Knife Skills 101 with Calm Teacher

1. Welcome!: In this class, I'm going to show you how to hold the knife correctly and use it safely. These are some of the lessons I learned on my first day of culinary school and now I want to share them with you. My name is Jeff Joanna and I'm a professionally trained chef and I've been cooking for the past ten years in restaurants and hotels. Now I run my own private chef company, meal prep and also cooking classes. What I focus on is empowering the home cook to cook more. Okay, That is a big problem today is that people are just not cooking enough. Studies show the more you cook, the healthier you are, not just nutritionally, but socially, family and friends. So we need to start cooking more. And how do we start cooking more? We have to learn how to use the knife. So that's what this course is about. It's about inspiring you to cook more, feel more confident and organize yourself in a way that you start enjoying the cooking process more. What I'm excited to teach you is how to make this beautiful 30-minute minestrone soup. From the knife skills we're going to use a lot of courses. We'll just have you chop things and then you don't know what to do with all these chopped up carrots or salary. But this course is going to build on itself. So I'm going to teach you how to cut the onion and cut the carrot. Then we're going to put it all together in this really easy minestrone soup. By the end of this class, you should feel really confident using your knife and also be able to organize yourself better in the kitchen. I love to get started with you. Please gather your ingredients. Have a knife and a cutting board ready, and we'll go over the safety basics before we get started. Let's cut to it. 2. Why do we need knife skills? : Why do we need to learn about knife skills? We need knife skills for safety, but also the cooking time. If you have a bunch of large pieces and small pieces, the big ones will not cook as fast as the small ones. And you're going to have some mushy and some uncooked. So you need to have everything in the right sizes because it's going to affect the final texture and the look of your dish. So in this class I'm going to teach you how to hold a knife so it's safe and you're able to cut your ingredients consistently. 3. Knife Safety: We have to know that the knife is a weapon, okay? Especially if it's sharp, which it should be because a sharper knife is safer knife. It doesn't slip. But how do we hold the knife safely? And how do we set up our workspace so that it is a safe space for us. The first thing to know is how to hold the knife. Both hands are important here. The hand that you're going to hold the knife, index, and thumb finger here. Pinch the bolster to get a really firm grip. So that's easy. But now we need this hand always tucked back, okay, because this one can get hurt. Never flat on the board. We always want to tucked like that. You should always have contact with the board and never cut in the air because it's very unstable. It cutting boards. I love a wooden cutting board. It's the easiest on your knife blade, so it won't Dell as quickly. But a lot of people like to use plastic and that's fine. So if you do have a plastic board and it's not as heavy-duty and it doesn't stay in its place, you need to use this trick. This is super unsafe when you have a knife in your hand, what you do is you get a damp or wet paper towel here. And now you place it right there, and now it doesn't move. And also for your workspace, you need to make sure it's clean and free of debris around. Sometimes your knife can get caught on something like that's around. You're cutting board and it's just really unsafe, so you need to have a clear, nice workspace. This also goes for your mental space. So when you have a clean area, you're able to focus on the knife and not on all these other things going around. So always keep it clear. Those are some nice safety tips. Please keep those in mind and go as slow as you need to go. Okay? The goal here is safety and confidence with a knife. So if holding the knife this way is not as comfortable to you, just take your time so that you can feel more confident. And slowly like anything, you'll get better and better at it. 4. How to Hold a Knife (Step 1): Let's get started with how to hold the knife. This is super important because a lot of people mess it up. So starting with the eight to 12 inch chef's knife, if you want to use something smaller, you can. But this is the knife chef's used for most all the jobs. It's really important that you have a sharp knife. Sharpened knife is gonna be a safer knife because it won't slip on your food with the hand that you're going to hold the knife and you get those last three fingers. We're going to grip the handle here and then pinch the bolster where the handle and the blade meet. So now you have a really firm grip and a lot of people mess up and