Let's face it, we all know great home cooks (your Mom, Grandma etc.) who never owned a decent professional knife and still produced great food every day. But we all know that the trend is towards creating a professional looking kitchen at home, with commercial ranges and ovens and all the great gadgets. But owning a top quality knife doesn't make you a great cook and neither do fancy knife skills. Professional chefs on TV may make you gasp with their dexterity with knife or cleaver, but that in itself doesn't make their food taste good. It suggests that they have spent a lot of time in a fast-paced professional environment that demands speed and efficiency to save on labor, but that's all, so don't assume their food is great because of their knife skills. It's just a circus act. So don't mutilate yourself trying to imitate the pros. Finger parts in the food are never appetizing.
But, let's assume you are serious about having professional quality knives in your kitchen. I do 90% of my knife work with one knife, an 8" Chef's knife, also called a French knife (can't escape that Gallic influence). That means that the blade is quite deep at the handle, at least 1&3/4" to avoid rapping your knuckles when you use the knife correctly. From the handle the knife curves smoothly to a point. The whole point (sorry) is that, in most uses, the tip of the knife never leaves the cutting surface, the entire blade comes into contact with the cutting board and the cutting is done in a rocking motion, up and down, tip to back. This is faster, more efficient, less hazardous and less tiring (and quieter!) than the all-too-familiar hacking motion that most home cooks adopt, where the whole blade comes up off the board and down again. But I don't expect you to change the habits of a lifetime. I've taught many classes and I always demonstrate proper technique, but I stress that I don't expect anyone to go home and start using a knife like a professional.
You really need professional supervision for that, just to tell you what you're doing wrong because invariably you will wind up performing some spastic parody of the professional chef. It feels awkward at first, but it really isn't that hard, otherwise how would some of the clowns on TV be able to do it and talk at the same time!
The knife I use is not some super Scandinavian-styled work of art with price to match, or part of some Magic Knife set seen on late night TV (OK I've been suckered into buying a couple, but, after the novelty wears off, they only see the light of day when someone in my kitchen is knifeless (a cardinal sin in a professional) and wants to borrow a knife. I'm not going to let them destroy the good stuff!
My knife is a Victorinox with Fibrox handle, costs about $25. Just Google "Victorinox Fibrox" and you should find the best deal. Mine came from Amazon. It has a deep blade, essential if you have large hands, and it keeps a sharp edge for longer than most knives I've tried over the years. It's also recommended as a "Best Value" by Cooks Illustr
ated (I'm telling you, subscribe if you haven't already, and they still don't pay me to say that).
The Fibrox handle is a plastic composite of some kind, but it's quite substantial, again important if you have good-sized hands. If the handle is thin, and not hefty, your hand will get awfully tired if you have a lot of slicing and chopping to do. The handle is comfortable and doesn't feel cold like wood or metal.
When you use this kind of knife your hand should be well forward on the handle so that your thumb and forefinger are actually straddling the blade rather than the handle. These 2 digits should sit in the indentations on the handle where it meets the blade. These indentations make the grip more comfortable. If you grip the knife back towards the butt of the handle and use it a lot you can look forward to carpal tunnel! The further forward you grip, the less stress on the wrist. Also it doesn't hurt to have your work close to you, so you can lean over the board and put the force of your whole arm and shoulder into what you're cutting, when you're cutting up whole chickens, for example.
As far as I'm concerned, anything bigger than an 8" or 9" blade is great for hacking through the jungle, but unnecessary in the home kitchen. Why pay for more blade than you need?
Other than my trusty 8" Chef's knife, the only other essentials in my knife kit are a paring knife and a serrated slicer, the parer for more delicate work and the serrated slicer for cutting soft foods that a French knife will mash or mangle, such as bread, or hard-boiled eggs, or tomatoes. A very sharp Chef's knife will slice tomatoes, but you have to keep it very, very sharp, and let's face it, who has the time for that. As for sharpening, you need a sharpening stone or good electric sharpener. If you bought a knife set, complete with wooden block and 6 steak knives you didn't need, it probably came with a steel, the cylindrical metal rod that you see mass murderers in horror movies sharpening their 15" machetes on before they slash the semi-naked, always beautiful, 6 or 7 girls who were witless enough to walk into an obviously creepy situation.
The truth is that a steel does not sharpen. It restores a sharp edge, which gets bent over slightly with use, so that the knife will cut better than before you used the steel, but it does not actually sharpen. A lot of older chefs will simply use the backside of another knife blade to do the same thing. I do it myself when some fool has put the steel in the wrong place and I can't find it.
One mistake a lot of cooks who haven't been properly taught make is to simply run the center of the blade up and down the steel, trying to look professional, but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and they wind up grinding a hollow in the blade so that it can no longer perform its' proper function. Every part of the blade of a Chef's knife must come into contact with the cutting surface to do its job properly.
For real sharpening you need a sharpening stone, preferably one with more than one grade of grit: fine, medium and coarse, just like sandpaper. Start with the coarse and work through to the fine. Sharpening oil is useful, too, but I confess that most of the time I just dip my knife blade in the deep fryer!
