We cut the vegetables beautifully. Photo lessons of carving

This skill will come in handy if you want to decorate your table for a holiday or a delicious party. Even ordinary dishes with such interesting decoration can be turned into real masterpieces. The art of decorating food with carved sculptures from products was born in Asia. In ancient times, masters from China, Japan and other countries mastered this carving technique. Then it's infatuation spread around the world . You can use any vegetables and fruits to cut out shapes. But hard fruits with dense pulp are best suited for beginners: radishes, carrots, pumpkin, beets, zucchini, as well as apples and pears.
Creating unusual, beautiful and edible shapes with your own hands is not as difficult as you think.

Video lesson Lily from a bow. Carving for beginners

Today we will make an interesting and not very complicated decoration - a lotus flower.

For work we will need:

smooth flat cabbage leaf (you can use Chinese, white or other cabbage to your taste)
one carrot
several white onions

We will work with a small, sharply sharpened knife. Vegetables must be washed well under running water and dried.

So let's start our step-by-step master class on carving

Peel the onion and cut it crosswise into two even halves. Please note that for our lily it is better to use “juicy” varieties of onions. White lettuce beam and red flat beam are excellent.

Let's take one half, remove the middle, leaving several layers. You will get a cup. From top to bottom, we begin to cut out small triangular segments, moving along the circumference of the bulb. It is important not to rush and do everything carefully.

Then we will move the layers to make a flower. Please note that in lilies you can leave one layer of onion or several, usually 2-3 layers are used so your flower will be more natural.

Now we need to make the core of the flower. To do this, take carrots and cut them into even slices. The thickness of the circles is approximately 4 mm. Using a knife, cut the circle around the edges, giving it an octagonal shape. We will make several notches along and across the top, imitating a lattice.

Let's be careful, the carrot circle should fit tightly into the hole of the onion. Let's make several of these flowers. Shift the layers slightly in relation to each other in a checkerboard pattern, as shown in the photo below.

Let's put together our composition. After adding leaves to it, they should be washed well. It is also possible to use any oval-shaped lettuce leaves.

Let's take a nice, wide, not too deep plate and pour in some water. We carefully place the largest and most beautiful cabbage leaf on the surface and carefully place our flowers on it. If you want, you can add floating candles to the plate. We have prepared a wonderful table decoration for you! These flowers can also be used to decorate New Year's dishes.

This elegant and sophisticated art, which attracts both professionals and amateurs, came to Russia and Europe along with the fashion for oriental cuisine.

Carving - This is an unusual art of carving decorations from vegetables and fruits, which is an attractive way to serve a restaurant table and also requires patience, skill and skill.

In translation Carving– English curving (from curve, which means to cut) - “carved work”, “carved ornament”.

Carving refers to the artistic carving of wood, ice, stones, vegetables, as well as the style of riding alpine skiing and snowboarding and even a method of long-term chemical hair styling.

Carving in cooking- This artistic carving for any cutting material: vegetables, fruits and berries, chocolate and cheese, etc., which is now widely used by chefs and confectioners various restaurants, since a beautifully decorated dish is an important element of daily and festive table, whose decorations transform any familiar dishes.

Culinary carving originated many centuries ago in the East, became part of national traditions, the knowledge of which was passed on by masters by inheritance.

The art of carving originated in South-East Asia as a necessary means of decorating a meager, predominantly plant-based table. But, passing through the centuries, carving gradually acquired its own special features. And subsequently, it began to be based on different technical methods, which differ significantly from each other.

For example, in Chinese and Japanese technology , which are very similar, are dominated by the techniques of cutting out images of animals, people and hieroglyphs.

Drawings with dragons, battle scenes and congratulatory inscriptions are very popular. Craftsmen work with a wide range of stencils and recesses.

But in Thai technology techniques are used to cut flower arrangements from fruits and vegetables. They make their decorations using mainly the so-called Thai knife in combination with various cutters.

The culinary traditions of Thailand are rich in physical and spiritual beauty, so Thai carving is distinguished by grace and sophistication.