make the mistake of holding it like a club. So then when you go to chop, your knife is going to move and not be stable and you're going to end up doing more work because the knife is not stable. So always remember to pinch that bolster area. And this hand is maybe more important because now it can get cuts. So your non knife hand, we need to hold it like a claw. Okay. So I always go like that depending on your hand. If you want one knuckle in the front or two, but have a flat surface here so that if the knife slips or anything, it will just get a fingernail cut you at all. It has happened to me when I'm tired. The knife will slip but it didn't cut me because it just went right off the fingernail, so I was good. So always make sure that your non-life hand isn't a claw position and never flat on the board. Because when it's flat and your knife slips, you're in real danger there. So always keep it tucked like a claw like that. 5. How to Use a Knife (Step 2): What does the motion of the knife when we go to cut, we always want to have the tip to the heel of the knife tip to heal. And we want to glide and rock through the food so that we're cutting through the food and not bruising it unnecessarily because especially if you're cutting onions, you're going to cry more when you start bruising it. So as much as you can, sometimes you need to do chopping jobs and I just go ahead and talk like that. But always try to glide. It's through the food to cut nicely. This hand is going to tell us how big or small the pieces are. If we move it in larger increments, we're going to have bigger slices. And if we move it in smaller increments, we're going to have smaller slices, but you see how it's guiding me. So practice with your knife before you even have any food. And just tip to the heel and just feel comfortable having that knuckle right there, just guiding you where to cut. 6. 4 Cuts: Batonnet, Julienne, Small Chop, Dice: For different kinds of cuts, the ones that I mostly use in the kitchen, there are tons. And you can get creative and learn more, get your piece of salary. Salary is a great one to start with because it's pretty stable and flat. So we can practice our knife skills well. These knife techniques can be used on any vegetable. I'm just using the celery as a really easy one to practice on. We're going to start with the botany, this size here. So we're just going to break it down. This, we can go ahead and break them down further. So this is the baton. This is the kind of size we're going for. New knife skills technique. And just gently. It might feel a little weird at first, but this is the proper techniques. So you're gonna be able to cut longer and not get as tired. So this is our baton a cut. Now let's do the Julian. Julian is one of my favorite because it's great for stir-fry eyes, eyelids. It's really pretty. And those are a little smaller. So that's about a quarter inch to an eighth inch. If you get something like this, I'll go ahead and cut that in half. Like a matchstick. These are little thinner. Julian, cut and then we're gonna do these small chops. So the small chop comes from the baton a. So we're just going to grab a few of these already chopped up. And we're going to cut them into little squares just like that. And here we have the small chop. And then to get a small dice even smaller than the small chop, we have some of these Julianne pieces and we're going to cut those into squares. And that will leave us with a dice, are dice to go over. That to me makes our small chop. And then the Julian, we get a small dice. 7. The Project: Minestrone: The project for this class is you're going to use your knife skills. We're going to chop an onion and garlic and carrot, but we're not just going to cut them up. We're going to end and put it into a soup. It's going to be a beautiful 30-minute minutes drone that comes easily together. And it's going to feed about six people. So invite your friends and family over to enjoy this and show off your beautiful knife skills. Then you're going to post a picture of your minestrone soup into the project gallery. I can't wait to see your minestrone soup. 8. What is "Mirepoix?" (meer · pwaa) : What is mere palm? Maybe you've heard this term really simple. It comes from the French basics. So if you're making French food, you gotta learn Nearpod. Nearpod is just a mix of these main veggie. So we got celery, carrots and onion. And it's always the same ratio to parts of onion to one part of salary in one part of care, it's about one onion, one stock of salary, one normal size carrot. You remember that? That is the base for a lot of soups and stews and sauces. You can just start with that and you're already on your way. You dice all your veggies and it's sauteed and butter or olive oil. And then you're going to add your meat or chicken or stocks. And that is going to be the base for the French dish. So mere PWA, two parts onion, one part celery, one part carrot. Let's get started. 