[?] Subscribe To This Site

Using a Kitchen Knife

Using a kitchen knife in the proper manner is important for several reasons. I highly recommend that you look into and learn the proper techniques, especially if you aspire to becoming a gourmet cook.

When preparing and cutting food, the first requirement is a super-sharp, high-quality knife. But this will do you little good if you don't know how to use it.

I'll give you three good reasons to acquire professional-level skills when using a kitchen knife:

Safety: If you don't know what you're doing, it's all too easy to slice off the end of a finger.

Expedience: The better you are with your knives, the less time you'll spend chopping, dicing and performing all the other cuts required of a gourmet cook.

Presentation: When it come to plating and garnishing your dishes, all the artistic skill in the world can't cover up sloppy, ugly knife work.

There are many techniques for properly using a kitchen knife. Food items are reduced in size and shaped by slicing, chopping, dicing, mincing and other special cutting techniques. Here's a quick look at the basics . . .

Purchase Wusthof 6-Piece Cook's Set, Get Mail in Bonus Coupon for a gift to store knives.

Slicing

To slice is to cut an item into broad, thin pieces. Slicing is used to create three specialty cuts: chiffonade, rondelle and diagonal. Slicing skills are also used to produce oblique or roll cuts and lozenges.

Chiffonade - to finely slice or shred leafy vegetables or herbs, using a kitchen knife.

Wash and destem the leaves. Stack leaves on top of each other and roll them tightly. Using a kitchen knife, make fine slices across the leaves while holding the roll tightly.

Rondelles or Rounds - Disk-shaped slices. Peel the item and make slices perpendicular to the item being cut.

Diagonals - Peel the item and position the knife at an angle and slice it evenly.

Oblique-cut or Roll-cut - Small pieces with two angle-cut sides.

Peel the item. Hold the knife at a 45 degree angle and make the first cut. Roll the item a half turn, keeping the knife at the same angle, and make another cut.

Lozenges - Diamond-shaped pieces, usually of firm vegetables.

Slice the item into long slices. Cut the slices into strips. Cut the strips at an angle to produce diamond shapes.

Horizontal slicing or Butterfly - To slice boneless meat, poultry or fish nearly in half lengthwise so that it spreads open like a book.

With hand opened, hold the item to be cut in the center of your palm. Using a kitchen knife, slice a pocket to the desired depth, or cut completely through.

Chopping

To chop using a kitchen knife is to cut an item into small pieces where size and shape do not matter.

Coarse Chopping

This procedure is identical to slicing but without concern for size and shape.

Chopping Parsley and Similar Foods Wash the parsley in water and drain. Grip the knife in one hand and hold the knife's tip with your palm with the other hand. Use a rocking motion up and down while moving the knife back and forth over the parsley.

Chopping Garlic

Break the head of garlic into individual cloves. With the flat side of the knife, crush the cloves. This will help you to remove the peel from the garlic flesh easily.

With a flat hand, hold the knife's tip and, using a rocking motion, chop the garlic cloves.

Garlic paste can be made by first chopping the garlic, add kosher salt, and then turning the knife and dragging the knife along the garlic.

Cutting Sticks and Dicing

To dice is to cut an item into cubes using a kitchen knife.

Before an item can be diced, it must be cut into sticks such as juliennes and batonnets. These sticks are then reduced through dicing into the classic cuts known as brunoise, small dice, medium dice, large dice and paysanne.

Julienne - a stick shaped item with dimensions of 1/8 inch x 1/8 inch x 2 inches. When used with potatoes, this cut is sometimes referred to as an allumette.

Fine Julienne - sticks with dimensions of 1/16 inch x 1/16 inch x 2 inches.

Batonnet - a stick shaped item with dimensions of 1/4 inch x 1/4 inch x 2 inches.

Brunoise - a cube-shaped item with dimensions fo 1/8 inch x 1/8 inch x 1/8 inch

Fine Brunoise - 1/16 inch cube.

Small Dice - A cube-shaped item with dimensions fo 1/4 inch x 1/4 inch x 1/4 inch.

Medium Dice - A cube-shaped item with dimensions of 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch.

Large Dice - A cube-shaped item with dimensions of 3/4 inch x 3/4 inch x 3/4 inch.

Paysanne - A flat, square, round or triangular item with dimensions of 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch x 1/8 inch.

Dicing an Onion

Using a paring knife, remove the stem end. Trim the root end but leave it nearly intact. This helps to prevent the onion from falling apart while dicing. Peel away the outer skin.

Using a kitchen knife, cut the onion in half through the stem and root. Place the cut side down on the cutting board.

Cut parallel slices vertically through the onion from the root toward the stem end without cutting completely through the root end.

Using a kitchen knife, make a single horizontal cut on a small onion or two horizontal cuts on a large onion through the width of the onion. Do not cut through the root end.

Turn the onion and cut slices perpendicular to the other slices to produce diced onion.

Mincing

To mince is to cut into very small pieces where shape does not matter.

Mincing Shallots

Peel and dice the shallots, following the procedure for peeling and dicing an onion. With a flat hand, hold the knife's tip. Use a rocking motion and mince the shallots with the heel of the knife.

Tourner

Tourner (toor-nay; "to turn" in French) is to cut into football-shaped pieces with seven equal sides and blunt ends.

Cut the item into 2 inch pieces. Each piece should have flat ends.

Holding the item between the thumb and forefinger, use a tourne knife or a paring knife to cut seven curved sides on the item, creating a flat-ended, football-shaped product.

Parisiennes

Parisienne - spheres of fruits or vegetables cut with a small melon ball cutter, rather than trying to do this using a kitchen knife.

Cut each scoop with a twisting motion.

Make the cuts close together to minimize trim loss.

Using A Mandoline

A mandoline is a cutting tool you can employ instead of using a kitchen knife. It can cut very thin slices or large quantities of julienned vegetables. This tool cuts very quickly, easily, and very accurately. It can also produce a ridged slice or gaufrette.

Gaufrette - a thin lattice or waffle-textured slice of vegetable cut on a mandoline.

To use, position the legs and set the blade to cut the desired thickness.

Slide the guard into place.

To slice, slide the item against the blade.

To cut gaufrette, select the rigid blade and set to desired thickness. Make the first slice, turn the item 60 to 90 degrees and make a second slice. Turn the item back to the original position and make another slice, and so on.

Knives are a chef's best friend, and like your human friends, if you fail to understand and respect their basic characteristics and preferences, they can quickly become your enemies. Please, don't let that happen to you.

I sincerely hope you will study and learn the various techniques for properly using a kitchen knife that I've demostrated above. I cannot overstate their importance.

Knife Skills
Knife Construction
Knife Shapes