Cooking is incomplete without knowing how to chop different ingredients. An essential thing in your kitchen is your knife. A knife is mostly used in preparing almost every dish. If you feel confident in cooking, you can easily feed a number of persons. But this confidence only comes by knowing the basic cooking skills, which also includes knife skills.
Why is it important to know basic knife skills? We generally ignore to use the right skills and end up abusing the knife when it hurts. The knowledge of proper skills of holding the knife while cutting herbs, vegetables, and fruits can be taken from knifeista.com obsidian which further help you to make a healthy meal easily.
Don’t get frightened by the impressive skills used by master chefs while chopping. Cutting with that precision and speed is not our objective here. Instead, you are only required to know the basic cutting techniques, and their little practice will help you master them.
Different types of knife
Cooking can be made much easier and impressive by holding the right tool at the right place. For cooking anything, the basic thing you need is a knife. There are different types of knives, each having a different use.
Among many different kinds of knives, here is a list of some common knives that you can use at your home while cooking something special:
- Serrated knife
You can recognize this knife by looking at the teeth present on its longest blade. For cutting a thin-skinned food such as tomatoes, a thick-skinned fruit such as watermelon or for slicing bread, you can use a sawing motion.
- Utility (or pairing) knife
If you want to cut softer and smaller foods such as mushrooms, you can use such a knife.
- Chef’s knife
It consists of tapering as well as a broad blade. You can use this type of knife for daily purposes; therefore, it is also known as a kitchen workhorse.
Hold it steady
While holding any knife, make an image in your mind of holding a dart as it gives you an idea for perfectly holding the knife. Next, grasp the knife from the bolster, the area that separates the blade from the handle. Next, put your forefinger and thumb above the ridge and hold the back of the blade tightly. Then, you must wrap your fingers at the handle of the knife.
As we all know, “Practice makes the man perfect”. Therefore, the more you practice holding the knife in such a way, the more comfortable you will get.
Your safety comes first
While using a knife, there are two main things that you must keep in mind. First, keep the blades of your knives sharp. It is because if you have a dull knife, you need to apply more pressure, which might get a slip and might cause an injury. If you have a fear of getting injured, then you can also use a cut-proof glove.
The second thing you must remember is to prevent cross-contamination of germs and bacteria. It is a very crucial thing which you must keep in mind if you are a cook. The knifeista.com obsidian recommends you to use a separate knife for cutting seafood, poultry and raw meat. Wash every tool, including the countertops and knives, with hot water and soap before using these tools in other ingredients.
Slicing
The slices of food can resemble cross-sections, wedges and long pieces like bell peppers. Generally, the main motive is to cut the slices in equal thickness, especially if we want to cook the food.
How to slice
Hold the food with a hand that is not holding a knife and try to make an equal slice with the knife. Use the full length of the knife for cutting the food and glue the tip of a knife to the cutting board.
Chopping
If you want the slices of your food to be of equal size but not necessarily of the same shape, you need to know the chopping technique. According to knifeista.com obsidian chopping is best when you wish to cook the food well and doesn’t give importance to presentation.
Choosing a chef’s knife is recommended for cutting the food end to end. Now gather such pieces and cut their halves and then into quarters.