How to Master Basic Knife Skills - Knife Cuts 101 — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:07what's up commis chef billy parisi here
3. 0:10and today i'm gonna show you those
4. 0:13perfect knife skills that all people who
5. 0:16love to cook should know how to do i
6. 0:18posed out the question what would you
7. 0:20like to see me do in some of these
8. 0:22videos that are for you for the
9. 0:24subscribers and an overwhelming majority
10. 0:26of you all said knife skills there are a
11. 0:28few other ones in there that we'll get
12. 0:30to in some other videos but for now
13. 0:31we're gonna focus in on knife skills and
14. 0:34yes I do not have a hat on today I
15. 0:36actively try to cover up the gray hair
16. 0:39which is coming in way too fast these
17. 0:43days so no hat I got hair it's getting
18. 0:46great that's all there's to it let's get
19. 0:48in to first of all using the right knife
20. 0:52to do this as you can probably guess
21. 0:54I've got a ton of knives I come in
22. 0:58everyday I unroll my knife roll and I
23. 1:00pull out the knives that I think I'm
24. 1:02gonna use that day and of course the
25. 1:04number one knife that I always pull out
26. 1:06is my chef's knife or French knife this
27. 1:09is in between 8 and 12 inches got a nice
28. 1:12handle it's pretty thick in the blade
29. 1:15and this is your absolute kitchen tool
30. 1:18this is the thing you bring to any
31. 1:20cooking event the first knife you pull
32. 1:22out of your drawer to use it's the most
33. 1:24commonly used knife out there and
34. 1:26especially in professional kitchens
35. 1:28there are obviously a bunch of different
36. 1:30brands a couple different styles out
37. 1:33there this is a shewn knife it is a
38. 1:36Japanese blade the only issue I would
39. 1:38say with these as they're so sharp
40. 1:39they're brittle so you can't like hack
41. 1:41through bones if you're trying to carve
42. 1:42up a chicken or anything like that
43. 1:43because it could chip so any good chef's
44. 1:46knife will probably run you $100 or more
45. 1:49you take care of it by scrubbing it with
46. 1:51soap and water in your hands and not
47. 1:53putting it in the dishwasher keeping it
48. 1:54sharp whether it's running it on a steel
49. 1:57or sharpening it on a stone this is the
50. 2:00night to use and if you've seen my knife
51. 2:01which has kind of a funky handle and
52. 2:03it's made of carbon steel it's
53. 2:05incredibly sharp that's the one
54. 2:06obviously we are gonna use for today and
55. 2:08yes you may be laughing right now
56. 2:11because I do have an eyeful and nice
57. 2:12cheese that's a Dexter I don't think
58. 2:14it's affiliated with that show and no
59. 2:17I'm not a crazy sight
60. 2:18Killer vigilante person think it's just
61. 2:21coincidence or maybe they sold it and I
62. 2:25just like I don't know anyways what we
63. 2:27want to do is get into some knife cuts
64. 2:29and a really cool little tool here which
65. 2:32sort of just shows all the different
66. 2:35measurements whether that's the size the
67. 2:38width the length this is a cool tool if
68. 2:40you're really serious about knife cuts
69. 2:42we carried this thing around everyday in
70. 2:44culinary school we were tested on knife
71. 2:46cuts every day so it's something that I
72. 2:49pride myself on as having nice knife
73. 2:51cuts and hopefully over time after tons
74. 2:53and tons of practice yourselves you'll
75. 2:55get it - so - perfectly hold that knife
76. 2:57what you do want to do is grab it and
77. 3:00pinch it by the blade using your thumb
78. 3:02and your pointer finger so that means
79. 3:05the top of the blades will be pushing
80. 3:07into right here on your hand and over
81. 3:10time you will develop a callous fear
82. 3:12because you will be pushing and rocking
83. 3:14that knife on too hard or difficult
84. 3:17items that build up over time it's
85. 3:19totally normal and don't freak out
86. 3:21you're gonna have a callus sorry so once
87. 3:24you sort of pinch it now let's practice
88. 3:27cutting the most important piece outside
89. 3:31of even holding the knife is what you're
90. 3:33gonna do with that other hand that's
91. 3:35holding that food you always want to
92. 3:37tuck in your fingertips and then simply
93. 3:41practice rocking that knife back and
94. 3:44forth you can do this on a carrot on any
95. 3:47other vegetables celery does not matter
96. 3:48let that cold steel of the blade run on