9. How to Cut an Onion: If you've been cooking, you know that onion and garlic starts so many recipes and knowing how to cut an onion, slice and dice, it is going to save you a lot of time and maybe not make the process so Cry worthy, right? So I want to show if you tips on how to cut it and how to not cry, I can't make any guarantees, but here's some tips that will help you to just start with one medium onion here, but it in half. So with Rollie items, always have a firm grip and keep your fingers back so it does slip, it won't hurt you. Then I always use the heel of my hand, keeping the hand flat, not flat on the board but flat on top of the knife. And you can just do that. Okay? Never like this. Okay, so now that it's cut in half, I'm going to peel it. It's much easier to peel. So just remove the first layer. If you can pay now that we've peel the onion, I want to know where the root is. Why? Because that'll be important. We're going to cut one slice midway, but not all the way to the end because you want to keep it intact. So keeping my hand up and flat using the heel of my hand. And you need a sharp knife for this, cut three-quarters into it, just like that. Stop at the root. And then we're going to turn it and we're going to go little cuts, also three-quarters way to the root so it stays intact. So starting here, starting here, pretty close like a quarter inch, get the tip into that and then rock it back. And then we turn it. Now you have to really firmly grabbed the onion so it doesn't slip. And we're going to rock the 9th this way. Breathe through your mouth if you can, to not cry as much and just go to where you feel comfortable this piece, save it for star, or just cut around 0 ahead and chop the other onion same way. So you get this small dice and chopping it this way helps so much because now it just falls apart. The natural way that onion false. So that's what we want. So once you have all your onion ready, put it onto a side plate or tray until we're ready to start cooking. What are some ways to not cry when you cut onions? One tip is putting your onions in the fridge or freezer. If you keep them in the fridge freezer for a couple of minutes. The colder it is, the less the odors will come and get into your eyes and nose and make you cry. You also need a very sharp knife when you cut onions, because if you're going to have a dull knife, it's going to start bruising the onion. And more of those odors will come at your eyes and make you cry. So those are just some tips, but sometimes even with that, you can avoid cry. 10. How to Chop a Carrot: How do we cut the carrot? Because it's Rowley, it can be a little more dangerous. I'm going to show you how to stabilize that carrot. We want a small chop for this. So cut off the ends first. I like to cut in manageable pieces. So for this one I can just cut down the middle. And then we're going to work with one-piece first. So this we can cut it in half carefully. I just grabbed a little n there and I use the heel of my hand to cut that just in the middle. We're going to cut little slabs. Okay. So first we cut slabs like that, cut those in half. So you have this, cut it into our button, and then cut it into our small chunks. Small chopped carrots are finished with the carrot. We're going to put that on the same plate with our onion. And I'll explain why we're doing this in just a second. 11. How to Chop Celery: Salary as well. We want a small chalk, though, cutting it into vaccinate first, and then into our small child. Our size. Once the salaries done, put it onto our plate. Now you know what that is, is the mirror PWA. 12. What is "Mise en Place?" (me-zohn plahs) : You might be wondering why I instructed you to put everything on a plate like this or you kinda see chefs do this and don't understand, Why don't they just start cooking already? The thing is this is called the Meese plus, or French for everything in place. So this is an organizational and time-saving technique used by chefs. So they don't go crazy, start cooking and then missing ingredients, trying to grab it while things are burning on the stove top, it really helps you get a communist in the kitchen. You prepare everything beforehand. That means you chop everything, you get everything ready. So I have my mirror plane here. I've got my zucchini, I've got my beans already drained. All we need to do is turn on the heat and kinda mix everything together and we're good to go so you don't have to be running around the kitchen. You can be at peace having a step-by-step process, but I know people think it will take longer. In the end, it makes the cooking process a lot more enjoyable. I've burned way too many of Pan trying to do everything at once. So remember Nissan plus everything in place before you turn on the heat. 13. How to Mince Garlic: Now we need some minced garlic. Lot of people buy it, but having fresh as the best, get the heel of your hand with the contact of the blade here. Just a small little whack will do it. Now that removes the skin so you get the skin out. There we go. We need about two to three cloves of garlic. So we've smashed it down already. You can smashed a little more. And it will just help break down the garlic. I like to chop it really thinly. One way of shovel it together and then go the other way. Notice I am holding my hand flat and just kinda doing this crisscross motion where I just bring it together. And then you can do this really safely. Just keep that nice straight up and down. Beautiful garlic we're going to set to the side, but that in its own little compartment. 