Kitchen knives and their functions. Basic techniques for working with food: chopping, slicing and others How to cut correctly and quickly with a kitchen knife

One of the first skills a chef learns is how to quickly cut meats and vegetables. If you're having trouble cutting food safely and efficiently, make sure you're using the proper tools (like a good cutting board and a kitchen knife). Learn to hold a knife correctly and use proper slicing techniques while working in the kitchen. With a little practice, you'll become more confident and proficient at cutting food.

Steps

Select a knife and cutting surface

Choose the right one cutting board. You can choose from wood, bamboo or plastic. Plastic is lighter and easier to store, but it can be quite difficult to clean. Avoid plastic cutting boards, which will leave nicks and knife marks. Wooden cutting boards have natural antiseptic properties that help keep them clean. You can also use bamboo cutting boards, but they are harder than wood, so your knives will become dull faster.

• Avoid cutting on metal, glass, or stone cutting boards. They dull the knives.
• Consider purchasing two cutting boards. Use one for cutting fruits or vegetables, and the second for meat.

1. Secure the cutting board. If you decide to use a plastic cutting board or if your work surface is fairly smooth, do not allow the board to move. The knife may slip and injure you. To keep the cutting board stationary, spread a damp towel (or rag) over it. work surface. Place the cutting board directly on the rag. Now the board should not slide.

   • You can also place non-slip mats under the cutting board when wet. paper towels or a special adhesive mass.

2. Use the right knife for work. Most knife sets include different types knives you will need in the kitchen. For slicing, a 20–25 cm kitchen knife is most often used. It has a slight curve that allows you to move the knife back and forth for quick slicing. You should feel the balance and slight heaviness of the knife when you hold it in your hand.

   • Do not cut food with small knives (such as fruit knives), as the knife may get stuck in the food or injure you.
   • Do not use a kitchen knife for small jobs such as peeling food or slicing bread.

3. Keep your knife sharp. Professional chefs sharpen the blades of their knives every day because they are used often. Get into the habit of sharpening your knife blade with whetstone, since dull knives most often slip during operation. This increases the risk of cutting yourself. If you are not comfortable sharpening your knives yourself, you can take them to a knife sharpening shop.

   Hold the knife correctly

   Hold the kitchen knife in your dominant hand. Use it to grip the handle of the knife, placing your index finger and thumb on the blade. These fingers should be in front of the bolster (the place where the wide part of the blade meets the handle). Try not to place your index finger across the top of the blade. A firm grip on the blade will provide better control of the knife while cutting.

   • Of course, you can cut with your entire hand wrapped around the handle, but this will limit your range of motion.
   • Your index finger and thumb should look like they are gripping the sides of the blade.

4. Form a “claw” with your non-dominant hand. With your knife-free hand, you need to firmly hold the food you are cutting. To avoid cutting yourself, bend your fingertips toward your palm so that your hand takes a “claw” shape. Squeeze the food with your hand bent into a claw to prevent the food from moving or slipping.

   • It may seem unnatural or uncomfortable at first, but it best way prevent unpleasant incidents in the kitchen.

5. Protect thumb non-dominant hand. It is very important to tuck the thumb of your supporting hand to reduce the risk of cutting yourself. The knuckles of the thumb and the knuckles of the fingertips should be closer to the blade of the knife than the fingertips themselves. This way, when cutting quickly, the knife will simply hit your knuckles and not touch your fingertips.

   • Practice curling your thumb. If you notice that your thumb is starting to stick out, stop and tuck it in again. Practice slicing slowly until it becomes a habit.

   Use different cutting techniques

   Practice cross cutting technique. If you are just learning to cut, then cross cutting is a great and safe technology. Place the food you want to cut on the cutting board and grasp the kitchen knife with your dominant hand. Open your non-dominant hand and place your palm so that your fingers cover the blade. Keep your fingers straight and use your other hand to move the blade level as you cut the food. Continue cutting to desired sizes.

No matter what you are going to cut, you need to know what kind of knife you should use to do it.

If you are just setting up your kitchen, don’t forget about a set of knives. And if someone else fills the kitchen with utensils, be sure to give him this set. We will tell you in this article what you need to cut and with what knife.

There are several types of knives, and each of them is designed for a specific type of work.

1. Chef's knife

A chef's knife is the most important of all knives in the kitchen. It should have a length of 20-25 cm or a little more. However, a knife that is too long will be flexible and uncomfortable to use. It is with a chef's knife that about 90% of daily kitchen work is performed. They use it to cut meat, fish, fruits and vegetables.

Even though a chef's knife is the king of the kitchen, it should not be used for tasks such as chopping meat or poultry, peeling large vegetables, or opening cans. The wide blade of this knife is not suitable for such activities.

The price of a real chef's knife High Quality can reach 100 dollars.

2. Paring knife

This knife is needed where a chef's knife cannot handle it. They are good at cutting vegetables and fruits into small pieces, which is completely inconvenient to do with the first knife. It is a paring knife that is good for chopping garlic, shallots, strawberries, etc. The average width of the blade of such a knife reaches 8.8 cm, which makes it an excellent tool for working with any vegetables and fruits.

