We've Got Skills!

Matt & I finally got around to signing up for Knife Skills 101 at Central Market cooking school. Our class, held last night, was pretty good. I'm not sure I learned any concepts I didn't (intellectually) know from watching Alton Brown on Good Eats, but having practice and somebody there to check my technique was good.

We sliced, we diced, we julienned. And, we even cut supremes from oranges (which wasn't nearly as hard as I feared, once I got onto the idea that I'd be cutting away 70% of the orange). We started by making julienne strips out of a tortilla, then moved on to cutting an onion, jalapeno, tomato, carrot, and finally oranges.

The instructor passed on these tips, which I'll share in case you haven't watched the Good Eats episodes (linked below):

• Sharp knives are actually a lot LESS dangerous to use than dull ones, since you don't have to try as hard. Yeah, you could go to great lengths and buy an expensive mechanical sharpener (which doesn't work all that well and costs a lot) or a cheaper stone (which you don't know how to use that well and is a pain to store) or you could just take your knives in for professional sharpening. Around Austin, take them to Knife Sharpest on Burnet Road. They'll sharpen a chef's knife for about $3.75. (I understand most quilt shops know people who sharpen scissors, and they can often do knives, too.)
  
• Keep your knife on the cutting board as much as possible, rocking the knife rather than forcing it down.
• Keep your fingers out of the way when holding the food.
• Don't put the knife in the dishwasher. Wash it right away and put it away (our instructor recommends a magnetic rack like we have (she said there's a cheap but good one at Ikea, too), though I would not recommend it if you have kids!)
  
• Don't buy a big block of knives, since you won't ever use most of them. I like the advice America's Test Kitchen gives on that subject: buy knives separately, and you don't need to buy the most expensive knives, either! ATK recommends the Victorinox Fibrox knives, which really are a bargain compared to most.
  
• We need to get a sharpening steel. That may come in a block of knives, and is actually useful, if you use it as you should. A steel does not re-sharpen a knife, only brings it truer to form. Knives should be honed like this each time you use them (and wiped clean afterwards!). A good steel should have a larger plastic handle, to protect your hand.