How To Make A Carrot Leaf -- Vegetable Carving
Art
Welcome back to another cooking video, I'm
Chef Devaux and I'm going to teach you guys
how to make this beautiful little carrot garnish.
It's a leaf carved out of carrot, it takes
quite a little bit of effort to make but it
looks just stunning, whether you fill this
next to your sushi as garnish or whether you
just chuck this into a salad and surprise
your guests with miniature carved leaves out
of carrots, or just add them with your steak
and chip dinner.
These will just elevate your cooking to a
different level, so let's get straight into
making these.
Let's go.
Alright so you begin by taking you carrot
and just cutting a nice block of it.
Alright, so you start with a carrot block
about 5cm long, and you want to cut just outside
of the core, so just outside of this ring
that divides the core from the outer layer
of the carrot, and you do this so you get
a nice smooth surface.
You see, like this, it's nice and smooth.
If I was to cut in between the core you get
lines and dividers and then that will show
up on your leaf, you don't want that.
Now you want to cut a block about 1cm thick,
that's 2/5th of an inch, and then you want
to cut this specific pattern, and it looks
a little like a gold fish pattern.
Pretty basic, but it's the beginnings of a
leaf.
So there you go, now all these little extra
pieces of carrot, don't worry you can use
them inside a sauce recipe, for example a
carrot sauce that I made before, a video link
just appeared on the top left corner of the
screen.
Alright, now to carve the leaf what you want
to do is just carve a line through the middle
at a slight curve and this will be the vein
of the leaf.
You do this by first cutting one straight
cut into it and then another cut at 45° angle
which will join into it, and basically you
just pull it out.
Now, to carve a sort of zigzag pattern, what
you do is you press in your knife and then
you pull out and then you move it forward
at a 45° angle you join to the other cut
you just made, and then where the second cut
started you push down again and then you move
out and do another 45° angle cut and going
it together.
And then you just keep doing the same pattern
until you've covered the entire leaf.
Once you've cut this zigzag pattern what you
want to do now is lay it down a cutting board
and you just want to join up the top end of
your zigzags with the central vein you cut
out a second ago.
Once you've connected that you want to do
some very precise cuts going at about 40°
angle down and joining up to the cut you just
made, it will make it look more 3D.
Once you've carved about the 45° to 30°
angle slices that make the leaf look more
three-dimensional you're basically done, now
you have the option of doing the leaf on the
other side, the same pattern, but really because
I lay it down flat on a plate most of the
time, I don't bother doing the other side
of the carrot.
But you can do that and then you could use
it in say salad or something where you have
them and toss them inside something, then
you can see both sides of the leaf, which
would be awesome.
Alright so now you've finished carving your
carrots into beautiful little leaf patterns,
you should cook them a little bit so they
are a little bit more tender and more edible,
and obviously add a little bit of flavor.
So what I like to do is just add them to some
Dashi Stock.
The Dashi Stock is a great way to add flavor
to these carrots for any seafood dish like
sushi or fish or any kind of fish dish, but
if you want to use them for poultry or steak
you can just use chicken stock or beef stock
instead.
I hope you all enjoyed this video, how to
make these beautiful little carrot leafs and
I urge you all to give this a try at home,
even if it's just with your standard every
day roast chicken or steak and chips, add
these carrots as boiled carrots instead of
the normal boiled carrots, or you could add
these inside of pea soup.
Imagine the bright green color of the pea
soup with these carrot leaf islands, just
the contrasting colors between the bright
green and the bright orange will blow your
mind alone.
So give that a try, that's an awesome idea.
Now, if you guys want to see more videos related
to this one, for example the leafs made out
of cucumber then click on the link right now,
you can check that out.
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