However, you should not use this knife to cut very tough vegetables such as carrots, celery root or parsnips. These knives are quite weak for slicing these types of foods, so you'll have to use some effort to get the job done. more power. Experienced chefs say that if you have to put a lot of effort into cutting, it means you're doing something wrong. And if you do something wrong in the kitchen, it can be dangerous for you. Under increased pressure, the knife can jump off and cut you.

Price good knife for peeling vegetables - about 20 dollars. However, never peel vegetables with ceramic knives. Buy only knives with a metal blade.

3. Serrated or sawtooth knife

Serrated knives are primarily designed for slicing bread. But they can also do other work. The blade length of a sawtooth knife, on average, reaches 15 cm. They are especially good for cutting products with a waxy surface, such as tomatoes, pineapples, watermelons, citrus fruits and peppers. A serrated blade has better grip on the product, which cannot be said about knives with a smooth blade, which often slip.

It must be remembered that serrated knives should only be used for cutting food, but not for chopping. These knives are good only when you need to cut something with sawing movements. The serrated blade grabs the product and cuts it well. Do not use this knife when cutting berries, herbs or garlic.

The average price for a good saw blade knife ranges from $30 to $40. If you use this knife as intended, it will serve you well. long years. If the knife is dull, it should not be sharpened. You just need to buy a new one.

4. Boning knife or boning knife

This is the best knife for cutting and deboning meat, poultry and fish of any size. Knives of this type are different sizes, from 7 cm for cutting anchovies to 40 cm for cutting pork. This is the knife that can handle joints or chest animal.

When working with a boning knife, do not try to cut bones with it. They need to trim the meat around the bones. It is also good for working with cartilage.

A good boning knife costs at least $30. And if you constantly have to work with meat, then you can buy a more expensive knife.

5. Honing knife

The fifth of the types we are considering is not a knife at all. It looks a bit more like a nail file. It is an abrasive tool that helps previous knives stay sharp. We can say that after the chef's knife it is second in importance. After processing knives with such a tool, their blades become sharper, so they become more convenient to use. All knives should be treated with a honing knife every day. True, since he still does not sharpen the knives, but only sharpens them slightly, all kitchen knives should be sharpened once a year.

Honing tools can only be used on knives that have a straight blade. They should not be used on serrated knives, as their teeth may become flattened and the knife will begin to slide over the food when slicing.

A honing knife is often included in kitchen knife sets. If your set does not have it, you can always buy it separately. Ceramic or metal ones costing about $25 are quite suitable as an abrasive tool.

The topic was often raised on forums. Perhaps someone will share their story.

So, first let's note most important factor One thing that significantly increases your chances of cutting yourself is being intoxicated. There are no specific requirements for drinks; the main thing is to immerse yourself in the euphoria of relaxation and lightness of life. The people have a clear definition of “knee-deep sea”. Well by reducing the reaction and turning off most brain, you can start working with a knife. At the same time, it is easy to miss when chopping or slicing food (if you are right-handed, the fingers of your left hand suffer).

If the concentration was enough to cut without injury, the desire for cleanliness can work very well. Take a napkin, wrap it around the blade and, squeezing it well with your fingers in the area of ​​the cutting edge, pull it along the blade - the blade, having carefully cut through the napkin, will no less carefully cut through the fingertips. Options: wipe the blade on the fabric of the sleeve, naturally sliding the blade along your own forearm, the same with your trouser leg and leg.

If you are so harsh or hungry that you don’t consider it necessary to wipe your knife, you may find good idea lick the blade, this is especially tempting when slicing something tasty and sticky, such as soft blue cheese. If you lick the blade, not from the butt to the RK, but vice versa or in parallel cutting edge the likelihood of a high-quality tongue cut will increase significantly.

If you are in nature, you can try to achieve the goal in a very popular discipline - “planing a twig.” At the same time, carefully select a knotty branch, so that it would be more difficult to plan, the knife would more often break off the knots. It is especially effective to press your hand with the branch to your torso or thigh, then the knife is almost guaranteed to fall off the branch and cause you a quality cut. In general, cutting yourself is a klondike of dangerous situations. Well, really, why drag a cutting board into the forest? Sitting down on a log, you can quickly cut a snack “on your knees” in one go and get the desired cut. Some people prefer to cut in a handful with their second hand; there is also every chance of success. In the office of one knife shop there hangs a small leaflet describing a situation where a person was pressed to the stomach tin can and opened it with a knife, simultaneously opening it for himself abdominal cavity. Double benefit: you opened the can and made hara-kiri.

