Chef Knife Cutting Techniques – Knife Skills

Get Your Chef Knife Cutting Techniques in Order – Knife Skills

Now you know how to buy the best chef knife and how to properly hold your knife and guide your hand when cutting ingredients. All that’s left is to master the correct technique. There are 4 basic techniques that you’ll have to master in order to get your knifes skills up to date. The rolling technique, the up and down cutting motion, cutting with the tip of your knife and the cross chop are the only techniques you’ll need to know in order to safely handle your knife when making perfect cuts.

1 Rolling technique

You will most probably be using this technique 90% of the time. So learn how to use this knife skill correctly and practice it until it comes natural to you. Used for thinner or larger cuts this technique offers precision and speed when used correctly.

As the name describes, this is a rolling motion. The tip of the knife never leaves the board as you pull the knife slightly upwards, back towards you and then cut with the sweet spot of the blade when pushed back down on the ingredient away from you. Hold a lid next to the knife and practice this movement. You’ll realize that your wrist moves in a round, rolling motion.

When you intend on making fine cuts the knife blade is guided by your knuckle as explained before in “How to Hold a Chef Knife and Guide Hand”. Remember keep your guide hand’s fingertips crawled inside to avoid injury!

When you intend on making larger cuts the blade doesn’t need to be positioned against your knuckle. Because it’s easier to make larger cuts by measuring the size you need, just fix the ingredient in place with your guide hand and cut as large as you need while moving your hand backwards.

2 Up and Down Cutting

This technique is used for larger ingredients. Because it’s hard to apply the rolling technique here, you would have to raise your knife blade too far up and thus lose control over it. So the up and down cutting motion is basically the best knife skill used for slicing large ingredients like cabbage, potatoes or any other ingredient that forces you to get your knife tip of the cutting board. Don’t use “the sweet spot” but the center of the blade and you’ll see that your wrist doesn’t bend that much.

Again, this cutting technique requires you to measure your cut by placing the blade against your guide knuckle. As the name describes the blade will cut through the ingredient by moving down through it. But most of the times, especially when handling hard ingredients you will see that you have to apply too much pressure and your cut will not end in being exact. In this case, after you’ve positioned the blade for the right cut width slightly move it back and forth for a easier slicing. The blade will slice right through while you still have control over it.

3 Cutting With the Tip of the Knife

This Knife skill is best when trying to slice long or wide ingredients, longitudinally. When cutting a long ingredient like spring onion, leek or celery you have to pinch it with your guide hand at one end. Basically the guide hand becomes an anchor. Then, place the knife in between your fingers with the tip touching the cutting board and pull it through the whole length of the ingredient.

Now, when trying to finely cut wide ingredients with the tip of your knife like a stack of leaves or a slice of zucchini you have use your guide knuckle. Place the guide hand in the middle of the ingredient and the blade tip at the other end with the guide knuckle against it.

Keep in mind that the ingredient should be just a few inches longer on each side of your hand. The blade has to touch your guide knuckle without having to leave it until the tip passes your guide finger. If the ingredient is too long the blade will be too far from the guide knuckle and by the time it reaches it you might cut yourself with the heel of the knife. Plus you have no control over the size of the cuts.

4 The Pivot Chopping Technique

Used when chopping herbs, this is probably the easiest knife skills to master. The guide hand is positioned on top of the blade in order to fix the tip to the cutting board. As no finger gets in the way of the blade this is also the safest technique. Place the guide hand flat on the spine of the blade next to the tip and with a rocking motion cut through the herbs. Start slowly and increase your speed as you go. You’ll master it in no time.

Know Your Knife Skills – How to Cut Using a Chef’s Knife – Types of cuts

1. Slicing and Dicing

There are many types of cuts for ingredients either for cooking or garnish but you will most probably employ just a few knife skills in your daily cooking. From rough cuts, to classic cuts or advanced types of cuts these styles of slicing will not only make your food look better but also help all your ingredients cook at the same time.

Rough Chops and Fine Chops

Irregular types of chopping are the easiest knife skills to master as they don’t take any precision. Just employ the cross-chop technique and chop it roughly or finely. The size depends only on your preference and what you’ll use it for.

Chiffonade

Don’t panic about the name! It’s just defining the technique of rolling leaves like basil in a bunch and slicing them finely. Take 5 to 7 leaves and stack them one on top of each other. Then, roll them on the edge side and slice finely using the claw guide hand and the rolling technique.

As a home cook these are the cuts that you will use most. But if you want to be more exact and impress with a beautiful plate go further with the classic cuts.

