Tips & Tricks: Knife Skills

Kitchen safety is extremely important. One aspect of kitchen safety is knife skills. In order to stay safe, you need to know how to sharpen your knives and also how to use those knives.

One of the most dangerous tools in your kitchen is a dull knife. When your knife is dull, it causes you to put more pressure on the blade; the more pressure you put on the blade, the greater the damage you're going to do to your finger(s)/hand if you slip. Excessive pressure on the blade also increases the likelihood of slipping in the first place.

The first thing you'll need is one of these bad boys:

 This is a sharpening steel. Chances are, you already have one that came with your set of knives.

What you'll want to do is slowly run the blade of your knife along the steel starting at the top and going down toward your hand. Don't worry, the handle is designed to stop the blade before it hits your hand. This is also the reason you do it slowly. You'll want to hold the blade at a slight angle to the steel to ensure you get a good edge.

Once you've sharpened your knife, you'll want to rinse it under hot water and then wipe it down with a towel. This will wash away the metal powder that gets on to the blade while being sharpened. You'll want to sharpen your knives before each use. You will notice an enormous difference when you do.

Next up: how to hold your knife. Pretty much anyone I've ever seen who is not a professional chef holds a knife incorrectly. So don't worry if you're in this group too, you're in good company. But the time has come to learn proper technique so that you're no longer putting your digits in harm's way.

You'll want to grab the blade between your thumb and index finger, then wrap the rest of your fingers around the handle. 

You've most likely been wrapping your whole hand around the handle and placing your index finger on the top of the blade. Holding it this way is extremely dangerous because it gives you almost no control over the blade. 

Holding the knife the proper way will probably feel really weird at first. But once you get used to it, you'll wonder how you ever held it the other way. You'll also be able to actually feel a major difference in the amount of control you have over the blade.

If you've sharpened your knife really well and you're holding your knife the right way, you shouldn't need to put any amount of pressure on the blade. You should be able to cut through most foods just from moving the blade back and forth and letting the sharpness of the blade cut the food. The exception being hard food like carrots, potatoes, etc.