Let's go back to the branch. This technique works very well: planing a branch not holding the twig by hand, but to the hand. A few years ago, at the “Angry Beavers” competition (cutting a pine block at speed), which has long become a key competition in knife work at the “Steel Edge” knife show. Comrade Tsirkach worked exactly according to this scheme, that is, he planed away from himself, and then cut towards himself, when the first of the participants finished cutting the pine block and everyone heard the sound of a falling piece, Tsirkach was distracted at this moment, losing control for a split second and as a result - a deep cut between the thumb and index finger, a car ride to the nearest hospital, stitching up the hand...
The same situation, but we are cutting not a twig but a watermelon, the thicker the blade the better, the blade gets stuck tightly in the watermelon, we put additional load on the knife, it suddenly breaks off, cutting through the rind of the watermelon and - bingo, it crashes into the hand with which we are holding the watermelon.

After the "twig" it is very popular to start more active recreation. If the alcohol vapors have already disappeared from the body, you need to immediately replenish them, because old-fashioned good fun awaits us. On a stump or log of a fallen tree, at home in the kitchen or in the office, right on a stack of papers or a telephone directory, you need to place your left hand (naturally for right-handers) with outstretched fingers and inject with a knife, getting between your fingers, increasing the pace. The longer the game lasts and the higher the speed of injections, the greater the likelihood of cutting yourself or piercing a nail with the tip.

Next, we can’t help but mention knife throwing, which is so beloved by the population. It is practiced both outdoors and in the office and even in the apartment. There are known cases of damage to premises and office equipment (a metal tool flew into the copier's paper receptacle, etc.) But we only consider cases of injury to participants. In addition to the excellent chance of getting a knife in the back during a collective throwing, it should be noted that real berserkers, as a rule, do not bother buying and using the actual throwing knives; they use everything that, in their opinion, can fly and stick. Needless to say, folding knives and even some non-folding ones are destroyed. But since they are not intended for throwing, they demonstrate unexpected ricochet abilities. Having somehow thrown a small dagger with a rubber handle, I was impressed by how it flew into a pine board with the end of the handle and flew back, whistling at my temple one and a half centimeters away, and back it flew straight with the blade forward. Some fixes have a steel protrusion from a rubberized handle (falknivens, kizlyars, etc.) if you think that this reduces the risk of a 180-degree rebound, I hasten to disappoint you - it does not.

Every person knows how to do many things quickly: cheer up loved ones, calm a child, put on makeup, get ready for a trip, etc. If you want to add quick shredding to this list, then simple vegetable slicing, soups, and salads will take much less time. After all, for every housewife or owner, time is a very important element.

Learning to chop quickly is quite simple, but mastering such a skill requires endurance and patience.

To inspire you, you can watch this short presentation.

At first it may seem that it's all about good instrument, however, as you already suspect, purchasing a professional chef's knife will not help here. It's all about technique.

Fast shredding training

To learn how to quickly shred, you need:

• A little fearlessness and patience.
• Smooth surface.
• Cucumber or celery stalks (for the first time)
• A sharp knife with a comfortable handle, a wide blade and, of course, a heel. The heel is the base of the knife plane at the bottom of the handle. Markings and stamps are applied to it.

First step

How do you handle the food you're chopping? Two fingers? And you need to use all your fingers!

Place the middle and index fingers on top of the cucumber, and the ring finger can also join them if it is convenient for you. They should press the cucumber into the surface. The thumb and little finger are wrapped around a cucumber.

Bend your fingers slightly so that their tips are protected by your knuckles. The knife must be pressed against the blade outer surface fingers. This way you can protect your fingers from damage. Look at the photo and try to repeat.

Second step

Press the side surface of the blade (the wider it is, the better) against the outer surface of your fingers, and press the tip of the knife against the board so you don’t need to tear it off while slicing. The hand with the cucumber moves along the board, not the knife.

Third step

You need to relax your hands, otherwise you can cut yourself, and they will quickly get tired. No matter how sharp the knife is, it does not need to chop, but to cut. You can adjust the thickness of the slices by moving the cucumber slower or faster.

It is better to start training when you have good mood and there is at least 10 minutes. Free time. Good luck in the kitchen, save your fingers and time!

Video lessons

One of the first skills a chef masters is the ability to correctly, cut food quickly and beautifully. Agree that this is very important in cooking. Surely you would like to learn this and make your life a little easier.

We present to you 10 ways to easily and quickly cut your favorite foods. Try it, it's interesting and not at all difficult!

How to quickly cut food

1. Cherry tomatoes
Place equal-sized tomatoes between two flat plates, then pass between them sharp knife. You can also cut grapes this way!

2. Kiwi
Cut off the top of the kiwi with a knife and eat the fruit with a spoon.

3. Avocado
Cut the avocado in half and eat it, like kiwi, with a spoon.

4. Mandarin
Whoever came up with this method deserves a culinary award.

5. Pomegranate
Cut off the top and bottom part grenade. Make cuts on the sides. Then break the pomegranate into pieces.

6. Watermelon
To eat watermelon without getting splashed, cut off the corners of a piece.

7. Cake
To prevent the cake from becoming stale, cut out the central part of it. And then connect the resulting parts together.

8. Mango
With a slight movement of the hand...

9. Onion
You can see in the photo how to cut onions correctly. And from us the following life hack: in order not to cry when cutting onions, chew mint gum in the process.