What It Means To 'Back-Slice' Chives

There are a lot of things to learn for anyone first stepping into a kitchen. Cooking times, getting to know ingredients, or learning about different methods can be exceedingly challenging. One of the most important things to learn though is proper knife skills.

Learning basic knife cuts will not only make you look like a master chef but is also a matter of safety. Simply Recipes points out that there are a lot of things that can go wrong when trying to do simple prep work in the kitchen. The cutting board or food can move, and the blade can slip if you're applying too much pressure.

It might seem logical to look up cutting tips when learning how to chop a butternut squash, pineapple, or other fibrous and oddly shaped foods. What might not seem as obvious though is to know the proper techniques for cutting small and delicate items like chives, which require a unique style of cut.

Chives might not be the first ingredient you get to know in the kitchen, but they can be an easy way to upgrade an otherwise simple dish. According to Prevention, chives are a type of herb that is related to onions and other alliums. The most common type of chive found in the U.S. is the French chive which grows as thin, grass-like stalks.

Chives are sometimes confused with green onions and scallions, but Escoffier School of Culinary Arts points out that the two are actually different species. Both have long green stalks and a bright onion flavor, but the bulbs of chives are almost never consumed, and their delicate flavor means that they are mostly used for garnishing completed dishes.

Prevention says that chives are great for topping soups, roasting meats like a leg of grilled lamb, or mixing them into a creamy salad with smoked salmon. Chives easily create a professional appearance and add a bright kick to all sorts of dishes. Because they are so gentle though, they are best served by a careful slicing method.

Chives can be tricky to cut. Not only do they need to be held down correctly to ensure a clean cut, but they require an uncommon slicing technique as well.

According to Serious Eats, the proper method for slicing chives is known as "the back slice." To perform a back slice place just the tip of the knife on the cutting board at a low angle with the chives between you and the blade. Without lifting the blade or applying any pressure, drag the knife tip towards you and make a thin slice across the end of the chives.

Williams Sonoma may recommend using kitchen shears for this job, but this will create excessive downward pressure and may crush the stalks of the chives as they are cut. Serious Eats says that this is the opposite of what the back slice accomplishes. Not only does this technique create extra thin slices of chives, but it also cuts them without crushing the stalks. That means the chives won't release excess moisture as they're being chopped and you'll have dry, crisp rings instead of a soggy, wilted-looking garnish.

Like any knife technique, the back slice takes some getting used to. But once it's mastered, you won't want to treat your chives any other way.