The Cutting Edge
The Cutting Edge
Chef’s Knives and Garnishes
What you will find here
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Reviews of Chef Knifes and Cooking Techniques
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A look at fun kitchen gadgets
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Making your food look pretty with center of the plate and fancy garnishes
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Video demonstrations and techniques
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Recipes and much much more
What You Can Do With A Knife
Hi, thanks for visiting the Cutting Edge Blog on GreatCookingToday.com. Here you will find articles which will help you to make a better looking plate or platter. There are also articles on knives, fine cutlery, kitchen gadgets, and useful appliances which make for a well appointed kitchen. Please feel free to comment on any article you find useful.
This blog explores the tools and tips of the cooking from a technique side. There are a myriad of great websites out there that catalog recipes. Some great ones are Epicurios* and the Food Network*, you probably have your favorites, mine are
This is a shot of a custom Bob Kramer Chef’s Knife
Ranging from a minimum of 6 to 12 inches in blade length, this knife is the mainstay of the western kitchen. This knife can do all the heavy operations you may have. Used for cutting up vegetables and salads, most cooks will use this knife for 75% of what they cut in a kitchen. A good Chef’s knife will have a very sharp blade that keeps its’ edge. It will also have enough depth of blade to give good clearance for your knuckles as you move up and down while cutting.
Trimming meat, you would use a different knife such as a “boning knife” or “filet knife” covers probably another 20% of what you do in a kitchen. So if you have these two knives you have all you need for a decent start. With the French knife for slicing operations you use a rocking motion; keeping the tip on the cutting board, you lift the heel up move over slightly and slice through the onion… carrot or whatever you are slicing.
With dicing you are simply adding a step and turing the sliced items 90 degrees and slicing them again. It is important to keep the tip of the knife on the board at all times. Can you chop slices? Yes you can, but you better learn how to get your holding hand out of the way quickly. That move takes some time to acquire. I have had to have several conversations with my right hand to convince it to stop abusing my left.
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Here is the Bob Kramer Collection Chef Knife by Kershaw Shun Knives (VG 10 Stainless Steel)
The recent introduction of Japanese knives into this country has brought on a variation to the chef’s knife with the “Santoku” style (basically a French knife with the tip cut off or rounded down). There are times when you need to be able to reach under your holding hand to get a slice or piece of something, like an apple. When you want to quickly core and get the usable part, you need to hold on from the top of the apple and reach under your palm. With the Santoku this is much simpler than with the French knife. The chances of stabbing yourself are greatly reduced. For pure slicing purposes however the longer blade of a French style blade gives better rocking motion and is easier to manipulate.
Which knife you use depends on the type of thing you need to cut up. A small slicing knife* is perfect for slicing fruit. A cantaloupe or honeydew melon is easily skinned with this knife because the blade is strong and narrow with lots of flexibility. It is flexible enough to follow the contour of the fruit and take off just the right amount of the skin without making the fruit look like a cinder block. A kiwi-fruit is as easily peeled. Of course when you are cutting fruit you may want to go the extra step of making some fancy cuts to make it more decorative.
This is where the paring and zester and channel knife come into use. Not to be left out is a simple dough knife which is great for picking things up and cleaning up the board. The art of food garnishing is fascinating and is widely explored in some of the garnishing articles. Let’s all have fun! Your comments are appreciated.
Michael Brown
About the format of this blog. This is a stationary front page which means that new posts will appear in the recent posts area to the right side. You may also want to look at the Table of Contents tab at the top of the page for a complete listing of articles by category.
How to Make an Apple Bird
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Kitchen knives look all the same to me but i wish I knew the difference between types and brands. I suspect that would make my days in the kitchen a lot better.
Grace;
I sympathize with your challenges. It takes a while to learn to appreciate the differences. If you only had to cut an onion once a week and never took a knife our of the drawer or knife block any other time, it would take a long time to learn about the differences. Obviously chef types who have a knife in their hands for several hours a day will learn to like certain ones over others because they cut better, or feel better, fit their hand better or get the job done more quickly. To start you need a longer knife with enough weight to cut through larger items easily. It is important that the knife be sharp so that the blade will go through the food you are cutting and not twist and cut you in the process. Now with a sharp knife you need some experience, learn the basic methods of toe to heel cutting and do it enough times to become comfortable handling the blade. A chef trainee in Japan is given one knife and spends 2 years learning how to do everything with just that one knife. Learning good knife skills opens up the door to a great kitchen experience for the rest of your life because you are not intimidated by the steps necessary to prepare a complicated recipe. There are plenty of articles on specific knives on this site and others as well as videos to get you started. Find some recipes for things like vegetable soup which require a specific size of cut and try to make it with what your learn about dicing, slicing etc. When you feel comfortable with knowing how to dice or mince, then you have a good idea of how a knife feels in your hand. Then you would want to visit a Sur La Table or other store and talk with a knowledgeable sales person to get an education on knife types and why or why not a certain brand might work for you. It is not an over night process, I have been at it for years and there is still something new to learn… but that is half the fun.
Michael Brown
I use Global knives at home and find them quite overated to be honest.
Great! Thanks for the information. I am surprised no Global Knives got a mention.
Ah yes the sand filled handle stainless knife. I really don’t know much about them. Out of 16 chef’s in our kitchen there is one santoku in evidence, for small trimming jobs the owner loves his global, but when he is confronted with a large vegetable chopping project, his Shun 10″ french style knife comes out of his box. Personally, I dislike the handle it is too small and it turns on me when I cut a hard vegetable like a carrot or sweet potato. I will research them some more and see if there is something I can find to like about them.
OMW!!! that is absolutely fantastic, a great piece that I can make for a buffet. Thanks.
those knives are awesome, and this video!!!
I didn’t know that you can do bird from apple.
Thanks for information about knife.I’ve got idea!!
That was a pretty amazing demo! I never realized how much difference the right knife could make. I hadn’t heard of that brand, either. Pricey, though …
Nice knifes.
These knives are cool but I still think that the voodoo knife block set is the best kitchen gadget you can get.
You can see it here http://www.super-cool-gadgets.com/kitchen-gadgets.html
Amazon.co.uk have a lot of kitchen knife storage.
Hey thanks for your brief ideas on chef’s knives and their significances in cooking and cutting. And this “Bob Kramer” knives collection seems to be the quintessential cutlery for our easy cooking. Yea, I love the long, strong, silver colored blades of these knives for comforting us in our daily cooking to a great degree! Thanks for your garnishing ideas with these cutleries too!
Where can we buy these in UK. These knives look solid !
These knifes truly are amazing. Even if it were for one day, any chef would jump at the opportunity to cut with these great knifes.
I was browsing the internet and I saw a knife that was very similar to Bob Kramer VG 10 Stainless Steel Chef Knife. I would love to have a knife like this one, but the only problem I have is the knife is $1,000. Cooking is one of my passions, but I really couldn’t justify purchasing this knife with the amount of money I make right now.
great knive set, I really love the look of them, I asked for a knife set for christmas but now I will show them this post.
Thanks for the great information on knives! I want to get a new set like those nice ones soon. Sweet video too btw, I’ll have to make an apple bird with them when I get it! Lol..