Basic Knife Skills

great knife skills are essential to becoming a better cook it's really the basis of everything that you're gonna do in the kitchen this is truly a skill you'll use every day with just about everything you cook okay so first things first before you even start chopping you want to make sure that your cutting board is secure a wobbly cutting board can result in your knife slipping and injuries happening so an easy fix is to place a damp paper towel underneath your cutting board you can also get a non-slip mat but under the cutting board or you can get a cutting board with grips the next important thing is to make sure you're gripping your knife properly if you put your finger on top of the knife if you hold too far back on the handle if you have a dainty grip those are all incorrect ways you want to put your finger and your thumb at the very back of the knife and wrap your fingers around it that way you have a firm grip and when you chop you're going to be in control of what you're doing it might feel uncomfortable at first but with time it'll become second nature to you so one common mistake when you're chopping is to have all your fingers laid flat as you can see my fingers are in danger of getting cut off you actually want to form a claw so that your fingers go in and the knife will hit up against your knuckles as you're chopping so with this claw your fingertips are gonna be protected the whole time and it's actually gonna give you support as you're chopping another common mistake is the slicing motion if you just chop really aggressively down like this you're not going to get a nice even cut you really want to do a rocking motion when you cut going back and forth with the knife think about it like a wave so now that you know how to hold a knife properly we're going to demonstrate a few common cuts that you see in recipes we're gonna start off with a dice so for an onion which is probably the most common thing you're gonna dice you want to cut it in half first right through the root end so the next step is to peel the outer layers making sure that the root end is still intact so with dicing you want to make sure that the flat side is down so it'll give you the most stability making sure we have that claw grip make a few incisions horizontally into the onion then you're going to turn the onion towards you with the root side furthest away and again with that claw make a few cuts vertically turn the onion again and use your knuckles as a guide and you're gonna start chopping along and just do that same nice chopping wave motion down and then look you've got an even dice this is an example of a large dice here we've got a medium dice and over here we've got a small dice so in most recipes when you just see something that says dice it should be a medium size the next cut we're going to show you is mincing the most common of these is minced garlic you want to remove the root end and again remember we're always using that little claw the next step is to place the garlic under the blade and then smash down then you're gonna peel the garlic the papery skin should fall right off and then again use that claw use that same wave motion and you're just going to repeat this a ton of times I mean you can use your fingers on the other side of the blade to help stabilize you and then gently scrape it off with mincing the finer the Mint's the more flavorful your dish is gonna be and it should really be tiny anything bigger than this would be a fine chop similar to dicing mincing is a really common cut you can use it in so many preparations so dicing and mincing are the most common cuts you'll see in recipes but we're gonna show you a few other cuts in case you want to get fancy next up is chiffonade which is most commonly used with herbs we're gonna show you with some basil so first you're gonna stack basil leaves in a pile then you're gonna roll them up from the top all the way down in a really tight cigar shape so it looks like that and then again not to sound redundant but if you're going to use that same motion and just do really really thin slices a common mistake when you're doing the chiffonade cut is to not use enough force you want to make sure to fold the slice down and if you do it correctly it should look like these beautiful ribbons chef ranada is a really pretty cut but it's really a vanity cut you typically use it to garnish dishes the next cut we're going to show you is julienne which is most commonly used with carrots that you can do it with all sorts of things so to julienne a carrot you want to cut it into about two inch we're gonna just start with one for now to start you want to create a flat base once you've cut that flat part off put the flat part down on the cutting board so you have more stability then I want to make one eighth inch equal slices down next stack the carrots up like building blocks you can also divide the carrot stacks up into two parts so it's a little easier to manage and then again you're gonna want to make equal one eighth of an inch slices down and then you should get these beautiful equally sized matchsticks julienning is not a super common cut you primarily see it in raw preparation like slaw or something like a quick pickle it's really great because you wouldn't want a huge bite of pickled carrot but with a julienne or a matchstick it's just the right amount of Tang next up we're going to show you the oblique cut also called a roll cut which you will see why momentarily first you want to trim the end off diagonally so right now the diagonal is facing towards you so you just want to rotate it so that the diagonal is going away from you and you're gonna make a diagonal cut so you're kind of creating this triangle shape then you roll the carrot again and cut and then you're just you're gonna keep you're gonna keep rolling one of the great things about this cut is that this carrot isn't even all the way through but with this cut all the pieces are going to be about even size and they're gonna cook even it's a lot of even you can use it to row steamed saute it's incredibly versatile it's also a fun shape it's not used that often anymore but it's really pretty and people should use it more now that you know the proper way to hold and use your knife you'll be better equipped in the kitchen and practice makes perfect start off slowly make sure you're using the proper form and the more you do this the easier it'll get the faster you'll be and you'll be a pro in no time also on a basic level you're not going to chop your fingers off which I think we can all agree is a great thing but if you want to why can I speak if you want to get fancy we're gonna okay but if you wanna why what is wrong with me what [Laughter]

Channel: Tasty

Views: 9,382,630

Rating: 4.9234219 out of 5

Keywords: buzzfeed, chiffonade, chop, chopping, cook, cooking, cut, cutting, dice, dicing, fast, food, garlic, how to, how to cook, instructional, julienne, kitchen, knife, knife skills, mince, mincing, olique cut, onion, quick, recipe, roll cute, slice, slicing, tasty, tasty 101, tips

Id: G-Fg7l7G1zw

Length: 6min 34sec (394 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 24 2017