgets. For this, a special double-bladed cabbage knife, a food processor, a shredder are suitable.

How and what to quickly cut cabbage

Especially such “helpers” are needed when it is required to chop up early cabbage (it has an unformed head of cabbage, soft leaves) or old heads of cabbage (becomes flabby over time). Let’s see what kitchen tools will help you quickly and easily cope with a white-headed beauty.

Why shred cabbage

Beautifully chopped cabbage looks appetizing on a plate

Every home cook has their own favorite ways chop the cabbage forks for cooking different dishes. Some cut it into pieces, thick slices (for example, for cabbage soup, borscht, salting in “layers”). But often it is required to finely chop the vegetable. By the way, professional chefs advise to plan the forks in translucent slices, and for a reason. Thinly chopped cabbage looks more aesthetically pleasing in salads, preparations (salted, pickled), it also cooks faster, and fresh thin pieces are easier to chew, which is especially important for children and the elderly.

Dishes with shredded cabbage

Since ancient times, cabbage has occupied an honorable place on the table of the Slavs. After all, dishes made from it are always tasty, appetizing, saturated with vitamins, they never become boring. There are more than a thousand recipes for cabbage dishes with which you can delight yourself and your household both on ordinary days and on holidays. Despite its simplicity and the fact that the White Cruciferous was originally considered the food of the poor, dishes made from it adorn the tables of people from all walks of life.

Red pickled cabbage salad

It is impossible to count all the dishes that use shredded cabbage. The list includes:

• fresh salads;
• cabbage soup, borscht, hodgepodge;
• pickled, salted, fermented dishes;
• stewed, fried foods;
• spicy pickled salads (the so-called “Korean”);
• filling for pies, dumplings, pancakes and many others.

One of the simplest slaw dishes is a vitamin salad. This is a beautiful and most useful product. It will require 200 grams of fresh white cabbage, 100 grams of fresh carrots, 1 large bell pepper (preferably green or yellow for contrast), 4-5 pieces of radish, a bunch of green onions, parsley (cilantro) and dill.

One of the most popular cabbage salads is “Vitamin”

The salad is prepared quickly: all vegetables are chopped into equal strips, put into a bowl. Then they salt, season with olive oil and sprinkle with chopped herbs – voila, “Vitamin salad” is ready!

An excellent way to prepare dishes based on shredded cabbage is preservation. There is a recipe for pickled cabbage with beets, carrots and garlic. Everything is prepared quickly (if, of course, kitchen gadgets are used).

For preparation it will be required:

• white cabbage – 2 kilograms
• beets – 1 kg;
• carrots – a pound;
• garlic – 400 grams;
• salt, sugar – 4 tablespoons each;
• apple cider vinegar and vegetable oil – 6 tablespoons each;
• cloves, bay leaves, allspice – 4 pieces each;
• water – 3 liters.

To begin with, a marinade is prepared from water with spices, vinegar and oil. The jars are sterilized, cabbage, carrots, garlic, beets are laid in layers, everything is poured with marinade, and covered with lids. When the workpieces are cool, they are put into the refrigerator.

Crispy and delicious pickled cabbage

The number of components can be varied depending on taste preferences. Someone likes a rich beet or garlic flavor, someone likes more cabbage. You need to experiment to choose the best option. One thing is important – it turns out an incredibly tasty preparation. It can be used as a stand-alone snack or as a base for borscht or vinaigrette.

Correctly and quickly shred cabbage

If even some 20 years ago, housewives had to hone the skill of thin cabbage shredding with an ordinary kitchen knife for a long time. It is quite difficult, and there is a high chance of cutting yourself when the knife slides off the hard and smooth surface of the fork (especially winter varieties with a dense and hard head of cabbage).

• Wooden shredder
• Plastic mill

To date, a large number of various kitchen appliances are produced to facilitate this difficult chore. Using household helpers allows you to cope with slicing large quantities of crispy vegetables in just a few minutes. Whereas cutting a medium fork weighing a little over a kilogram takes minute 15-20, and for inexperienced people – and all 40.

Experienced housewives love the classic wood shredder with sharp blades and a special hopper for the head of cabbage. Less often – with a plastic base, as they crack more often and become unusable faster.

