Culinary Skills
To support your learning in our teaching kitchen you will find a variety of culinary fundamental videos and articles. Watch and read through the material and bring it to class to practice. Remember...practice makes perfect!!!
Knife Skills: Basic Understanding
Becoming a master in your knife skills will not happen over night. In fact, chances are you will have to completely relearn how to properly use your knife! But don’t worry, it’s for the best.
For the purposes of this article, we will focus on the use of the Chef Knife. This is the universal knife that you will use on a regular basis. It is your friend, and if you treat it nicely, it will give you years of service (Without a lot of cuts, hopefully!). The biggest problems with knives are a two-fold issue. One is the lack of proper knife skills. The other is the lack of a proper knife. Let’s get down to the basics.
For the purposes of this article, we will focus on the use of the Chef Knife. This is the universal knife that you will use on a regular basis. It is your friend, and if you treat it nicely, it will give you years of service (Without a lot of cuts, hopefully!). The biggest problems with knives are a two-fold issue. One is the lack of proper knife skills. The other is the lack of a proper knife. Let’s get down to the basics.
The Knives...
The Chef Knife
Choosing a proper chef’s knife is an important purchase. When it comes to knives, quality is paramount. You must choose a knife with a solid reputation, excellent German or Japanese blade, and a proper size and length. The weight of the knife is also important, as a heavy knife will cause fatigue early.
A sharp knife is of the utmost importance, and if you currently use a dull knife, get it sharpened or start shopping around for a new one. A dull knife will cause more injuries than a sharp one. Crushing your food is not good technique. Different knives have different quality blades and the price tag does not usually reflect that. A higher price knife won’t necessarily have a better blade and you don’t want to be buying a brand as much as you want to be buying quality. A knife with a great blade will keep its edge longer and will last months of daily commercial kitchen abuse before requiring sharpening.
To keep your blade in tip top shape requires the proper maintenance. Steeling your knife before and after every use will ensure you keep your blade honed and sharp.
Watch the video below on how to steel your knife.
Choosing a proper chef’s knife is an important purchase. When it comes to knives, quality is paramount. You must choose a knife with a solid reputation, excellent German or Japanese blade, and a proper size and length. The weight of the knife is also important, as a heavy knife will cause fatigue early.
A sharp knife is of the utmost importance, and if you currently use a dull knife, get it sharpened or start shopping around for a new one. A dull knife will cause more injuries than a sharp one. Crushing your food is not good technique. Different knives have different quality blades and the price tag does not usually reflect that. A higher price knife won’t necessarily have a better blade and you don’t want to be buying a brand as much as you want to be buying quality. A knife with a great blade will keep its edge longer and will last months of daily commercial kitchen abuse before requiring sharpening.
To keep your blade in tip top shape requires the proper maintenance. Steeling your knife before and after every use will ensure you keep your blade honed and sharp.
Watch the video below on how to steel your knife.
Cutting with Your Knife
The Proper chef knife grip
A proper grip is where we start when we talk about how to use a knife. Holding your knife properly will ensure that you minimize fatigue, maintain absolute control, and have an excellent range of motion. The picture on the right shows the proper way to hold your knife.
There are many techniques to learn when it comes to using your knife. The first technique we’re going to learn is how to properly cut with your knife. This is the part that many people decide to skip because they’ve used a different (wrong) way for so long that it becomes alien to use anything else. I’m here to tell you to tough it out. If you want to get the best out of your love of cooking, then you have to get the basics down and cutting is a pretty large foundation for that. So let’s get to it!
The Proper Way To Cut
You know how to care for your knife, steel your knife and hold your knife. Now it’s time to cut with your knife! The proper way to cut with your knife uses the last knuckle of your forefinger or middle finger as a guide, while your ring, pinky and thumb stabilize the item your are cutting. While you may feel a bit nervous at first, know that this technique will eliminate 99% of cuts to your hands! Start with slow, controlled slicing motions while always keeping the item stationary. Your knife moves to the guide of your knuckle. Your guiding hand does not guide the food into the knife!
