IT IS far too easy to lob off the tip of a finger. Or slice into your hand. Without, that is, some basic knowledge of the right way to hold and move a knife.
If you’re getting into cooking — or are a natural in the kitchen — then I cannot stress enough how important it is to know basic knife skills.
(Trust me. I have the scar in between my thumb and finger to prove it. Plus the bill from the emergency room visit.)
We’re talking formal culinary education.
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With a few basic skills and practices, including knowing which knives you need at home and how to take care of them, your cooking game will be so much safer, plus you’ll be a better cook overall. To get the scoop on the most crucial knife skills, I turned to one of Brooklyn’s premier culinary institution, The Brooklyn Kitchen, which also houses a whole animal butchery called The Meat Hook. They offer knife skills classes on a regular basis, and if you are in the New York City area, I cannot urge you enough to take one.
But if you’re not, here are the most important takeaways from the class, which was taught by a very experienced cook named Ken Weinreich.
The Brooklyn Kitchen’s super knowledgable Ken Weinreich / photos by Rachel Signer
A Knife For Each Task
IT’S really important to use “specific tools for specific jobs,” Ken tells us — not only to get the job done in the best way possible, but also for safety. You really don’t want to try dicing with a bread knife.
If you want to just have one knife at home, you could pretty much do everything you want to with an all-purpose chef’s knife. Or, you could go for the Japanese version, called Santoku — which translates to “three virtues” or “three uses”.
From top to bottom: honer, chef’s knife, Santoku, paring knife, bread knife, deboning knife
What’s the difference, and how to decide which to get?
A “CHEF’S knife” is somewhat more versatile, thanks to the tip at the end, which allow you to do intricate work like making pretty spirals out of kohlrabi, or meat prep such as cutting off fat.
Unlike the French knife, the Santoku’s shape does not allow for rocking motion. Down one side it has grooves called “cullens”.
I personally like having a Santoku knife. It is generally better for vegetables — which is most of what I deal with, at home — and tends to be cheaper than a chef’s knife.
The “three uses” that a Santoku is best for are: slicing, dicing, and mincing. It is not a knife for intricate work.
Note: some Santoku knives are made of ceramic, which is awesome because they won’t ever rust — but they also break if you drop them.
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In addition to your one main knife, you should also get a bread knife. The serrated blade makes it ideal for pushing through something that’s hard or crusty on the outside, but soft inside. You can also use it for squash, or watermelon.
Also, a paring knife is ideal for small projects, like carving a radish. But, you can probably pass on this one if you’re sticking to the basics. Lastly, if you plan to debone fish or meat at home, you’ll want a curved boning knife. But again, this is also one you can skip if you just want to keep it simple.
Learn How To Grip A Knife Properly
CHANCES are, you’re holding that knife incorrectly. It’s time to learn the right way.
First of all, stand up, don’t sit while you’re cutting something. A low center of gravity will throw you off.
Now, pinch the blade with your index finger and thumb. The rest of your hand rests on the handle. Make sure your finger isn’t actually wrapping around the blade.
When you cut, have the knife pointed at the corner of your cutting board, so it’s at an angle. This will allow you to maintain proper form — your shoulders should be over your elbow. No elbow jutting out.
The Proper Way To Cut
IS NOT up-and-down. It’s Forward, Down, and Through – FDT. Say it three times fast, while doing the motion. Forward, down, through.
Getting the hang of FDT cutting takes a little practice — and you’ll want to do it in conjunction with another crucial skill, which is holding your non-cutting hand in the proper position. Which brings us to . . .
What To Do With The Hand That’s Not Holding The Knife
KEN LOVES to talk about the “claw,” which is the ideal position for your non-cutting hand to be in. Here is what it looks like:
Getting “the claw” into position . . .
The key is that your knuckles meet the blade of the knife. As long as your knuckles are touching it, the knife cannot cut your fingers — simple fact.
The claw, in action.
When you move the blade, while dicing, your non-cutting hand stays in the claw, and it just moves up and down, letting the blade push it over. It’s a complete game-changer to learn how to use the claw. I felt so much safer than I ever had before.
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Keep Your Knives Sharpened All The Time
A SHARP knife is a safe knife — because you won’t be trying to use it like a saw. You should get something called a “honer” that will keep your knives in top condition. Honing your knives every single time you use them is a pro tip that will extend their usability in the long run. If you don’t hone them frequently, you’ll have to take them into a kitchen supply store for professional sharpening.
