Hi, Im Lori Carlson, Dietitian with Healthy Teaching Kitchens.
Even if youre used to wielding a knife from duties in service
feeling confident about using a chefs knife in the kitchen can take some practice.
Youll only need a few essential items to prepare and cook
delicious food and good knife skills is one of them.
Holding your chefs knife properly is key to using it effectively and safely
To get the proper grip, balance the handle in the palm of your
hand and wrap your lower three fingers around the handle
Then pinch the bolster of the knife with your thumb and with your index finger
Thats to ensure good control and to prevent slipping.
See if I move the handle up and down, it stays firmly in my hand,
where as if all of your fingers are wrapped only around the handle can easily move a
and slip up and down
So the proper grip, is just three fingers on the handle and then pinching the back of the blade.
Then most of the cutting will be done with the middle of the
blade using a rocking motion
and you may find that keeping the tip of the blade on
the cutting board will help aid in stability.
So lets practice on some herbs.
You see Ive already prepped my area with a clean cutting board,
a sharp knife
Ive washed my hands and Ive washed my produce
Adding fresh herbs to a dish instantly brightens up the flavor and attractiveness.
For leafy herbs like fresh basil, or sage, or mint
all you have to do is pluck off a few leaves and stack them up
and then roll them tightly
and then we can just cut across.
Now youll see that with my non-knife hand,
Im able to hold the food to prevent it from slipping
around and that my fingertips are curled under.
So Im kinda using like a claw grip to keep them
safely out of the way but Im still able to hold the food steady
Then we can just use that rocking motion that I mentioned to cut thin ribbons
And so, if you are reading a recipe, sometimes those ribbons
are called a chiffonade as well.
So when youre using your chefs knife properly,
it should just be a smooth rocking motion.
Youll notice the tip of the knife stays on the cutting board
and my fingers are just moving backwards with my non-knife hand.
So there shouldnt be a lot of banging around or noise
when youre using your chef knife properly.
It should just be that smooth action and the weight
of the knife should glide through the food that youre making.
So, lets move on to practicing with some parsley.
So these have been cut off the stems already
and they are a little bit less manageable,
but we can use that same technique of just rolling them up
in a tight bundle and cut across them as well.
So youll notice that rocking motion,
Im not having to pick up my knife and cut each time.
Just continue using that rocking motion
If youre needing a finer mince, you can take your non-knife hand
and rest it on top of the blade so its safely out of the way
and then just rock back and forth,
and that gives you that finer mince that you might be looking for.
When a recipe calls for an ingredient to be chopped,
it means that the ingredients should be chopped into little cubes
and all of those cubes should be about the same size
so that they all cook properly; they cook evenly.
So, we can practice chopping on an onion.
So again, using that claw grip,
well just cut the top off
and then that give us a nice flat portion
that we can rest on the cutting board to prevent it from
rolling away from us
Then well need to cut down the middle
and see how my hands are holding it
theyre forming an arch
the knife blade is able to go down with my fingers safely
out of the way but Im still having a secure grip on the onion
Then that allows us to peel the onion more easily.
Well pick up that knife using the grip that we talked about
and we need to slice down
making thin strips just with the tip of our knife.
Were essentially cutting “sticks.”
And you be careful not to cut through the back
of the onion because thats whats holding all of the rings together
So once we have our sticks
then we can cut across
and then we have our rough chopped all of those little cubes.
So there you have our prepared aromatics of
herbs and onions ready to go for your next recipe.
Having good knife skills and practicing them
in the kitchen can improve your overall experience
cooking and preparing delicious foods for your family
I hope you have fun practicing.
Thanks for joining me.