Each technique has its advantages and disadvantages.

Chinese carving technology, using stencils, notches and molds, is easier to learn, but does not have the sophistication and sophistication that can be achieved using Thai tools.

Not so long ago "" appeared.

The fashion for oriental cuisine has aroused the interest of Europeans in this skill and already at many special ceremonies, banquets and holidays they use the decoration of dishes with various carved compositions of vegetables, fruits and berries.

To create elegant patterns, vegetables and fruits are used: carrots, cucumbers, cabbage, onions, radishes, beets, apples, as well as exotic fruits: mango, avocado, papaya, and especially melons and watermelons.

Decorative patterns on vegetables and fruits are cut out with special tools - small knives with cutters of different shapes.

The master's main tool is a Thai knife. There are also carving knives (sharp, V-shaped, square, round wide and narrow), a noisette knife or noisette (another name for a notch knife) of round and oval shape, a channeling knife (for applying grooves-flutes), an engraving knife and others .

Carving in Russia, has existed for a long time, but was poorly developed due to the poor assortment of vegetables and fruits.

In addition, in Russia there were no textbooks, specialized tools or training courses.

But in the last 6-8 years, this art has become available to everyone who wants to reach the top in the decorative design of dishes. And in 2004, the Carving Academy even appeared in Russia and carving became an integral part of all culinary competitions.

Today, the differences between national carving schools are becoming increasingly blurred.

In any capital of the world all year round the most available Exotic fruits and vegetables. For carving, the entire arsenal of tools and devices is used. And the result of the chefs’ work, in terms of complexity and skill, is increasingly approaching Thai traditions as the standard of figure cutting.

For centuries, carving remained an elite art for the nobility. Girls from respectable families studied it at the palaces, and this was a kind of university for them.

After the revolution of 1932, the pomp of the royal court became a thing of the past, and the popularity of carving began to decline. In order not to lose the secrets passed down from generation to generation, courses were opened to train carving teachers who would share their skills with everyone. So carving stepped beyond the walls of royal palaces and became the property of the entire Thai people.

Since 1934, foreign citizens were also invited to study at one-year courses.

Culinary carving can become part of Everyday life. After all, this type of art teaches not only how to elegantly set a table, but also the ability to spot a lily in a zucchini, which forms an aesthetic view of the world and unusual perception. These delicious fruit and vegetable products will decorate any table. Don’t think that only professionals can do them. Cut beautiful flower You can learn it yourself from cucumber or radish.

Here are some tips.

Orange peel is often used as a salad bowl or ice cream cup. After cutting the pineapple lengthwise, without touching the leaves, take out the pulp and put salad, ice cream or rice in its place; leaves should be left as decoration.

“Boats” are cut out of papaya for salads or fruits, for which the papaya is cut lengthwise and the pulp is removed. Carambola can be cut into stars.

Papaya is easy to cut and various shapes leaves and flowers, flat figures are cut out of pineapple slices, and elegant baskets for fruits or salads are made from melons.

Cut the sapodilla lengthwise in a zigzag pattern. Separate the halves and remove the grains. You will get two cups from halves of a beautiful fruit, which can be filled with grapes, currants, cherries or strawberries.

Remove the top half of the shell from the mangosteen by cutting the fruit in the middle and serve it without removing the bottom half. Rambutans can also be served with the bottom half of the peel, removing only the top part.

One of the most important conditions for carving is very high sharpness of the tools.

It is mandatory to check when purchasing a set of carving tools: a well-sharpened cutting tool, made of high-quality steel, smoothly cuts writing paper held in the hand suspended from the top edge to the end of the cut “like clockwork” - in one smooth rectilinear movement down without effort.

Therefore, when purchasing, do not forget to take a small piece of writing paper with you.

And remember - the maximum sharpness achieved depends only on the quality of the steel.

Carving- this is an elegant and bewitching spectacle that can be used in the menu of any restaurant, cafe at various events: banquets, buffets, weddings, anniversaries, parties, corporate events, children's parties and other festive events where you can pleasantly surprise your guests.

