How to wield a knife like a chef
The "chef tribe" often has the reputation of being rather mercurial. We obfuscate instructions in order to gauge our cooks’ common sense, and then rain down on them when they quite predictably screw up. This may come across as a horrid way of going about things, but it’s a perfectly acceptable and rather effective method of coaching.
The one thing there is almost never any ambiguity about, however, is the state of a knife.
To me, the knife is the most sacrosanct tool that a chef possesses (no pun intended). It is the one object – along with fire, of course – that can set you on the path of culinary glory. Both of these are also the two most important building blocks of humanity and, funnily enough, the discovery of the blade predates that of fire by a few million years. One may even argue that the discovery of the blade had a substantial impact on our evolutionary cycle and, further on, in our diets and shaping of our cultures: you don’t carve a rib-eye with your teeth or slivers of sashimi with a stone.
And yet what baffles me is that this: the knife, the most important discovery since sliced bread – ha! now it’s proven that it is the most important discovery – is so poorly treated in so many kitchens! The knife blocks picked up on a trip abroad or from the local lifestyle store as a necessity at the kitchen counter are understandable – they probably come a close second to the ab cruncher on Telebrands as a must-have – and they are displayed to slice a tomato with the same reverence as Samurai would have for his sword. Unfortunately, a majority (most of my cooks included) glide the knife towards themselves – which, to me, has the same effect as running your nails across the blackboard. I have, with not an iota of affection, dubbed this technique “naani/daadi”.
My grandmothers didn’t use any fancy knives: a majority of the cutting was done holding the vegetables in their hands and, on the occasion a cutting board was used, flat, small, straight-edge blades with cheap wood or plastic handles would be used like saws. There was little use for delicate and nimble cuts, and the word "food porn" had mercifully not been invented. Porn, of course, had, and I can vouch for that.
The French-style knife, the most common of the shapes that one will find in kitchens across the world, was designed to move in the other direction – away from you. The motion is simple: one starts by holding the tip of the knife on the cutting board, holding it at 30 to 40 degrees above the board. Using the other hand, the product is slipped below the face of the blade and then one pushes the knife both down and forward in a smooth motion, severing whatever lies below. If you perform this task once, it’ll become amply clear why the knife is shaped the way it is. It is also infinitely kinder to your wrists which, unfortunately, weren’t designed to form a cutting motion towards yourself, unless of course you were practicing to be a contortionist. And yet...
The other thing that I find exasperating is how little care people take of their knives. I often find myself demo’ing to my cooks how a knife can actually do the work for you. A dull knife means that they’re constantly applying more pressure, straining their arms, backs and necks and producing glorified crap! It’s not necessary to constantly keep sharpening your knives – unless you work in a Japanese restaurant, which is a completely different story – but just keep the blade aligned. This is easily accomplished by a honing steel, or even running both the sides of the blade along a rough stone or metal surface. Even in this, I see a lot of young chefs apply perfunctory methods and, in exchange, earn my rather considerable wrath.
Cutting and cooking will be a fun Masterchef Australia-like experience if you put your knife to good use. I highly recommend you try it.
The Sulk's Tips:
1. Cut away from your self.
2. Hold knives so that they are comfortable: bigger knives have better grips and control when one uses their thumb and index finger to hold the part of the blade just below the handle.
3. If you're spending thousands on knives, spend a few hundreds on a honing steel. Many knife blocks come with them. I wouldn’t blow my money on a fancy block, one good, well-maintained knife will do the job of six crappy ones.
4. Don’t hand over your knives to that guy with the scary-looking disc attached to his bicycle: I’m all for supporting local trade, but doing that to a knife is the same as filing your nails on a cheese grater.