Knife Skills

Last week hubby and I took a class at our local community college on knife skills.  When we first decided to take a venture into cooking classes, hubby looked at the available classes and pointed out three or four he'd be willing to take.  I firmly decided we'd start with only one.  The other classes were for making specific meals or working with a specific type of food.  While I was interested in probably all of the choices, I had been wanting to first take a class on the basics in the kitchen.

Knife skills doesn't get any more basic.  We all of course can use a knife, some better than others, yet we all make it happen.  Yet, there is obviously a better way to do all things.  This class helped me learn that better way.

This would be where I would spend three hours of my Saturday morning.  It went by (surprisingly) very quickly.

We were first taught the basics about knives and then received a knife that came with the purchases of the class.

Not a bad deal if you ask me.

The handle of this knife is my favorite part.  It puts me in a very western mood.  I'm convinced that knife handles during the days of gunslingers had to of looked like this.

If they didn't, that's just a rootin' tootin' shame.

We started by learning how to properly cut up fruit.  The chef showed us all kinds of fancy things to do with fruit.  Like that awesome bird I made in the center of the tray.

Okay, fine, I didn't make it.  I did try, but failed miserably.  I'm blaming stage fright.

I did slice these sweet little strawberries.  They were so much more complicated than the apple bird.

After making fruit salad for an army, we got to sit back, relax and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Get it?  Fruits of our labor?

Because we cut up fruit.

Okay, sorry.

Then it was onto vegetables which I knew would have to be a million zillion times harder simply because vegetables are a million zillion times harder in general.

Try to make sense out of that statement.

I triple dog dare you.

Some of my pictures are blurry because I was using my phone to take them.  I had thought before hand to bring my camera, but then thought I'd look silly with it and changed my mind.

Then I ended up looking silly anyway by snapping pictures with my phone.

Lesson learned?  Always go with your gut.

All in all, I think hubby and my tray of veggies came out looking very nice.  And, we were one of the few groups of students to remember to slice our onions and place them in a separate dish.  Because who wants to eat onion flavored carrots?  Am I right?

Alright, in all honesty, I think hubby did the best at knife skills.  He diced pretty good.  I continued to second guess myself and lived in fear of the knife.

Here is where I bested him though.  We both made an attempt at a tourne cut with carrots.  Above is hubby's.

Wow.  Just wow.

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, a tourne cut is a method of cutting vegetables like carrots and potatoes, usually with a paring knife.  You are supposed to be able to make only seven cuts and form an oblong, football type shape.  The problem, and reason why you don't see this so often, is that you waste a lot of the vegetable in creating this shape.

Despite nearly slicing my hand (and in front of the chef to boot!) I think my tourne cut came out much closer to the real thing.

I just won't tell you how many cuts I put into it.

It definitely wasn't seven.

Our teacher really made the class a success.  He explained everything clearly and did his best to check in on each student (which was pretty difficult for him considering we had 14 students in the class).

I went home and instantly ordered the knife skills book he recommended and then set off to continue practicing the art of dicing an onion.  Other than the apple bird, this was the hardest skill taught.

Now that I have the concept down, my goal is to increase the speed and ease at which I do it.

We start with an onion.

Shocking, I know.

Leaving the root on, chop off the tip of the onion.

Cut the onion in half from root to tip.

Clear your work space!  Aside from the awesome cutting skills I learned, I took two other things from this class.

1. Don't give the finger.

In other words, in your hand that holds the knife, do not allow your pointer finger to point into the air or separate on the knife from the rest of your hand as you cut.  Make sure that all your fingers are grasping together onto the handle of the knife.

2. When you are cutting something up, remove everything from your work space (cutting board) that you are not currently working on.

Stopping giving the finger wasn't so hard to do (although the chef did call me out on it one time), but clearing my work space was something I had to constantly remind myself to do.  And it will be something I'll have to constantly remind myself to do at home as well.

Lay half of the onion flat side down.

Based on how small you want to dice your onion make a few slices into it horizontally.

The most important thing to do here is to keep the root in tact.  After trying this out about four or five times I have come to the conclusion that if you want to do it right you just have to practice it over and over.

And over and over.

A crazy concept, I know.

After the horizontal slices have been made, cut the onion vertically now.  Again, make sure to keep the root in tact by only cutting up to it, not through it.

Last, and of course, not pictured (because that would make life too simple), cut the onion across the vertical slices.

Discard the root end and then give your onions one final rough chop.

This is the easiest, most effective way I have ever chopped an onion.

That alone made the class well worth it's cost.