a chef's knife is about 10 to 12 inches long and can be used for all sorts of chopping slicing dicing and mincing this knife is something you'll use a lot in the kitchen so investing in a great one always pays off here are some techniques to perform with the chef's knife to slice food hold the foods securely on the cutting board making sure that your fingers are curled under and out of the way of the knife press straight down with the knife slicing into the food to get pieces the thickness you want to julienne or matchstick cut an ingredient such as a potato cut it into 1 to 2 inch segments then square off the edges so you're left with a rectangle now cut thin even slices and stack them slice down through the stack to create a bundle of thin strips technically julienned foods are about an eighth of an inch by an eighth of an inch by one to two inches if you want to perform this technique on meat or chicken chill it in the freezer for about 15 minutes this firms the flesh and makes slicing more manageable - cube dice or mince first cut the food into long sticks by using the julienne technique then cut across the sticks to create whatever size cubes you want size is the main difference between cubes dices and menses other than that they're all basically cube shaped pieces of food cubes are the largest of the three something that's diced can measure three quarters of an inch to one quarter of an inch mincing makes the smallest pieces usually 1/16 of an inch to release the essential oils and ingredients like garlic ginger or salted black beans crush them to crush an ingredient put it on a cutting board and hold a knife over it horizontally make sure the blade edge faces away from you then press the flat part of the blade firmly onto the board with your free hand crushing the food underneath it for garlic remove the outer skin and mince the remaining garlic clove use the flat part of the blade as a scoop to pick up the food these chefs knife techniques will make you a master chef in no time you