If you are cutting a round or abnormally shaped item, such as a tomato, try slicing off a piece from the side perpendicular to the side you wish to cut from in order to give the item a flat surface to stabilize it with. This ensures the item doesn’t roll away from you or slide around.
A proper grip is where we start when we talk about how to use a knife. Holding your knife properly will ensure that you minimize fatigue, maintain absolute control, and have an excellent range of motion. The picture on the right shows the proper way to hold your knife.
There are many techniques to learn when it comes to using your knife. The first technique we’re going to learn is how to properly cut with your knife. This is the part that many people decide to skip because they’ve used a different (wrong) way for so long that it becomes alien to use anything else. I’m here to tell you to tough it out. If you want to get the best out of your love of cooking, then you have to get the basics down and cutting is a pretty large foundation for that. So let’s get to it!
The Proper Way To Cut
You know how to care for your knife, steel your knife and hold your knife. Now it’s time to cut with your knife! The proper way to cut with your knife uses the last knuckle of your forefinger or middle finger as a guide, while your ring, pinky and thumb stabilize the item your are cutting. While you may feel a bit nervous at first, know that this technique will eliminate 99% of cuts to your hands! Start with slow, controlled slicing motions while always keeping the item stationary. Your knife moves to the guide of your knuckle. Your guiding hand does not guide the food into the knife!
If you are cutting a round or abnormally shaped item, such as a tomato, try slicing off a piece from the side perpendicular to the side you wish to cut from in order to give the item a flat surface to stabilize it with. This ensures the item doesn’t roll away from you or slide around.
Knife Cuts 101
There are many different types of cuts and while you may not use all of them, it’s important that you know and understand them. Having the knife skills and know-how to cut a brunoise, matchstick or batonnet will not only help you improve your knife skills, but also improve the visual appeal and professionalism of the food you cook.
If you’re like most people, you will likely chop your items as fast as possible without knowing or understanding why it’s important to cut properly. The first reason is uniformity. Take a carrot, for instance. It goes from very fat to very thin and most people will use a coin cut to slice it. This leaves very large and very small pieces in relation to itself.
Why is this important? Well, large pieces take longer to cook (Especially when it comes to carrots).
Uniformity in cutting ensures that you have even, predictable cooking times. Nobody wants carrots that are mushy and hard at the same time!
The second reason is aesthetics. Properly cut items look professional and have that visual appeal. Much of your appetite and the appetite of others stems from the visual appeal of your dish. The presentation is of the utmost importance and a large percent of the satisfaction that people get from food comes from their eyes. People eat with their eyes, and it’s important to never forget that!
Here are the different types of cuts that anyone interested in the culinary arts should know:
If you’re like most people, you will likely chop your items as fast as possible without knowing or understanding why it’s important to cut properly. The first reason is uniformity. Take a carrot, for instance. It goes from very fat to very thin and most people will use a coin cut to slice it. This leaves very large and very small pieces in relation to itself.
Why is this important? Well, large pieces take longer to cook (Especially when it comes to carrots).
Uniformity in cutting ensures that you have even, predictable cooking times. Nobody wants carrots that are mushy and hard at the same time!
The second reason is aesthetics. Properly cut items look professional and have that visual appeal. Much of your appetite and the appetite of others stems from the visual appeal of your dish. The presentation is of the utmost importance and a large percent of the satisfaction that people get from food comes from their eyes. People eat with their eyes, and it’s important to never forget that!
Here are the different types of cuts that anyone interested in the culinary arts should know:
- Large Dice
- Medium Dice
- Small Dice
- Bruinoise
- The Baton
- The Batonnet
- Julienne
- Paysanne
- Chiffonade
The Basic Types of Cuts
Taking into account that much of the reasoning behind the different cuts ties into the ability to cook accurately first, and aesthetically second is a foundational skill. Keeping these in mind will help you determine what type of cut is appropriate for the dish you are cooking and help you become a better cook. Obviously, a diced carrot takes longer to cook than an equally sized dice of, say, celery. Using your knowledge, you will know that you will have to precook the carrots first before adding the celery!
