Self-Aggrandizement: how to cut things

how to cut things
Filed Thursday, January 29 2004.

Open your knife drawer. Take out the contents. Place them in the garbage. Then head off to a kitchen goods store to buy some real knives.

The good news is, you don’t need many. Four high quality blades will do you worlds more good than a whole drawer full of crappy ones. I’d recommend Wusthoff Tridents, classics used by chefs around the world. But really, any knife hot-forged from a single piece of metal, whose blade runs the length of its handle (riveted in) should work. High carbon stainless steel is the best choice, with plain carbon blades a close second – standard stainless steel should be avoided, as it can’t easily be sharpened. Also steer clear of any blade advertised as never needing sharpening; you similarly wouldn’t buy a car that claimed to never need servicing. Most importantly, the blades should be heavy – the more weight they carry, the less work you’ll have to do to cut with them.

The four knives you need:

A chef’s knife (also called a cook’s knife), in either 8” or 10”. The longer, being heavier, makes cutting easier. If you’re willing to splurge, move up to the 10” wide, whose slightly thicker, heavier blade yields – you guessed it – even less work. If you’ve not used one before, you’ll likely look at this blade for the first time and think, “holy shit, that’s one big knife. I don’t need a knife that big.” Wrong. This knife is your new best friend; you’ll be using it for nearly all your slicing, dicing, shredding and mincing, with occasional light chopping thrown in as well. Once you cut with this thing, you’ll never go back. Thusly, if you buy only one new knife, this should be it. One more note: if you have big hands, make sure the blade is wide enough at the heel (the point closest to the handle) that your knuckles don’t scrape the cutting board as you push forward.
A 3-1/2” paring knife (all these measurements, by the way, are the length of the blade, not the entire knife), your workhorse for detail tasks (like - surprise, surprise - paring).
A 4-1/2” utility knife, which can double as a peeler, disjoint chickens, and dice small things that don’t warrant the full chef’s knife treatment. You can replace this with a slightly longer knife if you’d prefer – Wusthoff makes a great 6” sandwich knife (which, as it isn’t serrated, I can’t imagine anyone actually uses for sandwiches).
A big serrated knife, to use on the sandwiches you aren’t cutting with the sandwich knife. It also works on anything else with a skin, crust or rind (tomatoes, breads, citrus fruits, cheeses, etc.) where a bit of bite helps. You can’t go wrong with a classic 8” bread knife, though as long as the knife is well made, you have a fair amount of flexibility in terms of length and design.

That’s it. If you’re looking to carve birds, filet fish, or slice up meat in general, you may eventually want to buy a specialty blade or two for that purpose. Otherwise, you’re set.

How to Hone a Knife

While you’re discarding things from your knife drawer, toss any sort of automatic sharpener – it will grind too much away, and quickly ruin your knives. Instead, pick up a sharpening steel – one of those long metal rods you see chefs bandying about on cooking shows. To be correct, these don’t actually sharpen your blades – that involves scraping enough metal off to dull the knife, then carefully reshaping the curve of the edge (which you should have done at a cutlers once every year or two). Instead, your knives cut because they have tiny microscopic teeth along the edge of the blade; each time you cut, those teeth get pushed out of alignment. Honing, then, simply lines the teeth back up, allowing the knife to cut much more easily. Since a sharp knife is both safer and more efficient, it’s worth honing your knives each time you take one out – it only takes a few seconds.

To do it, hold the sharpening steel vertically, tip down on a towel on a non-skid surface (like a cutting board). Pick up the knife by the handle, and put the heel of the blade on the steel, top of the blade leaning out at a 20 degree angle. Then draw the knife back in a downwards arc until you reach the tip of the blade (see diagram). Repeat once or twice or each side and you’re ready to work.

Using a Chef’s Knife

First, how to hold the knife, which is probably radically different from what you do know (likely either wrapping all four fingers around the handle, or perhaps laying your index finger along the top of the blade – either way causes you to tense up you wrist and arm, which makes cutting excessively tiring). Instead, place your thumb and forefinger on either side of the blade, just in front of the bolster (that thick section at the heel). Wrap your remaining three fingers lightly around the handle – as your first two fingers provide all the hold you need, these mainly provide stabilization.

Now on to the cutting. Here’s the big change: don’t press down. I repeat: don’t press down. Pressing tenses up your arm, requires lots and lots of work, and goes contrary to the design and purpose of your knife. Your knife is meant to cut down by being pushed forward. (For golfers, this is a bit like how swinging through the ball – rather than trying to lift it – takes advantage of the lofted design of the clubface and makes your swing much easier.) Initiate the cut at the tip, then push the knife forward across the food until you reach the heel. Again, don’t press down. You’ll be amazed to discover how well this sucker cuts through things on its own, so long as you push forward and follow through. If you reach the heel before you finish the cut, don’t try and keep cutting as you pull back. Your knife isn’t made to work that way – like a saw, it’s meant to cut only on the forward stroke. So simply pull straight back, and repeat the smooth forward push.

For big items, start with the tip of the blade on the object:

For smaller ones, start with the tip of the blade on the cutting board:

In either case, push forward not down. It's definitely worth testing out the technique on a few stalks of celery. See how little downward pressure you can use if you concentrate on a smooth forward push and follow through. You’ll be shocked, both at how easy it is, and how evenly you can cut things.

Though celery practice will likely make you fall in love with your new chef's knife, sadly, that one blade probably can't be used on everything you cut, which means sooner in later you’ll need to use:

The Smaller Knives

These little suckers come in handy on all kinds of tasks – any, essentially, which either require increased dexterity, or where the fact that you (rather than the weight of the knife) are doing all the work won’t tire you out. You can use them to dice small onions and shallots, disjoint chickens, pare apples and tomato, or peel vegetables.

Unlike the chef’s knife, which has only one grip and one main technique (with the tip-up and tip-on-the-board variations), the smaller knives are held and wielded in a large variety of ways. To learn them all (as well as a number of other skills – such as perfect julienning, cubing, and dicing), sign up for a short knife skills class at your local culinary academy. It’s a fun evening very well spent. While I’m tempted to try describing a few basics here, I suspect my poorly written descriptions might cost a reader or two their fingers. Speaking of which:

How to Keep Your Fingers

Sharpen your knives. Dull blades make you push harder, which leads to slippage.
Never use a big knife to cut something you’re holding in your hand (i.e. a bagel). To cut that bagel, place it horizontally on a cutting board, hold it in place with your open palm, and cut through horizontally with several strokes.
Keep knives sheathed (to protect the blades) and in locked cabinets if you have children (to protect your kids)
Point the tip down, whether carrying the knife or leaving it in your dishwasher or drying rack.
Don’t carry a cutting board with a knife on it, and – if you do – for god’s sake don’t try to catch the knife when it inevitably falls off.
Don’t leave knives in the sink – when you’re done with them, wash them, dry them, and put them away, as water stains carbon blades
And, basically, don’t do anything with a knife that would cause your mother to shake her head reproachfully at your idiocy. Trust me. I know that shake all too well.

how to cut things Filed Thursday, January 29 2004.

how to cut things
Filed Thursday, January 29 2004.