Do you know what’s the first-class any culinary student takes in the training institution?
Do you know what’s the very first job any starting cook has in the kitchen?
Do you know what’s the first thing a cooking beginner should know?
Yes, that’s knife skills and cut techniques.
You must know how to control the tools in your hand to get things done in your expectations. Cutting without mastering these basic knife skills is like trying to run without knowing how to tie your shoes. Proper knife skills not only make cooking and food preparation easier and safer, but, it can also give you a lot more confidence in the kitchen. These are some essential and basic cutting techniques every cook lovers should know, we’ll introduce the most basic cutting techniques and cutting types in daily life.
What are the most basic cutting techniques in daily life?
Preparation: Before you start to cut, you’d make sure you are doing cutting work in a safe environment.
The thing you need to check is to make sure that your cutting board is stable and not moving around while you cut. An unstable cutting board can be dangerous and you may cut yourself. a better method is to put a damp cloth underneath the cutting board to secure it in place. Next, make sure that the ingredients you use are not rolling around on the cutting board. It might be easy to control small foods, like herbs, but larger items like onions, cucumbers even carrots can roll around on the cutting board making it dangerous,So to make it easier to cut relatively large item, you'd better cut one side off just a small piece, So that it has a flat end and you can see it's not rolling around on the cutting board which is going to make it a lot safer to cut.
The first cutting technique is cross chop
What it used for: this is a great cutting technique for any sort of rough chops perfect for small vegetables like herbs parsley, garlic etc.
How to:
You should start by using the pinch grip to hold the knife and then with the other hand place it right on top of the knife keeping the tip of the knife down we're going to rock back and forth. Thus you can have a really nice comfortable hold and it feels like an extension of your arm. Using your other hand as more of a guide you don't want apply any weight and cross over your ingredients like I'm doing here with the parsley And you can start off slow and then slowly speed up and chop over your ingredients What's great about this cutting technique is that it's very safe You're keeping your fingers out of the way it's on top of the knife.
The second cutting technique is Rock chop
What it used for: Slicing large vegetables and fish, meats, or rough-slicing herbs.
How to:
You should use a similar pinch grip to hold the knife and making sure again keep the tip of the knife down on the cutting board and we're going to rock with that knife-hand. Now with the other hand, what we want to do is hold the ingredient.
You're going to use our fingertips to face the knife and then slowly curl them in and with that loose thumb we're going to tuck it in underneath
Your control hand should resemble a claw, with it you can actually slowly push the ingredient into the cutting motion of the knife.
Now you want to make sure as you lift the knife that it rests up against your knuckles and never lifts higher that way you can avoid cutting yourself and so you're going to slowly move it into the knife, and that's it.
You might see some people hold chef knife with their finger on top which is not very comfortable and very flimsy. or you often see the hand grip right around the handle again the weight isn't distributed properly and it's not comfortable at all. you feel like you can't use all your strength to cut through something. So ,Please don’t do like this.
By following these simple steps will give you a lot more confidence in the kitchen and make cooking and food preparation a lot safer and faster. of course,” practice makes perfect”, you should cut frequently to master knife techniques better and better.
When you get basic cutting ways, you’re eager to show your talents on cutting, here comes another problem, What kind of shape should I cut the food to decorate my dishes?
Ok, we’ll tell you the basic types of cut.
What’s the basic types of cut?
We are going to introduce you some basic knife cuts a fair enough these techniques are most often used when uniformity of size and shape is essential.
1. Oblique
Next another fancy cut called a roll cut or oblique ,the two angled cut sides hold your knife at 45-degree angle make the first cut roll the item a half turn keeping the knife at the same angle and make another cut and continue until the end the next cut certainly the easiest one diagonals just hold your knife at a 45 degree angle and slice it evenly and from these slices you can make easy buttons now.
2. Dicing
As we can see from the dictionary, dicing means cutting (food or other matter ) into small cubes(shape.)Generally, We can dice foods into three sizes: small size, medium size, and large size. Which one do you need depends on how you want to decorate your gourmet dishes.
This cut is best for diced meats or vegetables like carrot, potato etc.in any kind of recipe.
The difference between small, medium, and large is size, you can reference following:
- Small dice is ¼ inch
- Medium dice is ½ inch
- Large dice is ¾ inch
3. Mincing
Mincing is a fine, non-uniform cut which means cut up or grind (food, especially meat) into very small pieces. It’s good for garlic, parsley, herbs and nuts. You can mince foods until you think the food’s look meets your expectations.
4. Julienne
Julienne cut looks like a matchstick and also be called “shoestring.” it’s a portion of food cut into short, thin strips.
This cut is usually used for vegetables like carrots and onion. At the same time, It is also a good choice for cutting potatoes to be chips.
5. Chiffonade
The Chiffonade cut is usually used for food that is a leaf. Roll up your leaf into a tight tube and cut across the tube to get long strips of leaves.it good for cutting Vanilla, scallion.
6. Slicing
Slicing means cutting (something, especially food) into slices, you can cut beef , fish，onion, potato into slices ,this way is good to almost all foods.
I‘m not sure if you think cooking work is a chore of a joy ,in my opinion, I think it’s a joy.I enjoy the ingredients pre work in the kitchen ,in that time, I can immerse myself in my world and enjoy cooking pleasure.
Hope you can know these basic knife skills to bring variety to your dishes, not just cut in a same way.
Finally, after know these cooking knife skills, one thing you have to need is a sharp kitchen knife, we recommend Letcase Japanese knives for you, search it, you can find your choice.
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