Once you get into the routine of making your own stocks you will learn that much of the waste will be transformed into delicious stocks.
Squaring Off Your Items
Squared-Off Carrot Segments (Image to the left)
Before cutting an item, we’re going to learn how to square off the item you’re about to cook. The idea is to get the item to a stage that allows your cuts to be done uniformly. We will use the carrot as an example, as it is the most common abnormally shaped item you will be using. A lot of the skills you will learn will leave you with a bunch of waste. This is not as bad as you think! Once you get into the routine of making your own stocks you will learn that much of the waste will be transformed into delicious stocks. These techniques put form and perfection first. Many chefs and cooks will tell you this method produces TOO much waste. While it is true, remember that cutting and chopping has its own “Pick two of three” catch 22.
This is: Speed, Waste, Uniformity
If you want speed and low waste, you’ll lose uniformity.
If you want low waste and uniformity, you’ll lose speed.
If you want speed and uniformity, you’ll have more waste.
Understanding these conditions, you will come to settle on a spot that is comfortable to you. Many industry professionals will settle somewhere in the middle.
The Knife Cuts that will be used in our Kitchen...
The Julienne CutThe julienne is a type of cut that is stick-shaped and very thin. Cut from a squared off item, you will then slice that item length-wise at a thickness of 1-2mm (1/16 in) leaving you with thin rectangular cuts. Then, take the thin slices and apply the same technique. You will end up with Julienne (Or matchstick) cuts!
Dimensions: 2mm X 2mm X 4cm (1/16in X 1/16in X 2in) |
Brunoise DiceThe Brunoise dice is the smallest dice you can have. While you can mince to a smaller dimension, this method refers to the smallest uniform size available for dicing. This method is simple and only adds an additional step to the Julienne method. Take your julienne cuts and bunch them up with your hand. Then cut the julienne into equally shaped dice. That’s it! While simple, it does take a long time to master.
Get crackin’! Great for Soups Dimensions: 2mm X 2mm X 2mm (1/16 in X 1/16 in X 1/16 in) |
Small DiceThe small dice are similar to the brunoise, but it is slightly larger. Start by following the steps to Julienne your item. You want to slice your squared-off item at a thickness of 3mm. Now it’s only a matter of finishing off the dice as you would the Brunoise!
Dimensions: 3mm X 3mm X 3mm (1/8 in X 1/8 in X 1/8 in) |
The BatonnetYou’re probably starting to notice a pattern here. We start with squaring off our item, slicing it to the thickness desired, and then going from there. The batonnet is no different, but what the purpose of knowing these cuts are they are standard sizes that you’ll see in most professional recipes as well as recipes posted on TheCulinaryCook. Let’s continue. The Batonnet is no different, and we are aiming for a larger stick-cut. The batonnet is used when serving a larger portion of an item such as a vegetable side, to gain height in your dish, or to provide imposing linear appeal to an otherwise linear-absent dish.
Dimensions: 6mm X 6mm X 6cm (1/4 in X 1/4 in X 2 in) |
Medium & Large DiceThe medium dice type of cuts are derived from the Batonnet and the only added step is slicing the batonnet to produce cubes. This size is called a Medium Dice.
Dimensions: 6mm X 6mm X 6mm (1/4 in X 1/4 in X 1/4 in) The large dice types of cuts are primarily used for stews, long-cooking dishes and for mirepoix in stocks. The large dice is important, because it is relatively quick, has a great imposing nature and looks professional. When cutting a large dice, you will tend to have a higher waste when trying to get nicely cut pieces using the method describing how to square off your item. Remember when doing any cutting or dicing to use the method best suited for your dish. Dimensions: 12mm X 12mm X 12mm (1/2 in X 1/2 in X 1/2 in). |
ChiffonadeThe chiffonade types of cuts are used when slicing very thin items such as herbs or leafy vegetables such as spinach. Cutting en chiffonade is a really simple process. Start by stacking the items you are looking to slice. Then roll up the items, producing a cigar-shaped roll. Once it’s rolled, start slicing to produce a nice chiffonade suitable for garnishing and other purposes.
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