Simple home carving with step-by-step photos.

CHRYSANTHEMUM from Chinese cabbage

1. From a head of Chinese cabbage weighing from 300 to 700 g, remove loose leaves and trim top part head of cabbage, leaving about 12-15 cm.

2. We work with a carving groove knife of oval or triangular cross-section.

3. Let's make sections along the thick veins of the leaves different lengths, pointing the knife from the top cut of the leaf to the base of the cabbage. We make the beginning of the cut thinner. As we approach the stalk, we deepen the knife into the cabbage.

4. Without cutting 1.5-2 cm to the stalk, remove the cut large leaves. If the sheet holds tightly, use a small knife to make several cuts.

5. We cut the subsequent rows of leaves in the same way, shortening the length of the chrysanthemum petals towards the middle. If the edges of the petals are thin enough, then cold water they curl into rings or bend beautifully.

6. Put the "chrysanthemum" in ice water for half an hour. The product will take on an elegant shape. Let's cut a couple of green "leaves" from the cucumber and make a composition on a platter with salad or various cuts.

Cucumber LILY

1. Cut a piece of cucumber measuring 7-8 cm, trimming the tail. Let's make a leaf-shaped cut without cutting to the bottom edge of the workpiece.

2. Make other leaves, with a small distance between them, going around the workpiece in a circle.

3. Using a knife, make a cut in a circle 1-2 mm thick, creating a platform for cutting the next row. petals.

4. Using an oval knife, make the next row of petals in a checkerboard pattern relative to the previous row. Again we trim the area for the next level of petals. Make as many rows as the size of the workpiece allows.

5. Using a noisette or knife, scrape out the core of the cucumber, creating enough space to place the core in the center of the flower.

6. Cut the leaves with scissors and create a triangular shape at the ends. Dip the flower in ice water for a few minutes and it will open beautifully.

7. We will make a core of a suitable size from carrots, pumpkin or radishes. Decoratively decorate it with cuts.

8. Insert the core into the flower. Can be attached to a toothpick.
We put the lily on a branch with leaves or on a painted wooden kebab stick. The leaves for it can also be cut from a cucumber.

Carrot cone

1. Peel a dense carrot with a diameter of at least 3 cm, cut a straight piece 8-12 cm in size. Use a knife to make a square “tail” for the future cone. Next, let's give it an oval shape.

2. Having processed the workpiece in a circle with a knife, we will give the thick end of the cone a rounded shape and prepare a platform for cutting out the first row of scales.

3. Visually divide the thick end of the workpiece into 6 parts, cut out 6 petal scales in a circle. The depth of the cut is 2-3 mm.

4. Using a knife, make a conical cut (deepening the end of the knife by 2-3 mm) under the scales, creating a three-dimensional pattern of the first row, thereby creating a platform for the next row of scales.

5. In a checkerboard pattern relative to the previous row, cut out the next row. We cut the area again for the next row of scales. We make as many rows as the size of the workpiece allows.

6. Dip the cone into ice water for 10-15 minutes - it will open a little and harden.

CALL ALLAS from hot peppers

ADVICE. If pepper burns your hands after work, wash them thoroughly and wipe them with vegetable oil.

1. Take hot peppers chili red or green.

2. Cut along the length from the stalk to the tip.

3. Carefully trim the pulp around the stalk. The seeds should remain on the stalk.

4. Unwrap the pepper, rinse it in cold water and shape the piece into a calla flower.

5. Make a hole on the opening of the future flower and carefully insert the stalk with seeds into it.

6. Cut leaves from any green product (cucumber or other) and create a shaped composition.

1. Shape the carrots into a cylinder. Pierce along the center line with a thin wooden skewer.

2. Soak the vegetable in a salt solution for 2 hours (1 tablespoon of salt per glass of water). The product should be soft enough and not break when cut thinly.

