The full-length version of Kitchen Essentials: Knife Skills by Norman Weinstein appears in the current issue of Gourmet Live. Download the free Gourmet Live app to get this story and more.
Photo: Kelly Senyei
Here’s a good technique to start with: slicing celery with a chef’s knife. In my book, I dubbed what follows as the “low” technique. It is used for items that are no more than an inch or so high, such as a stalk of celery, a thin carrot, or a leek, and slices cut from larger vegetables. The actual cutting is done between the middle and the heel of the blade, and not near the tip. How much blade you use cutting depends on the length of your blade and the width of the item you are cutting. The smaller the width, the less blade you will need to use.
What better way to launch our monthly Kitchen Essentials column than with Norman Weinstein, a retired Institute of Culinary Education chef instructor who literally wrote the book on one of the most fundamental aspects of cooking: knife skills.
Download the free Gourmet Live app to learn to slice and dice like a pro and get a list of the six essential knives every cook should have in their kitchen.
What a great lesson. Thanks for sharing!
Better knife skills should be essential for any aspiring cook.