Knife Skills - How to use your kitchen knife!

by Chef Maryam Ghargharechi January 29, 2018

Learn to Use Your Chef's Knife Like a Pro

Culinary knife skill techniques are one of the first things you need to master to work in a professional kitchen or just take your cooking to the next level. A large part of a commercial kitchen's operation revolves around their daily prep; there is no quality prep without efficient and accurate knife skills.

Learning how to cut properly can make the difference between seeing kitchen work as a chore and a joy. It can mean the difference between unevenly cooked dishes and poor flavor development, and excellence.

Correct knife positioning and cutting are some of the first precision skills learned in professional culinary school. They are the backbone of an impeccable dish, giving optimum flavor and aesthetics. The right hold results in the right cut which in turn, ensures evenly cooked ingredients that enhance the dish’s overall flavor profile. Cooking without mastering these basic strokes is like trying to run without knowing how to tie your shoes.

How to hold a knife

The cutting hand, which grips the knife, has the star turn, but the other hand is an important supporting player. That helping handholds, nudges and stabilizes the ingredient being cut, to maximize safety and efficiency.

THE GRIP

For the knife grip used by most chefs, the palm of the hand chokes up on the handle, while the thumb and index finger grip the top of the blade. This is different from how many home cooks hold a knife, by wrapping the entire hand around the handle. The chef’s grip has evolved that way for a reason: it’s the most efficient way to use the weight of the knife, the sharpness of its blade, and the strength of your arms, which makes for the easiest cutting.

THE HELPING HAND

The ideal position for the helping hand is called the bear claw, with the fingertips curled under and knuckles pressing down on the ingredient to keep it from rolling or sliding. It may feel odd, but it’s the safest place for your fingertips to be in relation to the cutting blade. Alternatively, bunch your fingertips together and rest the pads on top of the ingredient.

In a perfect world, while the hand that is holding the knife moves forward and back to cut, the helping hand moves across in even increments, creating perfect slices. (Do not despair; this takes practice and is hardly a requirement for home cooks.)

TIPS FOR YOUR GRIP

Overall, the best way to handle a knife is the way that feels safest to you. Here are a few principles to live by:

• The knife handle shouldn’t be held in a death grip: try to relax hands and wrists and let the blade do the cutting.

• Position all 10 fingers so it’s virtually impossible for the blade to cut them.

• The hand holding the knife should be gripping the blade as well as the handle.

• The knife moves in a rocking motion, from front to back, as well as up and down.

• The knife should be at the same height or just below your elbows, so that the whole upper body, not just the hands, can put downward pressure on the knife.

These are the five strokes everybody should know.

1- Chop

It’s no wonder some people hate cooking: if a basic task like chopping carrots takes forever, making an entire dish is drudgery. That’s why becoming efficient with a knife is so helpful. And in that effort, chopping is your greatest ally. Unlike professional chefs, who routinely dice their ingredients into measured cubes, home cooks can usually keep it rough, as long as all the pieces end up about the same size.

CHOP GARLIC

To chop a garlic clove, place your unpeeled clove on a chopping board, and place the blade of your chef’s knife flat against its side, parallel to your chopping surface. With a swift motion, and taking care to avoid the edge of the blade, strike the knife blade to smash the clove. Remove the skin, and repeat the process with each clove you need for your recipe. Cut off the root ends and discard. Then, take a clove and hold it firmly on the cutting board. Slice thickly from the root end to the tip. To chop, pile up the pieces of garlic, hold together and chop them.

CHOP PARSLEY

Use a chef’s knife to chop leafy herbs like parsley. Start with clean, dry herbs with stems intact. Hold them in a bunch over your cutting surface, and run your knife through them at a 45-degree angle, trimming off the leaves into a pile. (Discard the stems.) Grab all the leaves into your palm, and using the “claw” grip, push them under your knife, using a rocking motion to chop them. Then, gather all the chopped herbs up, turn the pile 90 degrees, and chop them again for a rough chop. For a medium chop, repeat the process twice more. And for mincing, repeat it three to four times more.

CHOP A CARROT

To chop a carrot, start with clean, peeled vegetables. Use a chef’s knife to chop each carrot crosswise into pieces of equal length, and then cut through those pieces lengthwise. Place the pieces cut-side down on the board, and slice across into half moons. For a rough chop, cut the half-moon pieces across, into roughly equal quarter moons. For a medium chop, pile up those smaller half-moon pieces and, using the “claw” grip, push them toward the knife, chopping with a rocking motion. Then repeat. For a fine chop, repeat the process twice more.

2- Dice

More exact than chopping, dicing is the process by which vegetables and fruits, in all of their irregular and lumpy glory, are turned into small, neat cubes that cook uniformly. Whether chefs are prepping a giant potato or a baby carrot, they reduce the curves and bumps to cubic shapes. When that cube is cut along horizontal and vertical lines, neat dice are the result. We’ll show you how to take fruits and vegetables from a large dice, about 3/4 inch, to a brunoise, a 1/8-inch cube and the smallest dice of all.