97. 3:51the knuckles of your hand that's holding
98. 3:54the food item just rock it just practice
99. 3:57rocking maybe you're gonna do 10 or 15
100. 3:59carrots just to get comfortable doing
101. 4:01this this is how you slice and now that
102. 4:04you've had a ton of practice slicing
103. 4:06let's get into this first one called
104. 4:08bloom wall which is a small eighth of an
105. 4:10inch cube a smaller one which is 1/16 of
106. 4:13an inch cube known as a fine brunoise or
107. 4:16us in the culinary world used to call it
108. 4:18a broom Lisette but you're never gonna
109. 4:20use that you may use a brunoise it's a
110. 4:22lot of times used for garnishes and like
111. 4:24consomme soups and other things or just
112. 4:26in general just a garnish you want
113. 4:28sprinkle some stuff over anyways let's
114. 4:30get into it I'm going to be using a
115. 4:32carrot you can use a potato or something
116. 4:34like that we're gonna sort of trim off
117. 4:37the sides of the carrot on every single
118. 4:40side so that it's sort of lays flat and
119. 4:42doesn't Rock when we're trying to slice
120. 4:44it that's how accidents happen once you
121. 4:46get to that point go ahead and slice in
122. 4:48of what you think is an eighth of an
123. 4:50inch you can use your trusty tool if
124. 4:53you're not sure what 1/8 them an inch
125. 4:55looks like and then once you slice all
126. 4:57the way down simply stack up a few of
127. 4:59those layers do the same thing an eighth
128. 5:01of an inch over and then turn it and
129. 5:04using that rocking slicing motion get
130. 5:07you another eighth of an inch until you
131. 5:09get a perfect eighth of an inch cube
132. 5:11which is known as the brunoise and a
133. 5:13super funny story when I was in culinary
134. 5:15school especially the first part called
135. 5:17basics we all had partners that one set
136. 5:19of sort of partnered up with another
137. 5:20person and mine was a guy named David
138. 5:23and I'm like six-two six-three with
139. 5:26clogs on like six-four six-five I'm
140. 5:27pretty tall dude my partner was like 410
141. 5:30411 max he was pretty short guy and we
142. 5:33had knife skill cut test every single
143. 5:35day and man he was not too great at
144. 5:38knife cut so I wouldn't order to sort of
145. 5:39cut it up a little bit and scrape it
146. 5:41onto his cutting board making sure no
147. 5:42one saw me so he could take it up to the
148. 5:44chef and and hopefully pass it but I
149. 5:46always kind of did that table now man
150. 5:48what are you gonna do I don't know so
151. 5:50now that we've got this brunoise let's
152. 5:52move on to a small dice because this is
153. 5:54something we are gonna use all the time
154. 5:56just like with the carrot of potato cut
155. 5:59off the ends to make sure it will lay
156. 6:00flat again you need to do this or else
157. 6:04that's gonna move and rock around and
158. 6:05you might get cut and I don't want to be
159. 6:07the one responsible for that so once you
160. 6:09get it to that point slice in about a
161. 6:11quarter of an inch turn it stack it up
162. 6:16do another quarter of an inch and then
163. 6:19turn it again and then do that rocking
164. 6:22motion until you get a nice quarter inch
165. 6:24cube these are beautiful this is perfect
166. 6:26exactly what we're looking for on to the
167. 6:29next one my friends we are next going to
168. 6:31do a medium dice which is probably the
169. 6:34first or second most dice that I use in
170. 6:36all of my cooking in the exact same way
171. 6:39of cutting off the ends
172. 6:41instead this time what we're gonna do is
173. 6:44go in a half inch so once you are to
174. 6:48that consistency again layered up do
175. 6:50another half inch turn it half inch
176. 6:52beautiful medium dice cubes practice it
177. 6:56know it love it use it now on to a large
178. 7:00dice which is oftentimes used in soups
179. 7:03very Hardy very chunky actually don't
180. 7:05use large dices too often but we're
181. 7:07gonna upgrade to a potato because the
182. 7:09carrots aren't wide enough for us to do
183. 7:11this so same thing with the potato that
184. 7:14you did with a carrot knock off the ends
185. 7:16to make sure that it sits flat on your
186. 7:18cutting board so that it does not rock
187. 7:20back and forth once you're there we are
188. 7:23going to measure three quarters of an
189. 7:25inch wide
190. 7:25you can use your tool place it over to
191. 7:27to best gauge where you think that is
