and in this episode we're cutting some stuff and welcome back to moore approved
I'm James and today I'm going to be showing you some practical knife cutting
skills and applications that you can use at home so the first thing on our
chopping block so to speak is garlic now there's nothing better than fresh garlic
in the dish to get that skin off and make your job of mincing it easier just
take a clove of garlic give it a nice firm tap on there and then cut off the
base and if you give it a little trim on the top you can actually get that skin
to pull right off which makes it really quick and easy finish cutting it right
down the center it should split in half depending on the size and then take your
fingers like this and you're going to want to put your blade up and down
you're going to use your fingers as a guide for what you're doing so just go
ahead and mince it up and as you can see that's a pretty nice mince on the garlic
and for my purposes that's good enough for me now the next thing on the list is
onions I've seen people cut onions a whole bunch of different ways the way
that works for me is just take your onion split it right in half
so this is where your sprouts comes out of the onion and then makes a nice stalk
or whatever that comes out of the ground I don't know what it's called and then this is the
root side of it so if you're going to mince onion you want to take and just
barely cut off that root section then just trim off the other side throw that
in your trash can and peel off that first layer sometimes you have to do two
layers but usually one layer is good enough you just have to see if it's
fibrous or not underneath it this one looks pretty good so there's a lot of
different ways that I've seen people cut onions with most ways they say Oh take
and run your knife back just right you don't really need to do that because if
you see the way that this onion is built it has a whole bunch of natural layers
through it and I don't find that to be necessary for most of my applications
then you just want to take your knife bring it in and get as close to that
root as possible without going all the way through now turn your onion and then
just do a rocking motion and go all the way through now you want to use your
hand be very careful you want to use your hand to hold in these edge pieces
but as you can see I did not go the center of that onion and it's all
diced up pretty nicely just go ahead now when you get to this base end piece
because we haven't cut all the way through it just come through from top to
bottom slice across and then slice across the opposite direction and you're
finished with that now if you want a julienne an onion go through cut the top
off and cut more of the root section off because you don't want that onion to
hold together peel off your skin and then you're just basically going to hold
the onion like thus and then make progressive cuts all the way through so
go ahead start but when you get slightly past the halfway mark go ahead and set
your onion down and start again from that end but that is an easy quick way
to do a julienne onion or just a thin slice onion next on the list is a
potato in most people when they cut potatoes they have them just like this
or they hold them in their hand with a paring knife I prefer to use a cutting
board and you'll see most people just do this which is fine so if you feel
comfortable doing that you can go ahead and chop all the way through now I find
for control if you're just starting out you always want a flat section to work
on so go ahead and cut your potato in half and this will give you the ability
to have way more control over it it's not going to be wobbling all over the
place so it reduces the risk of you getting cut so again take your hands
arrange them on top and then just start pushing your knife through the potato
and for a basic chef's knife a traditional chef's knife a French chef's
knife you're going to want to take and rock your blade through so you're going
to want to go from tip to base tip to base tip to base and if you're
completely vertical and horizontal as you're cutting things so imagine that in
3d space you will have perfectly even cuts all the way across and all the way
through so go ahead and move that out of the way so I'm just going to cut this
potato up really quick and then I'm going to show
how to make your own french fries out of this other potato now if you ever want
to make your own french fries at home or like corned beef hash or something
along those lines you're going to want to take and start by giving yourself a
flat edge of your potato so as you look at this potato it's a little bit oblong
this way so I'm going to make a flat end on this side you can take if you want to
or unless you want to have a stealth cut fry just cut off the top and cut off
the bottom and you want to make sure it's perpendicular to either side as
close as possible it doesn't have to be perfect then take your potato and you're
going to want to take and cut off one end and then just go through until you
get to the other side you can do a couple layers at a time but be careful
there's a lot of starch and moisture in potatoes so they do get slippery so just
be aware of that as you're cutting they may move around a little bit on you
which is also going to affect your outcome so I usually use my thumb to
support the backside of the potato and then I use my other fingers to sort of hold
everything in place and you can do as many layers as you want at a particular
time as many as you feel comfortable with if you're not feeling comfortable
with it don't do it or just do one layer it's pretty decent now let's see it's
been a long time since I was in culinary school let's see how these turned out
and the last thing on our list are going to be some mushrooms now mushrooms are
fairly easy you just want to sort of lay them down flat if you feel more
comfortable you can give yourself a flat edge to work with which that still slice
is no big deal and then just take and rock your knife right through do the
same thing repeat and be aware that as you're chopping that away you're going
to lose the base that you're working on so this is going to move
underneath your hands as you're cutting but I always encourage using flat spaces as
you're cutting things because if it goes to move and you do something you're
going to hurt yourself and that wraps up this episode of moore approved I hope you
found this helpful if you did give me a thumbs up it's not
give me a thumbs down if you have any questions leave comments down below
whenever you can always cut the flat surface so take one edge slice it
and then work from that flat surface and you will be safer overall so thanks for
watching moore approved I'm James til next time see you then