TYPES OF KNIFE CUTS

The Parts of a Knife

In the very best knives, the tang will run the full length of the handle as pictured above. This lends balance and durability to the knife s construction. Another sign of quality is a bolster that is an integrated part of the blade, rather than a separate collar.

Types of Knives

All the knives in the photo above are che fs knives, and the top three are sometimes also referred to as French or cooks knives. Santoku knife has a dimpled blade, which allows food product to separate from the blade with ease, rather than sticking to it, as damp product is sometimes inclined to do.

E is a serrated slicing knife, very useful for cutting crusty breads without smashing the slices. F is a flexible boning knife designed to flex as it follows the contours of bones during meat fabrication (boning knives are also available with a rigid blade for heavy-duty jobs). G is a general use paring knife, and H and I are birds beak (or tourner) knives, useful for cutting curved surfaces or tourneeing vegetables.

Knife Grips and Fulcrum Placement The proper way to hold a chefs knife is to grasp the blade firmly between the pad of your thumb and the knuckle of your index finger just in front of the bolster, curling your remaining fingers around the bottom of the handle. If you hold your knife correctly, you will eventually develop a nice callous at the base of your index finger, near the palm. Resist the temptation to extend your index finger along the spine of your knife, because that method results in a lack of control of the angle you are working with.

How to use a Sharpening Steel Hold the sharpening steel vertically firmly in your hand. Hold the knife firmly by the handle. The tip of the blade should point upward. Move the blade from the bolster (or back wide part of knife) to the point. Hold the knife at an angle of about 20 degrees with a slight pressure over the steel. Move the arm but not the wrist. Hold the sharpening steel at arms length in front of you. The blade is drawn at an angle of approximately 20 degrees against the steel. The sharpening is done perfectly after 10 - 20 strokes of the knife over the steel. After using the steel for many strokes, test the sharpness of the knife with a piece of plain paper. The knife should easily cut thin ribbons.

How to Safely Wash a Chef's Knife

How To Secure Your Cutting Board To secure your station, simply wet a kitchen towel or side towel and wring out any excess water. Lay the towel on top of your counter top and place your cutting board squarely on top of the towel. This will keep your cutting board secure while doing your prep.

Guide Hand Always keep your thumb tucked behind the gently curled fingers of your guide hand . This will prevent countless injuries, and also facilitate the use of your knuckles to guide the edge of your knife to its proper position for the next cut:

How To Quickly And Efficiently Peel Vegetables First, make sure that you use a flat peeler, as shown below, not the traditional vertical peeler. A flat peeler will give you better hand position, which will allow for faster movements. Allow the tip of the vegetable to rest on your cutting board as you hold it at a slight angle with your guide hand. Using rapid and fluid mo vements, run your peeler from top to bottom, spinning the vegetable as you go.

Some Classic Knife Cuts Chopping: Slice or cut through the vegetables at nearly regular intervals until the cuts are relatively uniform. This need not be a perfectly neat cut, but all the pieces should be roughly the same size.

Mincing A mince is a tiny cut of vegetable, with no specific dimensions except that it should be quite small. To accomplish a quick mince, cut your product into manageably small slices or segments, then rock the edge of the knife back and forth over the cutting surface while pressing down on the spine of the knife with the palm of your guide hand. Arch your palm to keep fingertips out of the way of the blade.

Chiffonade A chiffonade is a fine slice or shred of leafy vegetables or herbs. To chiffonade, simply stack a few leaves, roll them into a cigar shape, and slice. Remember to remove any tough, woody stems that you want to exclude from your preparation.

Shredding When cutting tight heads of greens, such as Belgian endive and head cabbage, cut the head into halves, quarters, or smaller wedges and remove the core before cutting shreds with a chefs knife.

Paysanne & Fermire In order to feature paysanne or fermire cuts as an ingredient in a classical dish or for a more upscale setting, square off the vegetable first and make large batonnet, 3/4 in/20 mm thick. Cut the batonnet crosswise at 1/8-in/4-mm intervals. Paysanne 12x12x4mm Fermire 4-12mm Rondelle, Bias & Oblique A rondelle 4-12mm is a coin-shaped slice of a cylindrical vegetable. A diagonal (bias) can be formed by simply turning your knife at an angle to the axis of the carrot. Keep in mind that many cylindrical fruits, vegetables and breads can be cut into diagonal slices (squash, cucumber, baguettes) to produce this attractive shape. Oblique (roll cut), as it refers to a vegetable cut, reflects the fact that the cut sides are neither parallel nor perpendicular. The effect is achieved by rolling the vegetables after each cut. This cut is used for long, cylindrical vegetables such as parsnips, carrots, and celery.

Lozenge/Diamond The diamond, or lozenge, cut is similar to the paysanne and is most often used to prepare a vegetable garnish. Instead of cutting batonnet, thinly slice the vegetable, then cut into strips of the appropriate width. Trim and thinly slice the vegetable. Cut the slices into strips of the desired width. Make an initial bias cut to begin. This will leave some trim (reserve the trim for use in preparations that do notrequire a neat, decorative cut). Continue to make bias cuts, parallel to the first one. SLICING AND DICING

Cutting a flat surface for stability

Cutting the planks

Cutting logs for large dice

Dicing logs

SLICING Batonnet, Alumette/Julienne & Fine Julienne

DICING

Fine julienne cut into fine brunoise 2x2x2mm

Julienne cut into brunoise 3-4 x 3-4 x 3-4mm

Battonet cut into small dice

Dicing an Onion

Tourne