192. 7:30and then simply slice it fold it over
193. 7:34give another slice up at three-quarter
194. 7:36inch turn it and get beautiful 3/4 inch
195. 7:39cubes and I do have to say that your
196. 7:41first time doing this it's not going to
197. 7:44be perfect this stuff takes practice I
198. 7:46mean they say in the culinary world once
199. 7:48you've done it a thousand times you've
200. 7:49mastered it so you've got a lot of
201. 7:52practice to do my friends before you
202. 7:54start mastering and perfecting a lot of
203. 7:55these knife cuts but you will get it
204. 7:57start somewhere start practicing at
205. 7:59start you know practice holding that
206. 8:01knife rocking it back and forth you're
207. 8:03going to get it okay a few more knife
208. 8:04cuts and now on to the baton a what we
209. 8:08want to do is make sure it is a quarter
210. 8:12of an inch by a quarter of an inch by
211. 8:13two inches in length so I'm gonna sort
212. 8:15of cut off the ends of the potato here
213. 8:16you can use a carrot again and then just
214. 8:18in that same manner do a quarter of an
215. 8:21inch down turn it quarter of an inch
216. 8:23down boom you've got your baton A's
217. 8:25these are great little garnishes or just
218. 8:28fun ways to cut up vegetables to use
219. 8:30these probably aren't used too often
220. 8:32it's pretty thick maybe in a salad or on
221. 8:34the side served and vegetables let's
222. 8:37move on to one of the more popular ones
223. 8:39which is julienne which is 1/8 of an
224. 8:42inch by an eighth of an inch by two
225. 8:43inches in the exact same manner I'm
226. 8:45gonna use a care at this time obviously
227. 8:47once the ends are flattened out slice it
228. 8:49in an eighth of an inch turn
229. 8:51eighth of an inch boom you've got
230. 8:52beautiful sort of matchstick carrots
231. 8:54you're way too lazy to do this you can
232. 8:56get it from the grocery store but I will
233. 8:58judge you don't do it do it yourself and
234. 9:00get the practice learn how to do it my
235. 9:02friends okay so now that you've got your
236. 9:06basic knife cut skills I'm gonna give
237. 9:08you a bonus of three more starting with
238. 9:11the rough chop here's what a rough chop
239. 9:13is it's whatever you need it to be this
240. 9:15is what goes into stocks or if you're
241. 9:19gonna puree up something it doesn't
242. 9:20quite matter what the size or shape of
243. 9:22it is so for a potato I just simply
244. 9:25slice across as best I can
245. 9:27turn it slice it again I mean it is not
246. 9:31gonna be pretty it's not meant to be
247. 9:32pretty turn it slice it again I got some
248. 9:34odd shaped cubes here that my friends is
249. 9:37basically what a rough chop is let's
250. 9:40move on to the next one which is a fine
251. 9:43mince which I do say often this can be
252. 9:45used for garlic or garnish like this is
253. 9:49what parsley usually used for the knife
254. 9:51cut that it takes to get there a fine
255. 9:53mince so just folding up the parsley
256. 9:56just rock that knife back and forth
257. 9:58tucking in those fingers and then once
258. 10:00you're here really just mince away
259. 10:03rocking the knife back and forth from
260. 10:05one side to the other and then from back
261. 10:07to front it's gonna be a beautiful
262. 10:09beautiful little garnish you can see how
263. 10:11finely minced in size they are boom and
264. 10:14then the last one shipping on this is
265. 10:16really only applied to basil so pick
266. 10:18some basil leaves off next you want to
267. 10:21stack them up next simply roll it up and
268. 10:25then julienne that same motion of
269. 10:28rocking the knife and you have nice long
270. 10:30strips of basil this is really the only
271. 10:32herb that you'll ever do this on but now
272. 10:35that you have these knife cut skills you
273. 10:38need to practice them and you need to
274. 10:39practice putting them in recipe so
275. 10:41you're not just throwing away vegetables
276. 10:42all day while trying to get the perfect
277. 10:43knife cut the first one check out my
278. 10:45chicken detox soup lots of nice fine
279. 10:48mints and medium and small dice cuts the
280. 10:51vegetables in there and then the other
281. 10:52one is the arroz con pollo I do a lot of
282. 10:54small dicing in there once you get it
283. 10:56hooked up you are gonna be in great
284. 10:58shape with knife cuts my friends I'll
285. 11:00see you guys on the next
286. 11:02you