Knife skills

After years of saying I wanted to, I finally took a knife skills course. In the last few years I have become obsessed with the Food Network and have been trying out new recipes. To go along with my recently acquired confidence in my cooking ability, I felt I needed some confidence with the knives I used. Lesson number one that I learned last night...I totally have crappy knives. Not cutting yourself in the kitchen, I have learned, is totally dependent on good knives that are sharpened properly…and properly used. Here are some of the pointers I took away from last night:

1.    Sharpen your knives once a year and always sharpen them in the same direction every time.

2.    Always store your knives in a block or in a drawer with a special cutlery insert. Storing them loose in a drawer with other utensils will dull them.

3.    Never wash your knives in a dishwasher. (I’m TOTALLY guilty of this one.)

4.    For someone like me who’s just an average (read: NOT chef) cook, you really only need a chef’s, utility, bread, and boning knife as well as a slicer.

a.    The chef’s knife is the workhorse and is designed for chopping, mincing, dicing and julienning fresh fruits and vegetables.

b.    The paring knife is ideal for preliminary cuts, peeling, trimming or squaring off small fruits or vegetables

c.    A utility knife is handy for peeling and slicing as well as carving small cuts of meat

d.    The bread knife is great for crusty loaves and food with a hard exterior and soft interior like tomatoes and citrus fruits (I totally had no clue about this)

e.    Also important are a slicer which allows you to produce thin, uniform slices when carving roasted meats and poultry and a boning knife good for precision control when you remove meat and poultry from the bone.

Don’t ask me to give any demonstrations on uses of these knives, in the demo part of the class I found myself going back to my usual (read: wrong) ways of cutting. It will take time and practice the teacher said. The biggest thing I need to learn is how to hold the knife and how to use “the claw” which is the grip you see the chef’s on TV use when cutting and chopping. Guess this means I just have to cook more to put in the practice. Just one more step toward me gaining ultimate kitchen confidence!