With an ordinary knife

A regular knife should have a wide blade and well sharpened

It would seem that there is nothing easier than cutting the forks with a kitchen knife. But there are certain secrets that must be used before shredding using mechanical methods:

1. The forks must be clean and dry. To do this, wash it and wipe it dry with a towel. Some housewives simply remove the top dirty sheets, and then rinse the cut product. In any case, the head of cabbage must be dry so that when manually cutting a cabbage knife or other tool does not slip, slowing down the process.
2. Shred the cabbage in one direction, quickly but not abruptly.
3. It is more correct to cut the head of cabbage on a wooden or plastic board. Do not use ceramics or glass for this, as the knife becomes very dull with constant contact with these materials.
4. The ideal solution is to use a separate knife for shredding, which is not used for anything else. After cutting the heads, it is washed, wiped and stored separately.

These simple rules will help you get through difficult work faster without injury.

Video lesson: how and what to properly chop vegetables

Knife with two blades

Double-edged knives are designed for cutting cabbage and other vegetables into strips. They have received a lot of positive feedback from users. They are devices from a frame made of stainless steel. Attached to this frame are two blades, also made of stainless steel.

Popular for cutting cabbage

You can sharpen these blades with a fine file. But, as practice shows, this is rarely required. For several years, they retain their sharpness and cope with shredding even dense heads of cabbage of winter varieties.

Notethat a device with 2 blades requires practice and experience with it, although after 3-4 times you can chop the heads of cabbage almost professionally.

Special knife with two blades for shredding cabbage

Using a shredder knife is quite simple. But still, there are several life hacks:

1. Before cutting, the head of cabbage is washed, cleaned from the upper coarse leaves.
2. Then you need to create a flat surface for better shredding. To do this, a small rounded part is cut off from the fork.
3. Begin to work with a shredder from the protruding edge from top to bottom.

Watch the video example and you will immediately understand how to properly use the special cabbage knife with two blades:

How to use a cabbage shredder knife

The result is a straw that is ideal for salting and salads.

Electric knife

Device for chopping cabbage – electric knife

The electric shredder knife is a kind of food processor. This device, inside which there are sharp disc blades made of stainless steel, they rotate quickly when the device is connected to the network. The thickness of the slices can be varied to your liking.

Often this device means an electric shredder, which is described in detail below.

Vegetable cutter and meat grinder

Vegetable cutter refers to devices designed for chopping various products. It will help to chop any vegetables and fruits several times faster than a regular knife. The unit consists of a steel frame on which 4 blades are fixed. They are mobile, which allows you to chop vegetables as comfortably and quickly as possible.

Multifunctional vegetable cutter

Also, the knife has a simple grater, a wedge shredder and a grater for cutting vegetables into Korean salads. Basically, it’s a miniature food processor. It has a convenient holder to protect your hands from cuts and slipping.

It is best to chop the quarters of the fork with such a device, since they fit more comfortably in the hand. But you can easily chop the halves of the heads of cabbage. In this case, the forks are placed on a flat surface with a round part, and a shredder is started from the flat side, holding the head of cabbage. For greater stability, you can cut a small piece from the round part, with which the cabbage is placed on the surface, so that the side also becomes even and does not sway when shredding. The cost of a quality vegetable cutter for cabbage is about 2000 rubles.

Meat grinder with removable cylindrical attachments

Nowadays, even meat grinders are used not only for grinding meat products. They have special perforated cylindrical nozzles that allow you to chop vegetables in even and beautiful straws of various thicknesses in a couple of minutes. But there is a small minus of such devices – the shredder quickly clogs up, so it must be constantly cleaned.

Shredder manual, mechanical and electrical

There are several tools for cutting cabbage by hand and using electrical appliances. Let’s consider the most popular ones.

Shredder.

Shredder with removable attachments and container

These devices are like planks with attachments. In the center is a metal float with sharp plates. Many of them are equipped with additional volumetric containers where processed vegetables are dropped. It also has a special holder to prevent cuts on your hands. The device is convenient, functional, easy to use, and this has earned its popularity.

On some models, it is possible to adjust the thickness of the slicing, which allows you to vary it depending on what dishes you plan to cook.

