Cutting Hiccuma for Ginger Slaw

"Now also, I got jicama this way, too. Which can kind of be a pain to cut, because jicama is like this giant- I think it actually is the Mexican potato. But it's very, very large and it's kind of difficult to peel. I'm going to cut these a little bit smaller, just because they're a little bit fatter than the carrots. But basically, just they're pre-cut but I'm just going to make them a little bit slimmer. And you know, you could even grate these if you wanted to. If you wanted it more like coleslaw. But I think it's kind of nice having it like this. And the fact that it was already peeled and sliced for me is just going to make it that much quicker and it's going to make you probably more likely to make a healthy recipe, if a lot of the prep has been done for you. Jicama is very crunchy. It's sort of sweet. It's great with dips. Raw foodists have even used it to make French fries. I've seen recipes for that. It's very, very crunchy. Sort of looks like a turnip, but it's not bitter. It's actually quite sweet. So I'm going to take my jicama, and put it in the bowl. And the last ingredient is the red bell pepper. See isn't that pretty? Even serving it like this as a layered salad would be great. You could do that, and then stir it at the last minute before your guests. I wanted to show you, though, how to cut a red bell pepper. Or really how to cut anything round. After teaching at the Braille Institute to the blind, I realized safety is really important in the kitchen. Especially if you're blind. One thing you want to do is when you have a cutting board, you want to make sure you stabilize it. You can get this in most hardware stores. And what this does is when you put the cutting board on it, the cutting board doesn't move. Because you don't want to be cutting on a surface that's moving because you're more likely to cut yourself. If you can't find this material, wet a towel, a dish towel. Wring it out, put the cutting board on top of that. It also won't move. Any time you're cutting something round, be it an apple, a bell pepper, you want to make what's called a stabilizing cut. So what you want to do is you want to turn something round into something flat. So you want to make one cut. I'm cutting the top off. Now the round surface is a flat surface. Flat surfaces stay still. Round surfaces, when you're cutting them, roll. And that's how most accidents happen. You can always take this little piece off, because we can still use this. And if you don't use things in the actual recipe, save it for juicing or for salad or for soups."