I do have a number of other knives in my armoury, including a Japanese-styled santoku, which is like a cross between a cleaver and a Chef's knife, with a shorter, semi-curved blade. I see a lot of them on TV shows and I have used mine occasionally, but I find the handles on santokus are generally too small, so I always go back to my old favorite. A slicer with a long, narrow blade is useful if you find yourself elected to carve the roast at Sunday dinner. So what other kitchen tools do you really need? Watch this space......
But, let's assume you are serious about having professional quality knives in your kitchen. I do 90% of my knife work with one knife, an 8" Chef's knife, also called a French knife (can't escape that Gallic influence). That means that the blade is quite deep at the handle, at least 1&3/4" to avoid rapping your knuckles when you use the knife correctly. From the handle the knife curves smoothly to a point. The whole point (sorry) is that, in most uses, the tip of the knife never leaves the cutting surface, the entire blade comes into contact with the cutting board and the cutting is done in a rocking motion, up and down, tip to back. This is faster, more efficient, less hazardous and less tiring (and quieter!) than the all-too-familiar hacking motion that most home cooks adopt, where the whole blade comes up off the board and down again. But I don't expect you to change the habits of a lifetime. I've taught many classes and I always demonstrate proper technique, but I stress that I don't expect anyone to go home and start using a knife like a professional.
You really need professional supervision for that, just to tell you what you're doing wrong because invariably you will wind up performing some spastic parody of the professional chef. It feels awkward at first, but it really isn't that hard, otherwise how would some of the clowns on TV be able to do it and talk at the same time!
The knife I use is not some super Scandinavian-styled work of art with price to match, or part of some Magic Knife set seen on late night TV (OK I've been suckered into buying a couple, but, after the novelty wears off, they only see the light of day when someone in my kitchen is knifeless (a cardinal sin in a professional) and wants to borrow a knife. I'm not going to let them destroy the good stuff!
My knife is a Victorinox with Fibrox handle, costs about $25. Just Google "Victorinox Fibrox" and you should find the best deal. Mine came from Amazon. It has a deep blade, essential if you have large hands, and it keeps a sharp edge for longer than most knives I've tried over the years. It's also recommended as a "Best Value" by Cooks Illustr
ated (I'm telling you, subscribe if you haven't already, and they still don't pay me to say that).The Fibrox handle is a plastic composite of some kind, but it's quite substantial, again important if you have good-sized hands. If the handle is thin, and not hefty, your hand will get awfully tired if you have a lot of slicing and chopping to do. The handle is comfortable and doesn't feel cold like wood or metal.
When you use this kind of knife your hand should be well forward on the handle so that your thumb and forefinger are actually straddling the blade rather than the handle. These 2 digits should sit in the indentations on the handle where it meets the blade. These indentations make the grip more comfortable. If you grip the knife back towards the butt of the handle and use it a lot you can look forward to carpal tunnel! The further forward you grip, the less stress on the wrist. Also it doesn't hurt to have your work close to you, so you can lean over the board and put the force of your whole arm and shoulder into what you're cutting, when you're cutting up whole chickens, for example.
As far as I'm concerned, anything bigger than an 8" or 9" blade is great for hacking through the jungle, but unnecessary in the home kitchen. Why pay for more blade than you need?
Other than my trusty 8" Chef's knife, the only other essentials in my knife kit are a paring knife and a serrated slicer, the parer for more delicate work and the serrated slicer for cutting soft foods that a French knife will mash or mangle, such as bread, or hard-boiled eggs, or tomatoes. A very sharp Chef's knife will slice tomatoes, but you have to keep it very, very sharp, and let's face it, who has the time for that. As for sharpening, you need a sharpening stone or good electric sharpener. If you bought a knife set, complete with wooden block and 6 steak knives you didn't need, it probably came with a steel, the cylindrical metal rod that you see mass murderers in horror movies sharpening their 15" machetes on before they slash the semi-naked, always beautiful, 6 or 7 girls who were witless enough to walk into an obviously creepy situation.
The truth is that a steel does not sharpen. It restores a sharp edge, which gets bent over slightly with use, so that the knife will cut better than before you used the steel, but it does not actually sharpen. A lot of older chefs will simply use the backside of another knife blade to do the same thing. I do it myself when some fool has put the steel in the wrong place and I can't find it.
One mistake a lot of cooks who haven't been properly taught make is to simply run the center of the blade up and down the steel, trying to look professional, but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and they wind up grinding a hollow in the blade so that it can no longer perform its' proper function. Every part of the blade of a Chef's knife must come into contact with the cutting surface to do its job properly.
For real sharpening you need a sharpening stone, preferably one with more than one grade of grit: fine, medium and coarse, just like sandpaper. Start with the coarse and work through to the fine. Sharpening oil is useful, too, but I confess that most of the time I just dip my knife blade in the deep fryer!
I do have a number of other knives in my armoury, including a Japanese-styled santoku, which is like a cross between a cleaver and a Chef's knife, with a shorter, semi-curved blade. I see a lot of them on TV shows and I have used mine occasionally, but I find the handles on santokus are generally too small, so I always go back to my old favorite. A slicer with a long, narrow blade is useful if you find yourself elected to carve the roast at Sunday dinner. So what other kitchen tools do you really need? Watch this space......
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