Don’t let your knife practice ruin dinner. A bad onion will teach you more than a grand three-course dinner. For many beginning cooks, knife skills feel either daunting or like you should already have them mastered. But knife work requires you to slow down long enough to watch your hand. Good knife work requires you not to be quick but to control your knife. That means holding it, angling it, practicing it slowly enough to fix. When your prepping goes wrong it isn’t a failure. It means you’re actually paying attention, and that will help you make dinner, whatever that meal might be.
Begin with vegetables that are cheap and easy to hold and use for your prep. Use a carrot, a cucumber, a potato and an onion as your test veggies. Use a damp towel to stop your board from sliding. Pick one knife and use it for all of the exercises. That sounds simple, but it’s a big deal. Switching knives hides your mistakes from you. Take the first few minutes of the exercise to learn to hold the knife. Let it guide you instead of you clamping down on it. Your guiding hand should be curled, the side of the blade on your knuckles. If that feels difficult, take small cuts slowly until it gets easier. Slow, careful and repeated comfort is better than forcing yourself to make clean cuts right away.
Fifteen minutes in the evening while cooking dinner is the right time frame for your knife drills. First five: practice even cutting. Slice cucumber into rounds, cut a carrot into planks. Next five: practice even chopping. Cut those cucumber rounds into sticks, cut those planks into small pieces and watch whether they stay even. Last five: practice real cutting. If you are using the vegetables for dinner practice the knife work as you are cutting the onion for the pan or the potato to roast. Cutting skills are much faster when the cutting serves a real end. One thing to remember while you do all of that: Are you pushing down or pushing forward and down at the same time? That will change your cutting.
Beginners often try too quickly to make small pieces and don’t make the first stable pieces. A beginner cuts a round piece of carrot that rolls off and cuts a little bit more. The next time they cut a bigger piece that rolls off and cuts a bigger piece. It leaves pieces that are all different sizes and you are getting nervous that you will cut yourself next. The remedy is to make the first flat pieces on the carrot. If the carrot sits evenly the next pieces will come evenly. Another common error is not touching the knife with the guiding finger. That makes it easy to make cuts that are not the same width. Press the knife up against your knuckles lightly and it will cut consistently for you. If they start to change size don’t try to speed up the next pieces. Set up the vegetable, take a breath and start again at a pace you can be consistent with.
If you’re having a hard time try smaller tasks. Dicing an onion can be frustrating and hard, but try just making an onion half with a flat bottom. Cut an onion and just peel half and make cuts that are even and vertical. Cutting a carrot can be difficult and you end up with many different shapes. Try cutting even planks of carrot and keep cutting those planks until they are even. Before you start the sticks or cubes, work on those even planks until they are the same size. The cutting board will be your feedback. When you have finished your cutting spread the pieces out. How even are they? How even are they at the start, middle and end? How even is the knife when it hits the board? How even are the first and last pieces? Is the piece shifting while you are cutting? You’re not looking to criticize every cut, you’re looking to find one common theme. A cook is often able to improve when they know how to name the error. The next time you cook something that will be easier.
It doesn’t get harder to cut when you practice it for the meals you already make. Cut your herbs for breakfast. Cut your cucumber for your lunch. Cut onions for dinner. You will get to know the cutting motion and it will get easier when you practice it. Your cutting will improve over time. Less time on your prep, more even cooking and more peace in the kitchen because you will know what to do.
