Tournee

It's a 7 sided football shaped figure usually carved from a hard product like a potato or carrot. I am in cooking school and just learning about this myself. We haven't learned the purpose of this cut except I guess it looks nice and provides uniform shape to otherwise odd-shaped veggies.
You would think it would be easy to find an explanation of this and perhaps some pictures but I am searching and all I find is odd things in foreign languages.
Let me post this and dig and see what I can find.

 

Here's my favorite French web site. The pics are self explanatory.
Tourner

 

I also agree that in pracitce in a kitchen (outside school) the exactness in uniformatty is less important. In fact one side being slightly flatter will keep it from rolling around. My major question about the cut and its function is........If you want the entire veg cooked "perfectly even" then a football shape is a poor choice. Thin-thick-thin. French guys know everything though about cooking (LOL.. dont flame me... I say that in fun).

 

AWESOME pictures. Maybe if I had actually clicked on some of those French sites I found in searches, I would have found pics too. But I didn't.
Yeah its not something you want to try the first time you pick up a knife lol. And those were just my guesses at the purpose of that kind of cut.

 

Au contraire! The sooner you sart, the sooner you will master the technique. My advice is to start on softer vegetables (cucumbers etc). You will be less likely to cut yourself.

 

Good point, Anneke. Unfortunately they started us right off with the potatoes and carrots. And they made us do 7 sides, too.
I talked to my friend who is a cook/caterer but never went to school and he says, What the &!%$ is a tournee and why on earth would you want to do that?
Edit: Addressed Kuan instead of Anneke

 

The term means to shape usually vegetables (i.e. including potatoes).
Most catering students are taught to shape potatoes into barrel shapes for Pommes, Noisette, Fondants... also there's the well known Turned Mushroom - which is often confused with the Groved mushroom - now a somewhat obscure preparation. Turning does not automatically mean barrel shape however when dealing with solid vegetables. Many years ago when i was working at Claridges the Maitre Chef showed me how to turn Sweed sections into Bean shapes.

I ramble on. It means to shape but hopefully find something useful to use up the trimmings - soup...

I much prefer the Book 'Cutting it Fine' - sorry haven't got the author reference top hand. The book you mentioned has a riduculous picture on the cover. Have they got metal apron strings?

Best wishes

Jerry

 

I've been doing tournee cuts since high school just to say plainly i hate them but they're not as hard to do. I'm fearing on doing it on a mushroom in a couple weeks in my class. i really hope it's not as hard as i think cause mushrooms you can easily screw up on am i right? if you use a tournee knife and not just a pairing knife it'll cut down on the risk of cutting yourself. just to put that out there.

 

Wow, you dug up one OLD thread there!

Mushrooms are in an entirely different league...you're not really doing the 7-side thing anymore - there are a few videos on YouTube, or from the same French side that was previously linked:

Les champignons tournés pour le décor

 

i LIKE MUSHROOM POTATOES. THAT IS CUTTING RED BLISS POTATOES SO THEY LOOK LIKE A MUSHROOM.