Mad Knife Skills

Learning how to use a knife is as important in cooking as learning how to type is for a software engineer. In rare cases it is possible to excel without this basic skill, but it will make life far more difficult.

I found that learning to use a knife takes about 2 weeks. I had to unlearn some bad habits that took about 3 days. I found the fastest way to learn is to take everything that is in your fridge and cut it up. Eat all of it. And repeat. In general cutting is pretty straightforward, I use only about 4 different knives: 9 inch chef's knife, clever, small utility knife, and a bread knife. That's it. Once in a while I may use a de-boning knife but that's rare since most of the meat I buy nowadays is boneless.

Using a knife is something that they don't teach on learn on FoodTV. They assume everyone knows how to use a knife. But some of those chefs should really learn how to use a knife. Last I remember Nigella Lawson and Rachel Ray don't really know how to use knives (I don't watch TV anymore so I don't know where their skills are nowadays). Of course Martin Yan is a knife god, somehow he can do everything with a clever even if its the most inappropriate tool for the task.

I'm not going to teach how to hold a knife here, it's too complicated. Maybe someday I'll post a video or something (but that means I would need to get a webcam). I found the Knife Skills Illustrated: A User's Manual extremely helpful. I'm left-handed and its nice that the book includes both right and left handed versions. The only criticism I have for the book is that it's very repetitive. Seriously after you learn how to julienne (cut into strips) or dice the first circular object they're pretty much all the same. The knife skills from one fruit/vegetable are very transferable to another.

So why do I use a cleaver? To be honest, I could probably do everything with just a chef's knife and utility knife. Cleavers are good at flattening garlic. And because they are heavy, they good at cutting things fast. Take for example cutting a carrot into rounds. With a chef's knife, the idea would be to rock the knife while progressing across the carrot. I find it not bad in terms of efficiency but I can do this even faster with a clever, instead of the rocking motion I now use a chopping + feeding motion. I feed the carrot through to the knife and at it nears the end, I stop feeding and move with the knife.

On another note, get a good set of knives. I own this set of Henckels Professional "S" knives which I really love and would recommend. But seriously, you only really need the steel, chef's knife, and utility knife. I use the bread knife because I also bake frequently, most of the other knives see very little use.