Kitchen twine, also known as butcher's twine, is a thick cotton
string often used for trussing or tying meat and other ingredients such
as stuffing together. The meat may be wrapped with cheese to form a roll, for
instance, or it may be sliced open and stuffed with a prepared filling. In order
to keep the entire preparation together during the cooking process, a chef will
often use lengths of kitchen twine to bind it. After the meat dish has finished
roasting or broiling, the kitchen twine is usually cut off with a knife or
kitchen shears before carving and serving.
The string used for kitchen twine is almost always made from
linen or cotton, never plastic or other synthetic material such as polyester or
nylon. Kitchen twine must be a non-toxic food grade material, since it will be
in such close contact with raw foods. Synthetic yarns and twines would either
melt under the heat or leech dangerous chemicals into the food. A thick natural
cotton twine is usually threaded onto a large spool and marketed in cooking
supply stores as kitchen twine.
There are several different ways kitchen twine is used to truss
meats. One of the easiest methods involves cutting several lengths of kitchen
twine off the spool and looping each one around the meat dish approximately one
inch apart. The individual loops can be tightened down with a simple half-loop
at the top, much like tying a shoelace, then locked off with a second loop or
square knot. The excess kitchen twine can then be trimmed off with a knife or
kitchen shears and the trussed meat dish can be put into the oven.
Tying cuts of meat and wrapping whole birds with twine helps
them keep their shape, which makes for tidier and more uniform cooking. Twine
can keep stuffing firmly inside roulades or the cavities of birds. And it can
fasten items that you want on the outside, such as herbs or slices of bacon—a
technique called barding that's kind of like wrapping a present without tape.
Herbed pork loin for example, is even better when it's barded with bacon.
Lengths of twine, spaced at even intervals, secure the bacon to the pork.
Although there are many knots to choose from, the square knot
is probably the 
most useful in the kitchen, by far. Just tie two overhand knots, left
over right, then right over left: The tidy results will look like two
interlocking loops
Another way to use kitchen twine is called a butcher's knot,
and is most likely the preferred method of professional chefs. The twine is
pulled off the spool and is threaded over one end of the meat dish. The cook
then forms a loop at the top by overlapping the first section of twine and then
starting a second loop a short distance away. The first loop can be cinched
tightly around the meat and the process continues until the entire meat dish has
been trussed. This method does require a learning curve, but the meat dish
should hold together well during the cooking process.
A final way kitchen twine can be used for trussing meat is a
bit more complicated. The cook can use special meat-trussing needles to pin both
sides of a split meat back together. These needles have open loops on one end,
and kitchen twine can be threaded through these loops much like laces on a pair
of shoes. Once all of the needles have been threaded, the tightened kitchen
twine should keep the trussing needles firmly in place while the meat dish
cooks. How easy is that?
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