Pay attention! If the shredder is equipped with various attachments, then a smaller attachment (4 mm) is chosen for salads, for pickling or salting cabbage – with larger cells, so that the straws are 5 mm thick.

It is necessary to hold such a grater with one hand, resting it on a hard surface. In the other hand, take a quarter of a head of cabbage or cut the half into thin strips.

Potato peeler.

Cut the forks in half, so it will be more convenient to slide over it with a vegetable peeler.

This is a multifunctional cheap device, costing 70-100 rubles. In everyday life, it is called a vegetable peeler, a more common name is housekeeper… In general, its purpose is to remove the peel from root crops, but people with a developed imagination have long found another use for it. They use a potato peeler as a cabbage shredder. With its help, thin straws are obtained, which are suitable for fresh salads.

Advice! For shredding cabbage forks, it is better not to use a potato peeler for the purpose of further salting or fermentation. She cuts the leaves very thinly, and the fermentation process of the cabbage should take several days. Thin pieces of cabbage will quickly be salted, and then they will only become sour, softer. Cabbage strips 5 mm thick are suitable for fermentation.

mechanical shredder.

Manual or mechanical shredder with handle

Mechanical shredders are great helpers in the kitchen. They are easy enough to operate, disassemble, wash and put back together. In terms of their principle of operation, mechanical shredders resemble manual meat grinders. First you need to cut the forks into pieces slightly smaller than the loading hole.

Advice! It is best to cut the cabbage into long, narrow chunks before starting to fill so that it completely fills the loading bay.

Then, one by one, pieces of cabbage are sent to the loading hole, press it to the grater with a special pusher, while simultaneously scrolling the handle. The result is a beautiful cabbage cut. This device can cut any vegetables and fruits.

Electric grinder.

• With circuit nozzles
• Electric shredder for cabbage

The electric shredder for cabbage is a mini-harvester designed for chopping and cutting vegetables. Has from 3 to 7 cutters, allowing you to chop cabbage into slices, straws, cubes. You can adjust the thickness of the cut by changing the position of the blades. In a few minutes, such devices turn a head of cabbage into a huge mountain of tasty cabbage shavings.

Food processor

Helps to cope with chopping cabbage forks food processor. It has several types of graters with sharp knives. Heads of cabbage with their help are crushed evenly. All that is needed is to cut the cabbage into several pieces, place it in the combine, press the button. And in a couple of minutes you can turn the huge forks into thin strips.

Food processor – the universal assistant in the kitchen

Advice! It is better not to chop the stump. It is considered harmful, since all nitrates that were used during cultivation are concentrated in it.

Choosing a knife for cutting

Professional chefs say that choosing the right knife is the key to success. It is possible to chop cabbage beautifully and finely not only with the help of a technologically advanced and expensive tool. This can be done with a household knife, as housewives have done for hundreds of years.

The right knife helps you quickly tackle any fork

It is only important that the tool meets a number of requirements:

1. The blade is long, wide, strong (preferably steel). It should protrude beyond the handle. So it is easier to cut the head of cabbage into halves, and then chop them along the length (this should be done across the veins), resting the end of the blade against the cutting surface. The stress on the wrist will be minimal, so you can adjust the width of the straw.
2. The end of the blade is sharpened.
3. The blade is without teeth, waves, with an even sharpening line.
4. The handle is non-slippery (rubberized), which fits comfortably in the brush.

On a note! Do not be afraid of sharp knives, the chance of cutting yourself with them is much less than with blunt ones. After all, a blunt tool must be pressed hard so that it cuts normally, so there is a high risk of slipping, as a result, the appearance of wounds and cuts.

Conclusion

Cabbage blanks are easier to prepare when using shredders and a combine

For harvesting, a lot of cabbage is required, which is laborious to chop, especially by hand. It takes a lot of time, diligence, effort. In addition to forks, other vegetables are needed for preservation – carrots, onions, beets, tomatoes. Not every housewife or owner can process such an amount of fresh products with her hands. In this case, mechanical or electrical gadgets, which we described in the article, will come to the rescue. They will simplify the slicing process and make it easier to prepare delicious meals and snacks.