Knife Skills 101

Knife skills, why need them?
Don't we already know from picking it up and using it, from home economics classes in high school, or from the amazing mandolin salespeople in department stores?

I spent a worthwhile saturday morning at Central Market Houston (our local for all fresh food) as a student again, back to the basics, Knife Skills 101.

Armed with my Messermeister knife bag and a few of the Wusthofs in our 'touring collection',

I set off onto the first floor of Central market, to a classroom with groups of tables and a demonstration bench. I always look out for the number of demonstration benches to get a feel for how hands on the class is, and this time, they had chopping boards lining up the front bench with chef's knife for everybody (we were encouraged to bring our own).

Our class started promptly at 10am. Chef explained to us that Knife Skills were essential to greater efficiency in the kitchen, and proceeded to give us some theoretical background on types of knives, safety, uses, maintenance, and then got us all to work at the benches.


We had good practice on slicing, dicing, julienne, supreme ( a technique to use only the soft bits in citrus fruits) on various vegetables - onions (no goggles required although some of us did get emotional), tomatoes, garlic (smash and mincing), potatoes (making fries was that easy?), basil, oranges, grapefruit and pineapple. I love it when instructors explain why we add salt onto garlic before mincing (to draw out the moisture) , or take seeds off tomatoes for pasta sauce (seeds were bitter), as the best way to learn is to know why and to proceed with it.




The fruits of our labor became dinner - was the line on the course description. I had wondered why, but found the answer at 12pm when we settled in our groups with a meal and glass of white to taste the products of our knife work - thanks to all the assistant chefs around.

The key to perfecting knife skills is practice, practice, practice. Equipped with refreshed skills, I can make myself more useful in the kitchen, with more efficient techniques in food preparation. Sharpening the Saw, Woodshedding.....practice makes perfect.


Another thing we were taught, if we drop a knife (even if it is worth $1000), let it drop. It is not worth losing 4 fingers over $1000). Glad to report that no fingers were lost during the class :)

Insightful, and essential. What a class. And with the perfect excuse to tour Central Market in its busy-ness on a saturday lunchtime, all the fruit/food tastings...the chef's world is more than an oyster, when it includes chopped fruits and vegetables.

I am looking forward to more kniving fun in the future.  :)