3. Visually divide the vegetable into four sides. We make equal cuts on the top and bottom sides, cutting all the way to the skewer. The distance between the cuts is 0.5 cm. We will make cuts on both sides - between the cuts on the top and bottom sides.

4. Carefully cut the fruit in a circle with a long thin ribbon to the skewer. Cut off the skewer with the “stem” and straighten the net.

5. 6. We cut out several different colorful fish from a wide variety of products.

LILY from carrots

1. Shape the vegetable into a cone and pentagon, cutting with a long knife in a circle on five sides.

2. On each of the 5 cut sides, cut a petal.

3. Shape the petal using scissors.

4. Remove some of the pulp from under the petals of the first row (to make the cone thinner). We cut out five more petals, placing them in a checkerboard pattern relative to the petals of the first row. We do the third row in the same way.

5. Using a knife, shorten the remaining core and cut it into a cone

6. Split the core into stamens using a knife.

DAHLIA

1. Let’s make a slightly flattened round piece with a diameter of 5-6 cm from a homogeneous product.

2. Using a medium oval knife, cut out 7-9 petals, deepening the knife towards the core.

3. Trim the excess flesh under the petals of the first row, forming a platform for the next row.

4. Cut out the petals of the next row with knives different sizes similar to the first row. We place them between the petals of the previous row. Let's make it possible large quantity rows.

5. Cut to the end and shape the middle.

CHRYSANTHEMUM from onions
for decorating salads, meat, fish and vegetable dishes

1. To prepare chrysanthemum, take a small round onion.
You can take either white or red onion. The smaller the bulb, the more beautiful the flower turns out.
Try to choose a thin-walled bulb, then the petals will be thinner and open more beautifully.

2. Peel the onion and cut off the top and bottom about 0.5 cm.

3. Using a thin sharp knife, carefully cut almost in half, leaving about 0.5 cm short.
The incision is made from the top side - where the feather grows.

4. Then cut in half again in the same way.

5. Next, cut into as many pieces as possible. It is advisable to make as many cuts as possible.
If the cuts are not made deep enough, the flower will not bloom well, and if the cuts are made too deep, the flower will fall apart.

6. Place the onion in water room temperature- the water should cover the bulb completely.
After an hour and a half, the chrysanthemum should “bloom”. The time for chrysanthemums to “bloom” depends on the type of onion. Some varieties require 40 minutes, while others require a couple of hours.

7. To add brightness to the flower, dip the tips of the blossoming chrysanthemum in beetroot juice (rub the raw beets and squeeze through a cloth). Painting time - until the desired color is obtained. You can use any other food coloring - brightly colored juice (for example, cherry, blackcurrant), yellow saffron solution, Cahors or other red wine, pickled beet brine, etc.
You can paint the entire flower.

Orange colored "chrysanthemum" on a salad.

Onion flower

1. Peel the onion without cutting off the root seal, but only thoroughly clearing the roots.

2. Make 4-5 cuts (in this example we make 4 cuts) to a depth of 2-3 layers (in this example - 2 layers).

3. We bend the outer layers (petals), and remove the inner cut layers with a knife. We do all this with caution, because... the petals are very brittle.

4. We cut the layers of the onion again, shifting the cuts in a checkerboard pattern relative to the first petals. We leave the first cut layer, and remove the inner layers again.

5. Repeat these steps until we reach the middle of the onion.

7. Then place in a vinegar marinade of water, vinegar and sugar (vinegar and sugar to taste) for 10 minutes or more to obtain the desired taste.
If you want to get a colored flower, you need to add food coloring to the marinade (see previous recipe).

Remove the “flower” from the marinade, lightly shake off the liquid, arrange the petals beautifully and place on a plate.

Leek flower

1. Fold a wide leaf of leek in half lengthwise and make frequent cuts on the fold side, as shown in the photo.

2. Roll it up - this will be the core of the flower.

3. Make petals from the wide parts of the onion.

4. Secure the flower with toothpicks and place on a plate.

Leek bow

1. Peel young fresh leeks, cut off the white dense part about 20 cm. At the same distance from each other, cut the onion longitudinally with several slits to the full depth (to the center).