14. How to Chop Zucchini: Kanye, another great veggie to practice on because it's pretty soft into a small chalk. So just cut off the ends. Just as I showed you before, I like to cut it in manageable pieces. They're just easier to work with one at a time. Don't do everything. So you keep your workspace really nice and clean, your headspace nice and clear when you do this. And then I cut slabs just like that. Then you can stack them up however you feel comfortable. Then turn it. You should be getting a nice small chart like that. Then we finished with the zucchini. We're going to continue with the rest. Put this with the little garlic that we have. 15. How to Make Minestrone: You're going to need yourself a nice big pot like this. And they get started with about one tablespoon of olive oil. Turn the heat on a little piece of carrot. And when that starts to sizzle will add all the rest of our mirror plot. We can add the rest of our veggies, register that every now and then for about 5 min until we get a nice trend. Loosen onions is what it looks like after about five-minutes of sauteing. Now we're ready to add all the rest of ingredients and beautiful simple recipe. Barley and zucchini are drained. Navy beans, kidney beans. We have four cups of veggie bra to always use organic bed you broth because there's any pesticides in veggies, they get concentrated when you make a broth of them are ****** in here. One bay leaf that you have to remember to take out. We have one teaspoon of dried basil, half a teaspoon of oregano, and half a teaspoon of time. A can of our diced tomatoes, small pasta, I like macaroni. You can use any other kind of small pasta, going to be three-fourths Acuff. You can just put that right in there with the half teaspoon of salt, pepper. It's about a half teaspoon as well, kind of secret ingredients. One of the umami or the sixth sense, Parmesan Ryan's this rind. That comes where you can't great anymore, save those. Ryan's, put them in your cheese door or the freezer for this moment. Okay, never make your minister own without it. Stick that right in there. That's a little saltiness. Look at how beautiful this is looking because the knife skills and everything makes everything look a little prettier. When it comes to a boil, we're going to put the lid on it and simmer for 15 min. Alright, the moment has arrived. Look at how beautiful that is. So remove the bailiff. We won't need that. And let's get ready to plate it. 16. How to Chop Parsley: Parsley here, wash and then tried to pat it dry with your paper towels there and just remove any of the stems. So you're only left with the nice, pretty leaves. Now that we have our nice leaves here, a bundle these up in a nice little bundle here is tightly as you can. So you can use this for also for cilantro, other fresh herbs thinly as we can, I'm holding it really tight. Fingers back and just slowly roll the knife into it. Keep a nice gliding knife through the parsley to keep it from getting too bruised. And there you go. That's some nice parsley for decoration. 17. How to Plate Your Minestrone: Let's plate this baby. You get a nice bowl here. Anyway, it also Parmesan cheese. So just a nice little peeler. Make some nice little scripts like that. Beautiful parsley job. If you have a few that occurred, tongues. 18. BONUS: How to Make Garlic Croutons: Alright, let's make some beautiful garlic crude towns for soup. So you just start with some butter and then hand torn bread, salt pepper, olive oil, little garlic powder on their lowest sheet. Just turn it for about 5 min until they're nice and golden. And then top your soup with them for that crunch. And finished with olive oil for the shy. 19. Conclusion: Thank you so much for taking this course with me. In this course, we went over some basic knife skills. You learned how to cut back to named Julian, how to mince, how to chop an onion. And then some culinary basics like mason plots and mere PWA. So now you have the basics to get going more into the kitchen. I hope this inspired you to cook a bit more for more courses, please follow me. You can go to my handle there and see more of what I do feel the next class. Thank you very much and remember, keep cooking.