DICE AN ONION

To dice an onion, use a chef’s knife to cut the onion in half from the stem tip to the bottom root. Peel, leaving the root intact. Place the half flat-side down on a cutting board and rest your fingertips or palm on top. With the other hand, make horizontal slices from the stem toward the root end, about ¼ inch thick, taking care to stop about half an inch before slicing through the root. Then grip the onion with your helping hand, curling your fingertips under so your hand resembles a claw; this helps protect your knuckles and fingertips. Use your cutting hand to make ¼-inch downward slices, starting from the stem and moving toward the root. Slide your “claw” back toward the stem as you move the knife with the other hand.

DICE A TOMATO

To dice a tomato, first cut it in equal quarters using a sharp chef’s knife. Pick up a quarter in both hands and gently flatten it by pressing your thumbs against the skin side. This will loosen the flesh on the cut side. Place each quarter skin-side down on your cutting surface, and gently trim the seeds out, leaving the flesh intact. Flip the quarter over and cut the tomato in equal-sized strips from top to bottom, then turn the strips 90 degrees and cut them into equal-size cubes. (This process remains the same regardless of the size dice you are seeking.)

DICE A POTATO

To dice a potato, start with a clean, peeled tuber. Using your chef’s knife , trim the rounded edges off the potato, leaving a six-sided rectangle. For a large dice, cut the potato lengthwise in equal parts, and then flip the pieces over on their sides. Cut each piece across into equal sizes. For a medium dice, cut your rectangle into three pieces lengthwise, and then cut each piece in half lengthwise. Then, cut those pieces across into equal-sized dice. For a small dice, repeat that process, but make smaller cuts.

3- Mince

Another common cut is mincing. The most common thing you're going to mince is garlic. To do so, remove the root end. Then, place the garlic under the knife blade and smash down on it. That will make it easy to peel the papery skin off.

Chop the garlic up until it's very tiny. The finer the mince, the more flavorful your dish is going to be.

The word mince means a very small dice.

4- Slice & Cut

When cutting ingredients into larger pieces – like a round slice of tomato, lemon or cucumber, or a wedge of apple – the choice of the knife and how it moves most often depend on the texture of the ingredient. Although a super-sharp chef’s knife can be used to slice a tomato or lemon in quick downward strokes, many home cooks will prefer the controlled back-and-forth sawing the motion of a serrated knife. Either way, the goal is to have smooth slices of even thickness.

SLICE A TOMATO

To slice a tomato, you’ll need a utility knife (for coring) and a serrated knife. Holding the tomato core-side up, take your utility knife and cut around the core, into the tomato, at an angle. Remove the core, and lay the tomato on its side. Starting from the core end, cut equal-size slices with a serrated knife, using a gentle back-and-forth motion. When the tomato becomes too small to grip, place the remained, flesh side down, on your cutting surface and slice horizontally.

SLICE AN APPLE

A wedge cut is superbly useful for filling a pie or cobbler with fruit. To slice an apple into wedges, first turn the whole fruit upside down, resting it on the stem end. Using a chef’s knife or utility knife, cut straight down from the bottom end through to your cutting surface, creating two halves. Place a half, flesh side down, on the cutting board and cut it in half vertically. Then cut each quarter in another half vertically. You should finish with eight wedges. Take each wedge and cut off the slender edge; that will take away the seeds and any tougher parts of the core.

ROLL CUT A CARROT

“Oblique” or roll cuts are extremely useful for preparing large, rustic vegetable chunks for roasting or to simmer in a stew. The method shown here is called roll cutting because the vegetable is continuously rolled on the cutting board while the knife keeps making the same cut.

To roll cut, hold a peeled carrot (or a banana, parsnip or other long round vegetables) firmly on your cutting surface. Using your chef’s knife, cut the tip of the carrot diagonally. Then roll the carrot 90 degrees and cut down again at the same angle about an inch from the previous cut. Repeat until the carrot is cut into irregular wedges.

5- Chiffonade & Julienne

Home cooks are most likely to use these long, slim cuts for ingredients that are going into stir-fries and salads, for tough greens destined for the cooking pot, or to make fluffy garnishes from soft herbs and scallions. They’re also useful for making raw vegetable platters look their most elegant.

CHIFFONADE BASIL

Slicing basil or any leafy green into a chiffonade gives you long uniform strands, perfect for mixing into a stir-fry or a salad.

To chiffonade basil, pick the cleaned leaves from the stem, and stack the leaves lengthwise together. Then, roll the leaves fairly tightly together into a sort of basil cigar. Using your chef’s knife, cut across the roll to make slices about 1/4 inch thick. Keep the tip of your knife on the cutting surface and move the base of the blade in a rocking motion as you cut; this will provide stability and help the cutting go faster.

JULIENNE CELERY

To julienne celery, place your celery stalk on a cutting surface and trim the tough end and the leaves. Cut crosswise into pieces about two inches long. Place one piece, curved side up, on your cutting surface. Using a rocking motion with your chef’s knife, slice the piece from top to bottom into slender lengths. When the remaining piece gets too small to hold safely, turn it on its side and slice more.

Which kind of knives do you have? How is your experience with the knives? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section.