Have you ever been dazzled by TV chefs who wield knives like magicians or maybe you just want to speed up your own food prep and keep all your fingers in the process?
The good news is you only need a few basic knife skills to slice and dice like a professional chef. So what these cutting skills are? We’re going to introduce it with some useful example videos to let you figure out how to master these skills.
We’ll demonstrate it with Chinese-style kitchen knives, the cutting skills are the same between Chinese-style knives and Japanese-style. the only difference is the way you grip your knife. if you’d like to know the way grip your chef knife, you can refer to this article: the basic knife skills and cutting techniques you should know.
I remembered a famous sentence "In order to cut, the blade must be moved through the material", it’s this movement through the materials which can be achieved in a variety of cutting motions depending on the type of knife and the ingredient being sliced.
Here we go, let’s tell you the 10 professional knife skills and what situations can use it.
1. HORIZONTAL CUT
How to work: Press the raw material with your left hand, hold kitchen knife with your right hand, Keep the knife blade and the raw material be vertically, and moves up and down the blade vertically, at the same time ,The force of the knife is at the front end of the knife.
What it used for: This method is suitable for cutting potato Julienne, cucumber Julienne and other vegetable raw materials.
2. PUSH SLICE
How to work: Press the raw material with the left hand.，keep the knife and the raw material be vertical. After the knife pattern enters the raw material a little, immediately push the knife forward to cut the raw material.
Another knife method similar to this is the push-pull knife cut. This knife method requires more practice on the basis of the original knife method to master.
What it used for: Push slice method is suitable for soft raw materials, such as meat, pickled mustard etc.
3. PULL SLICE
How to work: The blade remains parallel to the cutting surface, First, push forward virtually and then pull the knife back quickly to cut the raw material. Why do you want to push it forward virtually? Because the meat raw material is relatively soft, the raw material will be squeezed and deformed when cutting with the HORIZONTAL CUT.pull slice method just solves this problem.
What it used for: Suitable for pork julienne or other julienne.
4. ROCK CHOP
How to work: Used for cutting cooked eggs, duck eggs, duck heads, crabs and other raw materials. Use duck heads to demonstrate that the surface of these materials is uneven. If you chop them directly, they will be uneven in size and fragile. You can easily cut the duck heads from the middle then press it with a little pressure, Evenly, when you cut , you must pay attention to the clamping of the knife and the material, and press the knife hard to cut the material
What it used for: It’s used for uneven surface foods like cooked eggs, duck eggs, duck heads, crabs etc.
5. ROCKING CHOP
How to work: his knife method is mainly to prevent the raw material from splashing out, and can cut the raw material quickly and easily.it ensures the rounded tip of the blade remains in contact with the chopping board .
What it used for: Suitable for crushing peanuts, sesame seeds, salted egg yolks, etc.
6. PAT CHOP
How to work: it’s Similar to rock chop
What it used for: it can be used to cut chicken, chicken steak, meat steak etc.
7. ROLL CUT
How to work: Roll the ingredients while cutting which is a easy way to learn.
What it used for: when you want irregular shaped ingredients to decorate your plate, you can try this way.
8. CHOP
How to work: cut foods straight forcedly with chef knives
What it used for: The method is used to chop ribs, bones and chicken nuggets
Please do not directly use your chef's knife, especially a good-quality Damascus chef's knife to chop hard things, which will cause great damage to the knife. You need to use a special chopper knife to do it, pay attention to chop forcefully, accurately and quickly, so that the raw materials keep more complete and less bone residue.
9. FILLET CUT
How to work: Use the middle of the knife to fillet foods, for example ,if you cut fresh meat directly, the thickness of the sliced meat will not be even,so ,you need to fillet it, thus the sliced meat will be evenly thin and it will look more beautiful.
What it used for: The fillet cut method can be used for slice potato, fish, meat, beef etc.
10. REVERSE CUT
How to work: The blade is inclined to cut off the raw materials, and the shape is similar to a diamond.
What it used for: For cutting celery and horseshoe spring onions etc.
And don't forget, "Practice makes perfect", after know these knife skills, the only thing you should do is to practice, practice, practice.
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