Okay, lovely people Knife skills
Really really important Life is short
You normally eat three times a day You probably cook a lot of meals in your life And sit there, clanking around taking lumps of your body off, and like just being slow and rubbish Not good
So let's get you good at it So there's four things in front of me right now
a small paring knife Nice little darling here great for sort of little preparations, nipping things, slicing herbs A really good all-round knife right
Everyone needs one, an essential okay? Now not not so really all-around knife, but this is a Carving knife
You can use it for carving meats and stuff It does leave a little bit of a line, but it doesn't really bother me But most importantly you got the teeth in it the serrated sort of jagged dagger edges It's a really good sort of all-around carving knife there And then the knife that you're going to use 90% of the time right—an 8 to 10 inch chef's knife Absolutely Brilliant Well-balanced, nice grip
You've got that thick kind of base here And that base is also thick here so with little chicken legs, you can just nick them off, You know and just literally break bones and bits and pieces like that, and you've got that nice thick edge here So that's what you need
We've got the sharpener here Every time you use a knife Bottom to tip
Bottom to tip Just do it once on each side There's three methods of chopping that I suggest you learn, okay? And that will get you at a ninety nine percent of stuff This first method I'm going to teach you—
the cross chop is brilliant because hands and fingers are like this There's no way on the knife
*Jamie demonstrating the cross chop* And that is very very easy Right?
It's safe. No fingers. No limbs. No body part
anywhere near this knife And then when you are chopping things Use it almost like a dustpan and brush Let's, for instance, hack up this onion
Let's just cross chop So it's bad
It's hacking it right, but then you keep going through it, and then you're kind of—
it's almost like a food processor It's gonna get fine eventually right, but it's falling off so then you sweep it up and you put it in the middle This is quite a slow way of doing this, but it is efficient and it is safe Right you might see people doing that
Never ever ever ever do that Always, fingers like that I've seen people take their fingertips off if they do that, okay, don't do it Hands like that So let's just get rid of that So I'm going to go straight in to tap chopping The idea is that I put my thumb here and I put my fingers here And my fingers are tucked in and I pull my fingers as I'm cutting all the way down And then I redo it and all the way down okay? If you forget your thumb, and it comes out you're going to cut that off as well And I have, we all have but I didn't have anyone telling me how to do it so The top of the knife is feeling that finger but not—
Obviously it knows where it is I'm not bringing it up beyond here You never ever bring this blade beyond the point where your finger goes in okay? So never higher than there right? slowly as I'm slicing Now you're going to go slow to start with and then you can start to pick up the speed to the point Where it doesn't matter anymore, okay? Now the reality is because I know where my fingers are Because I know what's happening until this point At this point I've gone wobble again, see?
Because I'm getting towards the end of the courgette What do you do when you got wobble? On a flat surface wobbling? No
Right? But then you can stop again until then and you're wobbling again, then you go flat surface, right? So chopping is all about non wobbly veg right?
you're in control of that So let's just have a little go on this chili That's a rock chopping
Chili's perfect for rock chopping Let's change the angle
Let's show you like this If you look at this chili now, it doesn't matter on going slow or fast Notice fingers in
Thumb pulling the fingers towards it That little edge of my finger controlling the blades going At no point is that blade ever go near a finger
It's vulnerable now, So then we're much much more careful And then we finish
That's a chilli Practice makes perfect If your fingers are always out the way you can't chop them off It's a really good craft-- It's like learning to write. It's like learning to talk. It's like learning to ride a bike It makes your cooking so much quicker and for the show-offs out there, you can style it out. Good luck
I wonder if he cooked anything with those sliced veggies.
this is great. I hope I come across one that goes through the different cuts and techniques to achieve them.
I've actually seen this before, and last time I was chopping mushrooms I suddenly realised I was actually doing the thumb pull technique properly. Seriously an awesome technique
Problem with him calling the knife steel a sharpener. Knife steels don't sharpen the knife, they maintain the sharpness that was given by a true sharpener. If your knife is dull, it won't do anything to it. You need to get a sharpening stone or take it to a knife sharpener (google it for a local one) to get it from dull to sharp.
Thanks for sharing this! I've seen these techniques many times but I've never come across a demonstration video. Informative and awesome!
I've got a question about the chop he used on the chili near the end..
How do you get the knife to move along during this way of chopping? I'm fine doing it the first way he showed with the onion, where I move the knife all over the place, but when I try to go along an item like, straight along (see chili again) I just cant do it for some reason
"Chopping is all about non-wobbly veg."