The Classic Chef Knife Cutting Techniques

There are basically 2 types of regular slicing knife skills and these are called the classic cuts. You may either slice a ingredient in strips or in cubes. The strips are called “julienne” and the cubs are called “dice”. So, don’t get scared of the french name “julienne”! It is just saying “Strips”.

Depending on the size, these types of cuts are either used for cooking or for garnishing. For example you will surely cook a battonet or a large dice while you will most probably never cook a fine julienne or a fine brunoise. It is easy, some cuts are just too large to eat fresh while some are just too small to apply heat on them without overcooking.

When cutting, the first thing to keep in mind is to stabilize your ingredient on the cutting board. That is done by your guide hand and/or by cutting a flat shape into the product.

When making classic cuts you have to remember that these are regular cuts so the ingredient has to be squared off. Make this step easier by slicing the ingredient in 2 inch sections. By cutting the squared of ingredient into equal widths, you will get equal planks. Stack them one on top of each other and repeat the process maintaining the same width.

You are actually separating the squared ingredient baton into smaller, equal size batons. If you apply this technique and cut perpendicular on the batons, maintaining an equal length as the width of the baton, you will get “dice”.

(Technically precise the size in length may vary between Battonet and Julienne by 1/2 inch to 1 inch. We have selected a equal 2 inch as both can have the same size and we don’t confuse the user)

Cuts to Cook With

Large, Medium and Small Batons and Dice

In case you don’t intend on chewing on a whole squared off carrot, there are 3 main cuts meant for cooking. The large batons, the medium batons and the battonet range from 3/4 to 1/4 inch in width, so too large for a garnish. Same goes for the large dice, medium dice and small dice. When cutting just keep in mind that if you take into account the width of the baton and you cut perpendicularly you’ll get the corresponding dice. it’s easy, right?

Cooking and Garnish

The julienne and brunoise (corresponding dice) are somewhere in between. You can either use them for cooking or for garnish. Julienne a carrot and you can use it cooked in a stir fry or to garnish a salad. Same goes for the brunoise. Use a onion, celery, carrot brunoise for a slow cooked ragù or a carrot, turnip leek to garnish a consommé. You will probably find them more often cooked than uncooked but remember you can also par-cook a garnish.

Garnish

The fine julienne and fine brunoise are really small. At a 1/16 inch in size you will most probably never cook with them. Usually you will find these cuts in salads or fine garnishes. For example use a fine onion julienne for a salad and a fine brunoise to garnish a tartar.

Now, remember! as a home cook, don’t stress too much over the exact size of the cuts. You just have to know that ingredients with the same size cook at the same rate and also look good in your dish. Use the larger cuts for long cooking times and smaller for less. Use the really fine cuts raw or cooked softly for garnishes.

Advanced Chef Knife Cutting Techniques

If you feel you got used to the classic cuts and want to really impress with your knife skills, try some advanced cuts. These are irregular but same size cuts that make your dish stand out.

The diagonal and Oblique

The diagonal cut is actually defined by the name. Fix a ingredient in place and slice it diagonally on it’s length, maintaining the same width. Now imagine a regularly sliced carrot compared to a longer diagonally sliced one. It looks a lot better right?

The oblique cut is based on diagonal cuts on one side of the ingredient and the the other. Take a carrot and make a diagonal cut. Now, roll the carrot backward 180° and make another diagonal cut. To continue just roll the carrot again 180° forward and make another cut. Just continue and you will have your oblique cuts. They Look great on some glazed carrots, right?

The Rondelle and Paysanne

The rondelle are slices of round ingredients cut to the thickness you need. Only keep in mind that your thickness is less than the width of the ingredient. The best sizes are somewhere between 1/8 and 1/2 inches depending on what you use them for.

The paysanne are slices of squared, rectangular, triangular or even round shaped cuts. The width has to be a fixed 1/8 inch while the side of the products final cut has to be no more the 1/2 to 1/2 inch. This would look awesome in a soup.

The Tourmé and Fluted

The tourmé is a more complicated cut. Take for example a carrot and slice it 2 inches long. Now, you have to carve seven exact facets on the side. Start from the middle off the carrot, going wider as you get to the middle and then ending thin as you pass the middle to the end. This is a tourmé cut and it would also require you get a tourmé knife or bird’s beak knife to make the task a lot easier.

The Fluted or turn cut is a curved slightly angled cut down into the ingredient. This cut is mostly done on mushroom caps for a beautiful presentation. First, pinch the blade of your paring knife and hold the mushroom by the stem. Then use the edge of the blade, tilt and roll, to make soft curved slices in the mushroom cap starting from the middle down to the edge. Now, clean the remaining skin off and cut the stem. If the starting point of your cuts is not aligned right, just use the tip of your knife to press a star shape into the middle of the mushroom cap.