Ken showed us the proper way to hone knives. You make an “X” with the honer and the knife, and then angle the knife and honer away from each other, just a half-inch or so, to create space between. Then, the honer stays still, and you move the knife upward, keeping it along the honer.
You’ll hear a nice “flick” as the knife slides off the tip of the honer. After a few of these, you can take a soft, clean rag, and wipe off your knife with the spine down (not touching the blade, in other words).
How To Dice Like A Pro
WE practiced dicing with a carrot, a green bell pepper, and an onion.
Dicing is a multi-step process. The goal is to wind up with pieces that are more or less uniform in size and shape. That way, they not only look nice in the final dish, but they also have roughly the same cooking time.
The first thing you want to do is cut the vegetables into “mangible” (edible) segments — fairly large pieces. For a carrot, that’s about two pieces.
From there, you’ll carve off the rounded edges of the carrot, and turn the mangible pieces into slabs, or “plateaux,” in kitchen-speak — pictured above.
Draw-through cutting, to make matchsticks
The next step is “batonnets,” sometimes called matchsticks. For this, you can use “draw through” cutting, as demonstrated above. Pinch the vegetable on both sides with your non-cutting hand, then draw the knife toward you, keeping it at an angle on your cutting board.
And finally, you dice, using that super-slick movement I mentioned earlier —your non-cutting hand in a claw, knuckles against the knife blade, and using the blade to move your hand to the side as you dice along.
Try just dicing with a few matchsticks at one time; it’s easier.
We also learned the best way to cut an onion — to get the best dice, and also to reduce the crying, by limiting the emission of onion juice as you chop.
Cut the top first, then place the cut side on the cutting board, so the onion rests flat. Placing your non-cutting hand on both sides of the onion, cut using a Forward Down Through motion through the root, splitting the onion in half — as shown above.
Then, cut into the onion lengthwise, to make slabs. And then plunge into the onion to make batons, as shown below.
You want to not cut all the way through the onion while doing this, so it stays together.
Once you’ve diced the first part, you can repeat the steps with the other sections of the onion. And that is how to dice like a pro!
What To Never, Never Do
FIRST of all, don’t ever try to cut something without a cutting board — that’s how I got my nice little incision in my left hand — an avocado was the culprit, and I thought I could just slice through it while holding it. Nope.
Up to you whether to get a plastic or wooden one; the plastic ones can go into the dishwasher to be sanitized, so that’s their main advantage.
Also, never put knives in the bottom of a sink full of dishes. Someone will slice his or her hand open.
And lastly, never put your knives in the dishwasher. They could come loose and fly around, and it will also damage the metal by causing rust to form.
Now that you’ve got a few knife skills down, you can take on recipes like coleslaw, which really do get much easier if you can wield your blade in a smart way. Try this summer vegetable version, which calls upon your new matchstick skills:
Asian-inspired coleslaw, via Tracy Benjamin on Flickr
Ingredients:
You can keep all the veggies raw, or blanch them by putting them in a strainer, pour and boiling water over them, for a softer texture. The cabbage is nice to blanche, but other things like the zucchini are nice raw — it’s up to you, though. These amounts will produce quite a lot of coleslaw, enough to bring to a potluck barbecue or a block party.
– 1/2 head cabbage (any kind), cut into matchsticks
– 1/2 zucchini, cut into matchsticks
– 2-3 carrots, cut into matchsticks
– 1 red or green pepper, cut into matchsticks
– cilantro, chopped roughly (optional)
Put together in a large bowl, sprinkle with some freshly ground sea salt, and toss.
For the sauce:
You can do a classic mayo / vinegar combo (via Tasting Table):
3 tbsp mayonnaise + 3 tbsp white vinegar + ½ tsp sugar + ½ tsp dry mustard + pinch celery seeds + pinch cayenne + 2 tsp salt + 3 tbsp chopped parsley = YUM
Or, try an Asian-inspired dressing, with vegetable oil, peanut butter, white vinegar, minced ginger and soy sauce.
Just whisk together the ingredients, and then pour over your veggies. Coleslaw is so versatile; make it your own, with whatever you have in your kitchen, and have fun with it. Enjoy alongside fried fish, grilled chicken, or a burger, with a rosé or chilled light red wine.