Once you have acquired a good kitchen knife (or several), it is important to learn how to handle it. Not just so you can impress others who may be watching you prepare the evening meal. But just as much for your own sake and that of your food.
Proper knife handling helps ensure that you don't cut yourself – and with good knife handling, you'll also become skilled at cutting vegetables and other ingredients into equal pieces, so that everything is cooked evenly.
Rule number one when it comes to knife handling will always be: use a sharp knife. Give your knife a few strokes on your ceramic honing rod, and you're ready to go.
How to hold the knife
It is essential that you hold your knife correctly – and here you need to master ‘the pinch grip’. The pinch grip gives you full control over the knife, so that the knife (almost) feels like an extension of your arm.
How to master the pinch grip:
Grasp the knife blade with your thumb and index finger just in front of the bolster (where the handle and blade meet). You can also use your middle finger on the knife blade.
Now that you have a firm grip, let's go through the five steps you need to master basic knife handling.
The 5 steps
1. Rough cutting
Some of this may seem obvious to you as a reader, but let's be a little thorough rather than have someone reach for the first aid kit because we were too fancy to describe the basics ;-)...
When cutting vegetables, the first step is to make sure they are completely clean and ready to use. Next, they need to be cut into pieces that are easy to work with. A good rule of thumb is to cut your vegetables into pieces no larger than 10 centimetres.
You will rarely have vegetables in your dish that are longer than this, and it works well with what is comfortable to work with when you are standing with a chef's knife.
2. Now make a flat base
Now make a flat base on the vegetable you are working with. In our case, kohlrabi.
Without a firm base, your vegetables can become a little too mobile, and if you have a sharp knife at hand, you risk having to reach for the plaster after all...
So cut a flat base and make sure that the vegetable is lying firmly on the chopping board so that you can continue working with it safely.
3. Slice the vegetable
Now we come to the interesting part of knife handling – the step where you learn to cut safely, efficiently and quickly (without fear for your fingers).
Secure the vegetable on the chopping board with your thumb and little finger on either side. Place the other three fingers on top of the vegetable and bend your fingertips inwards so that the knife runs along your knuckles.
Once you have this grip, you can use your knuckles to determine how thick the slices should be.
Now you can cut your vegetables into perfect slices. Do you need strips or cubes? Then hang on – we'll look at that in the last two steps.
4. Cut your vegetables into strips (julienne)
If you need strips, stack your slices on top of each other and turn them 90 degrees. Then secure the vegetable again as described above and run your knife up and down, letting your knuckles determine the thickness.
Remember that your fingertips should always point inwards.
If your chef's knife has a slight rocker, like our Gyuto, you can leave the tip of the knife on the cutting board at all times and move it up and down. This gives you good stability at the start and makes it even safer for you (and your fingers).
5. How to cut the perfect cubes
We are now at the final step – and your vegetables will soon be no smaller.
Gather your strips into a bundle and secure them as described above. Now cut on the opposite side and see if you can cut them to the same thickness as the strips.
This will give you perfectly square cubes.
Are you unsure about any of the steps we have described above? It is not always easy to learn from written instructions – fortunately, you can watch the video above, where Thomas Rode demonstrates and explains the process in practice. Good luck!
