Julienning

Julienning, also called the allumette or French cut, is a knife technique in which food is cut into long, thin strips resembling matchsticks, typically about 3 millimeters by 3 millimeters by 40 to 50 millimeters. Cooks trim the item's ends and sides square first so that every strip comes out uniform, which lets the pieces cook evenly. It is commonly used on carrots, celery, potatoes, and cucumbers, and rotating julienned pieces ninety degrees and dicing them finely produces a smaller cut called brunoise. The earliest documented use of the term appears in François Massialot's 1722 edition of Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois, though the origin of the word itself is uncertain.