..where teens can learn to cook restaurant quality meals for the family
Stay sharp!
Sharp is Safe: A sharp knife is less likely to slip and cause injury. Keep your knives honed. This is one of the most important things you can do if you want to be like the pro’s. Keep your knife sharpener near your knives. Use it frequently. Here’s how to sharpen your knife.
Use the right knife: Bread knives are for bread. Small serated knives are great for tomatoes and more detailed cutting. But your main weapon – the one that’ll make you a hero, is your large ‘chefs knife’. We’ll discuss most of our knife skills with that one in mind.
Grip It Right: Hold the knife by the handle, with your thumb and index finger gripping the blade’s base – not just the handle! I repeat, yor thumb and index finger actually hold the higher end of the blade. This gives you control. And you’re going to use the shape of the knife and the weight of the knife to help you in your technique.
Stable Cutting Board: If your chopping board wobbles or slides, place a damp towel under it. Or buy a new one that doesn’t. You want solid control. Butcher’s blocks are amazing. We have a huge one almost 1m by 80cm and 6 cm tall. It’s not going to move. And it’s going to help you chop comfortably.
Protect Your Fingers: Your fingers holding the knife are out the way of the blade right? What about the other hand holding the food? Curl your fingertips inward like a claw and use your knuckles to push against the knife blade. Keep it on your knuckles. Obey that, and it can’t cut your fingers can it? If you need your fingertips to assist at some point, use your finger nails as heroic shields to defend your fingers from being cut. Make protecting your fingers your priority. It’s more important than your dinner.
Basic cuts
The Slice: Use a smooth gliding motion, moving the knife slightly forward as you cut downward. This is great for onions, tomatoes, and more. You’re both pushing foward, and rocking at the same time. See the video below to see it in action.
The Dice: Start with slices, then stack them or keep them in place to cut into uniform cubes so they look like dice. (You don’t have to put the spots on each one.) Precision equals even cooking.
The Chop: More casual than dicing, chopping is about getting ingredients to a roughly uniform size. Perfect for when a rough appearance is OK or when you don’t want to spend so long!
Practice
The key is to watch the experts for good technique, then copy, and GO SLOW! See the video above to get started with that. There are plenty more on YouTube too.
Get the technique right before you ramp up the speed. Notice what it feels like when you’re chopping properly. The rocking and pushing forward of the blade is important. It makes you feel like a machine, as you get into the rhythm.
You don’t need to chop fast. In fact, we’d suggest not even trying to. Just chop mindfully and consistently. What will happen, is in time, you’ll get faster without realising, you clever sausage.