Cutting a carrot into neat sticks. A cucumber for a snack board. Potato for frites. It may seem as if you are simply cutting an ingredient into long pieces, but in classic cuisine there is a name for that: batonnet.
Batonnet is one of the classic French cutting techniques. The name literally means something like “little stick”. And that is exactly what you make: even, straight sticks with a square cross-section.
The classic batonnet is about 6 × 6 millimetres thick and 5 to 6 centimetres long. That size is not an end in itself. The most important thing is that the pieces are as alike as possible. That way they cook more evenly and you get a calm, well-presented result. The exact dimensions can differ slightly between culinary schools or uses.
What is batonnet?
With batonnet you cut a firm vegetable or potato into straight sticks.
The classic shape has:
- a width of about 6 mm;
- a height of about 6 mm;
- a length of about 5–6 cm.
So the cross-section is square.
That last point is important. A long, flat strip is not a batonnet. Nor is a thick, irregular stick of vegetable.
In terms of size, batonnet sits between finer stick cuts and thicker bâton cuts. The technique is used for potatoes, carrot, celery, courgette and other firm vegetables, among other things.
Why do you cut so precisely?
You may think: do those few millimetres really make that much difference?
In cooking, they do.
A thin stick has a relatively large surface area compared with its volume and therefore cooks faster than a thick piece. When you mix different sizes, some pieces may already be soft while others are still firm.
By making the pieces about the same size, you get much more control over:
- cooking time;
- texture;
- colour;
- presentation;
- cooking in the pan or oven.
In an ordinary home kitchen, the exact size matters less than evenness.
Better all about 7 mm than one perfect 6 mm stick among ten other sizes.
That is an important lesson with almost all cutting techniques.
How to cut batonnet
The technique actually consists of a number of logical steps.
You don’t start straight away with long sticks. First you turn the ingredient into a regular block.
That may seem wasteful, but it is exactly what allows you to cut much more evenly afterwards.
Step 1 – Choose a firm ingredient
Batonnet works best with ingredients that are sufficiently firm.
Think of:
- potato;
- carrot;
- cucumber;
- courgette;
- celery;
- celeriac;
- radish or daikon;
- pepper.
Soft or very irregular products are harder to cut neatly.
Step 2 – Square off the ingredient
First cut off the ends if they are irregular.
Then make one or more flat sides.
With a round carrot, for example, this means cutting a thin slice from the side, so that the carrot no longer rolls away.
That is not only safer. It also makes the rest of the cutting much easier.
Step 3 – Make it into a rectangular block
Now comes an important part of the technique.
Cut away the round or irregular sides until you are left with a regular rectangular piece.
You don’t need to cut away an excessive amount. The aim is simply that you can work with flat sides.
You don’t need to throw the trimmings away automatically, by the way.
Use them, for example, for:
- soup;
- stock;
- sauce;
- a vegetable mix;
- another dish.
That way you combine a neat cutting technique with sensible use of ingredients.
Step 4 – Cut slices
Cut the rectangular block into slices about 6 mm thick.
Try to keep the slices as even as possible.
You don’t have a batonnet yet, but flat rectangular slices.
Step 5 – Stack the slices
Lay several slices neatly on top of each other.
Make sure the edges line up as far as possible.
The neater you stack, the easier it becomes to cut even sticks.
Step 6 – Cut the sticks
Now cut lengthways through the stack.
Again make cuts of about 6 mm.
The slices now turn into long, square sticks.
Those are your batonnets.
Then, if you like, trim them to the same length.
The secret is at the beginning
A common mistake is trying straight away to cut a carrot or potato into perfect sticks.
That usually doesn’t work.
A round or curved vegetable has no stable base. As a result, your cuts automatically become uneven.
That is why, with batonnet, the rule is:
First make it straight, then cut slices, then make sticks.
You come across this principle in many classic cutting techniques.
A regular starting block makes a regular end result possible.
Batonnet with a carrot
A carrot is a good exercise.
First cut off the ends and make the carrot as straight as possible. If you like, cut it into pieces of about 5–6 cm.
Then make a rectangular block from each piece.
Cut:
block → slices → sticks
Once you have done that a few times, you begin to see for yourself roughly how wide 6 mm is.
Using a ruler once to practise the technique is not strange at all. You mainly learn what the classic size looks like. After that you can increasingly work by eye.
What do you use batonnet for?
Batonnet is much more versatile than just a technique for potatoes.
Potatoes
The best-known use is of course frites.
But a small nuance is important here: not every frite you get in a restaurant or snack bar has exactly the classic batonnet size. There are different thicknesses and names for frites.
Batonnet is mainly interesting when you want to learn the classic cutting technique.
Vegetables as a side dish
Carrot, courgette, celery or pepper can be cut into batonnet and then:
- fried;
- roasted;
- steamed;
- blanched;
- stir-fried.
Because the pieces have the same shape, they cook more evenly.
