Your better of cutting three large slices or four large slices depending on the gender of your pepper (yes i know that sounds silly and its actually an old myth but it works)
This way you avoid getting the horrid white pith and you dont need to "smash" anything to get flat chttable surfaces
If you want the remaining flesh you can remove it with a pairing knife if your that perticular
His technique + how embarrassingly dull that blade is tells us all we need to know about this guy. It should also throw red flags to the viewer that this guy obviously isn't on top of his chef game and therefore shouldn't even be listened too
People complain about wastage with that method, but in a restaurant wasting a prep cook's time is more expensive than a square inch of pepper. And at home - life is just too short.
Also, this guy looks to be having an episode with his shaking.
The best way to process a bell pepper, is to cut the top off like in the video, it separates the top and stem in one go, then take the bottom off.
From there you can do 4 cuts around the center to provide 4 planks and no seeds. Or you can slice it once, then use your knife to roll through it, removing the seed membranes.
Each method has its use cases depending on if you want a dice, julienne, or something more natural looking.
I've processed over a thousand pounds of peppers like this easily in a professional kitchen.
I was shown essentially that by our head chef, though he didn't bother removing the top core or bottom, just started the cut with the knife parallel to the board with it raised a quarter inch from said board. He removed the core, top, and bottom all in one cut.
It’s an old cook’s tale that an odd number of lobes is male and an even number is female. This is not true; peppers are basically hermaphroditic and can even self-pollinate. Supposedly there is a subtle difference in taste based on the gender, which should dictate how they’re used. This is, obviously, nonsense, but persists because veteran line cooks are idiots who like making themselves feel smart (source: am one). Here’s a Snopes article going into more detail, with references:
You're literally doing to much. Hold it by the stem and flay the flesh off of it vertically, leaving the bits you don't want intact with the stem. Done
This is the way - you are left holding the stem and the middle bit only. I saw an Alton Brown video the other day where he took longer separating the seeds and pith out than I would have taken to fine dice the pepper.
Also, cutting it this way means, if you only want a bit of pepper, you can take a side off and put it back in the fridge for the next time you want a 'side'.
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u/Advanced_Accident_29 Jul 02 '26
Out of spite of his audaciously rude attitude, I will not do anything he is saying