Why Giada De Laurentiis Uses Scissors To Cut Tomatoes For Sauce
If a recipe calls for tomatoes — whether sliced, diced, or chopped — typically it's assumed that it's done with a knife. Culinary pros often recommend using a serrated knife for the job if you don't have an actual tomato knife (which is also perfect for cutting cake), but when it comes to tomato sauce, Giada De Laurentiis always opts for scissors instead. From minestrone to shrimp fra diavolo, pretty much any dish you see on her blog that calls for canned tomatoes specifies that the ingredient be "diced with scissors."
Kitchen shears aren't exactly an uncommon culinary tool. However, they're usually reserved for tasks like trimming fat or skin from meat or cutting herbs for a garnish. So why does De Laurentiis use them on canned tomatoes, an ingredient that can even be crushed with a spoon? The celebrity chef's explanation is simple: As she shared in a post on Giadzy, it was something she always saw her mom doing, and therefore, she learned to do it, too. "Don't knock me, it's tradition," she once said while cooking a weeknight pasta Bolognese in a video on Facebook.
Why you should consider using scissors to cut canned tomatoes
Using scissors to cut food is both a De Laurentiis family tradition as well as Italian culinary tradition. In Italy, many pizzerias actually use scissors to cut their pizzas rather than the round pizza cutters most people are used to seeing. Using scissors to cut tomatoes, as Giada De Laurentiis learned from her mother, is also a customary practice there, as is using them to cut fresh herbs and peppers.
The reason scissors are often favored over knives in Italy is that it ends up being faster and easier. Instead of dirtying a cutting board, you can simply cut the tomatoes directly into the pot or in the can they came in. Using scissors also has the benefit of keeping all the juices from the tomatoes contained. You tend to lose a lot of these juices when you use a cutting board and knife because they tend to run all over the board.
Giada De Laurentiis' favorite kitchen scissors
In the Facebook video, Giada De Laurentiis uses a pair of red scissors, and according to her post on Giadzy, these are the all purpose scissors from chef Joyce Chen's cookware line, which you can easily find online. Aside from cutting canned tomatoes, she also uses these scissors to cut cured meats, vegetables, and even pie crust, so it makes sense that she'd opt for something more versatile. De Laurentiis also recommends OXO, J.A. Henckels, and Shun brand kitchen shears.
If you don't have a dedicated pair of kitchen shears, you might be tempted to reach for the craft scissors you already have, but it's probably best to actually buy ones meant for food. De Laurentiis's favorite scissors are stainless steel, but not all stainless steel is food grade. Kitchen shears are also sturdier and sharper because they're designed to handle tasks like spatchcocking chicken, so they're definitely worth having on hand, especially if you want to follow all of De Laurentiis' recipes to a T.