Raw vegetables
Batonnet also works excellently for crudités.
Think of:
- carrot sticks;
- cucumber;
- celery;
- pepper.
Serve them, for example, with hummus, a yoghurt dip or another dipping sauce.
This is where the straight shape really comes into its own.
Stir-fries
The stick shape gives vegetables a larger surface area and makes them easy to mix through a stir-fry.
Carrot in batonnet also stays recognisable for longer and gives more bite than very finely cut carrot.
Batonnet and frites: the same?
Not quite.
That is an interesting nuance.
Batonnet is a classic cutting technique with a particular size. Frites are a preparation and product form in which different dimensions are used.
A classic batonnet can therefore be used as the basis for frites, but not every frite is automatically a batonnet.
For thick frites, for example, there are other classic sizes and names.
It is therefore better to say:
batonnet can be a frite shape, but batonnet does not simply mean “frite”.
Batonnet versus julienne
These two are often confused.
The difference is mainly in the thickness.
| Cutting technique | Shape | Classic size |
|---|---|---|
| Julienne | thin sticks | approx. 3 × 3 mm |
| Batonnet | thicker sticks | approx. 6 × 6 mm |
| Bâton | thick sticks | approx. 12 × 12 mm |
So julienne is about half as thick as batonnet.
A simple way to remember it:
Julienne = matchstick
Batonnet = small frite
Bâton = thick vegetable stick
The exact use can differ per recipe, but the relative proportions help enormously to keep the techniques apart.
Batonnet and brunoise
Here it gets even more interesting.
Batonnet can be used as an intermediate step towards a dice cut.
If you then cut the sticks across, small cubes result.
That makes it clear that classic cutting techniques aren’t all separate techniques. They are connected to each other.
You can see it as a kind of family system:
slice → stick → cube
For example:
6 mm slice → 6 mm batonnet → 6 mm cubes
The batonnet is thus an important intermediate step in classic cutting technique.
The most common mistakes
Your sticks are tapered
That happens when you don’t square off the ingredient first.
Solution: first make a rectangular block.
One is 4 mm and another 10 mm
That is mainly a matter of control.
Solution: first cut a few slices of the same thickness and use those as a reference.
Your sticks have different lengths
That too often comes from trying to cut a long ingredient in one go.
Solution: first divide the ingredient into pieces of about the same length.
Your stack shifts
When the slices shift while you are cutting, you get uneven sticks.
Solution: lay the slices neatly on top of each other and keep the stack steady with your claw technique.
You use too much force
A sharp knife should cut through the product without you having to push hard.
Solution: make sure you have a sharp knife and use controlled cutting movements.
A sharp knife is more important than speed
Batonnet is a technique in which control is more important than speed.
A sharp chef’s knife gives you much better control over the direction and thickness of your cuts.
Keep the fingers of your other hand curved and use your knuckles as a guide for the knife.
Start calmly.
Speed comes by itself later.
A common mistake when practising cutting techniques is trying to cut like a professional cook before you have mastered the movement.
You really don’t have to.
Slow and neat is exactly right at the beginning.
What do you do with the trimmings?
When squaring off a carrot, potato or courgette, you end up with pieces that are not the right shape.
That is a good moment to think about yield.
The pieces that you can’t use as batonnet are not automatically waste.
Depending on the product, you can use them in:
- soup;
- stock;
- purée;
- sauce;
- stir-fries;
- vegetable mixes.
That way you learn two things at the same time: cutting precisely and using your ingredients consciously.
Practising with one carrot
Want to learn batonnet?
Take a firm carrot.
First cut it into a few pieces.
Make one piece rectangular.
Cut slices from it.
Stack the slices.
Then cut the sticks.
Lay them next to each other.
You immediately see where it isn’t quite even yet.
That is exactly what makes it useful.
Then try again and see whether you can make the differences smaller.
You don’t need to produce perfect 6 × 6 mm sticks straight away. The aim of the exercise is to learn to see what cutting evenly means.
Batonnet at a glance
- Batonnet literally means roughly little stick.
- The classic size is about 6 × 6 mm.
- The length is about 5–6 cm.
- First make a stable rectangular block.
- Then cut slices.
- Stack the slices.
- Then cut them into sticks.
- Even pieces cook more evenly.
- Batonnet is thicker than julienne.
- The sticks can be used for vegetables, crudités, stir-fries and potato preparations.
- Use usable trimmings for other preparations.
Remember this
At first, batonnet seems mainly a way of cutting nice sticks. But the technique teaches you something much more important: how shape, size and cooking are connected.
A thin stick cooks differently from a thick piece. An evenly cut carrot behaves differently from a collection of random pieces.
That is why batonnet is ultimately not about hitting exactly 6 millimetres.
It is about control.
First you make the product stable. Then you work step by step towards the same shape and size.
And once you have mastered that, other cutting techniques become much more logical too.