2. Bend back the “petals” of the first row and cut them approximately in the middle, giving them a triangular shape.

3. Fold the petals of the next row inward like a bow.

4. Continue folding the petals row by row. If the bow does not hold well, you can strengthen it with pieces of wooden toothpicks.

Festive “bouquet” of Chinese cabbage

1. Take a medium head of Chinese (Peking) cabbage.

2. Cut off the top loose part.

3. Traditionally, vegetable carving (carving) is performed using special knives of various shapes. For example, such chrysanthemums are cut with a carving knife in the shape of a groove. But you can use a simple tool at hand - a lid from an olive can, which needs to be bent in half to make an oval groove. The edges of the resulting groove are not too sharp, but you still need to be careful. You need to adapt to holding it as comfortably as possible without touching the edges.

4. Take the groove in the indicated manner and cut long grooves along the hard part of the head of cabbage. At first, the groove should not go very deep. Closer to the base, you need to direct it deeper inside.

5. Before reaching about 2 cm from the end of the sheet, you need to stop. Take out the groove and cut out the petal next to it. First, 3-5 petals are placed on one sheet.

From this article you will learn what carving is and how you can create real works of art from products. In essence, this is artistic cutting of products; in addition to the already familiar fruits and vegetables, the list of products for cutting also includes cheese and chocolate. You can also cut on many other materials, not just food. But in this case, we will look specifically at the products. Below are several examples of carving from vegetables and fruits, a photo selection of finished models not only from the “gifts of nature,” but also from chocolate and cheese.

Carving photo

In addition to products, a carving master also needs tools with which he creates his masterpieces. Here is an example of such a set.

Master class on making lilies from cucumbers

This master class for beginners will help you take your first steps in mastering this type of culinary art such as carving. To work, you will need cucumbers, as well as a special oval knife and a nauzette, as well as scissors and a regular sharp knife.

Take a cucumber and cut a 7-8 cm piece from it, cut off the tip. After this, use a special knife to make a leaf-shaped cut, but without cutting it all the way.

Continue making the remaining leaves close together, turning the cucumber in a circle.

Now take a sharp knife and cut off all the excess in a circle 1 - 2 mm thick.

Using an oval knife, make the second row of petals so that they are staggered with the first petals. Then again cut 1 - 2 mm in a circle to prepare the site. Do this as many times as the workpiece allows.

After all the petals are cut out, you need to carefully remove the middle with a knot or a regular knife.

For the core, cut a piece of suitable size, make decorative notches on it and insert it inside.

Also, do not forget that the lily petals need to be trimmed with scissors to give their tips the desired shape.

The core can also be attached using a toothpick and the entire flower attached to the stem, which can be made from any suitable material.

Carving lessons will help you master this art and teach you how to create not only compositions from fruits and vegetables, but also entire paintings, for example, like these:

It will be very easy to surprise your guests thanks to this art. After all, home carving is significantly different from professional carving, but this does not make it any less impressive. For example, you can decorate your holiday table with these cucumber leaves:

Or create these swans from apples:

And if you have seafood on your table, it would be nice to decorate it with apple crabs:

Carving is also useful for children’s parties, because it’s not very easy to present favorite dish in the form of funny figures - great idea! Children won't even notice it if it's a variety of pictures or animals made from fruits and vegetables.

For those who want to study this art in more detail, below there is a video that will help you succeed in this.

And here is a great video lesson on how to cut vegetables and fruits:

Famous tangerine men:

Carrot butterflies:

Pepper flowers:

And here interesting ideas for children's parties or just for every day:

And these masterpieces are created with the help of craftsmanship and chocolate:

If reading this article has inspired you to do more... professional education, then there are special courses. Their prices vary depending on the number of days of training and the type of course. Such lessons can cost starting from 10,000 rubles. and up to 30,000 rub. With these activities you can turn any lunch or dinner into a masterpiece, and your children's parties will be a blast! All that is required is patience and self-confidence! Good luck!