How to Safely Use Kitchen Knives

Chef Desseray: I am going to show you my knives now. Look at all these, see come here behind, safety first, have you ever seen so many knives? Alright. Do you know what kind of knife it is? Child: Dicer. Chef Desseray: Dicer, well you are going to use it to dice, it's a Chef's Knife. This is the most utilized knife in the kitchen. If you had none of these other knives, you could still get by just with this one knife. It is essentially for chefs, almost an extension of your own body- your hand, your arm to your knife. You should find one that actually works well for you. This one is approximately 9 inches long. 9 inches, they also make 8, they do 10, they do 12 but for working on and especially for new people, you want one that's about 8 inches and this one is my favorite about 9 inches. It works really well and I tend to get a lot more quality cuts out of it, if they are not so long. But this one, nice sharp edge, how about this one? Look at that. Why do you think it bends like that? Why would I do that? Child: To remove around bones. Chef Desseray: Asher, you are so smart. This is a Boning knife, that is fantastic. We use this to cut open chicken. We can use this for skinning fish. We can use this for just about any need. It's great because it bends, you can get underneath thing and going around bones as Asher said. It's very flexible, very easy to use and most likely, you will see this in context of butchering meat as well. Wow, I will go into this one, what's this one called? No way, this is a Serrated knife, see all these little nubs on there. They are all very very sharp but the serrated makes it a lot easier to get through that crust. Anything that has a more difficult crust, this is the one to use. If for some reason, one of the rules for knives and using knives is that they always should be sharp. A dull knife is much more dangerous then a sharp one. So we always make sure that they are sharp. So if you had a choice between a dull chef knife or a serrated knife that's nice and sharp, always go for the one that's sharper. And here, funny looking things, do you know what either of these are called? Child: Bird Beak Knives. Chef Desseray: That's a Bird Beak Knife, exactly, look at that little bird beak. Why do you think it shaped like that? Child: To easily cut on round vegetables. Chef Desseray: Yes, if I am using this to peel, look at how easily I could use that to peel an onion or to peel a potato. It's nicely curved that gives you those special cuts if you wanted to do some fancy garnishes like tomato flowers or little bouquets for leaks. This is really nice to use because it's so small but is also great for delicate work. Now this is just a little bit different, this is a different pairing knife. Its a nice short pairing knife, these are both paring knives, this one is called a birds beak paring knife. This one is great for the same thing. You can use this to peel things on the outside, you can use this for small things like if you are going to take garlic and chop that up. Sometimes this can be pretty big for something as small as garlic, so use this one. Very good utility knife. How about this? Child: Shreds like lemon skin and lime skin. Chef Desseray: Exactly, so what if the skin of a lime or lemon called? Child: A peel. Chef Desseray: A peel and when we take this and uses over the vegetable, here let me grab a lemon right here. Look what happens, then it becomes zest, you see that. How it comes off in the middle, smell that. Put that in your hand and smell that. The peel becomes the zest and we use this for garnishes. How pretty that is if we had some fish we can put that on, put it in salads but see how it just takes off the outer skin, the yellower stuff, the white stuff we is the pith, it doesn't come off with that, that becomes that's bitter. So we don't want that but these are very lemony, they smell so good. So that's why we use this Zester. Now, Asher I bet you know what this is? Child: A knife sharper. Chef Desseray: It is. It is called a steel and we use this for our knives again to make sure that they are very sharp but we use this steel between working so if I am using this knife for cutting potatoes. I am going to sharpen it fast between this and my next project, feel it, make sure it is sharp and then I will wash that off before I use it and then just keep this right beside my work surface so that I can always refresh that edge of my knife between working. Especially if you are going from something hard like a carrot to something soft like a tomato, makes it hard and it dulls your blade down. So any questions about my knives? We saw a lot different ones there, aren't there? So many options. Alright, so let's talk a little bit about knife safety. With these, since we want to make sure that we work as safely as possible. One of the first things as I said, you want make sure it is sharp. So ask mom and dad, if you choose to do this with your fingers by dragging them just gently over the knife blade, you will feel--, it feel sharp but by going nice and soft side way,s don't go the long way. Nice and soft side ways, you will feel how sharp the knife is. If it's really dull, it will feel almost like the back non sharp side of the knife. Really dull so we always make sure that the knives are sharp because if they are dull, they are really dangerous it will slip right off the food and then on to your fingers. Another thing we want to make sure again that the blade is pointed away from you at all times. Even if you are cutting, you never want to cut towards yourself. So if you were working on a project and my hand is here and I was cutting like this, that would be dangerous. I would rather flip the product around and cut away from myself. Never ever ever cut towards your fingers, so that is your number one rule. Also, do not be afraid if your knife falls. If your knife falls, you want to make sure that you just let it drop. The best thing to do is just notice it's going to fall and then just jump back. And once you jump back, that makes sure that it doesn't get on your toe, make sure it doesn't get you on the way down and it doesn't allow you to grab it because if one thing you are going to do, it's going to be heavier here. So it's going to up this way and you are going to grab the blade, right. You don't want to do that. So you want to make sure that if it does drop, just let it go. Once you are done using it, you will take it to the sink, wash it immediately and then put it on the side of the sink. If you don't have time to wash it right away, set it on the side of the sink to be washed later. Never put it in a soapy water, why do you think that would be a bad idea? Child: Because then somebody might notch there and they might reach in the water and cut thereselves. Chef Desseray: I knew you guys were smart, so yes, if somebody else put there hand in there they, wouldn't know that there is a knife in there. So they would grab in and they would cut themselves or you might forget too and go back in and accidentally cut yourself. So we want to make sure that we are safe in here. So here is all our knives, no questions about those. Child: I have a question. Why are these two so special for like maneuvering? Why couldn't you use like a big knife, like this one? Chef Desseray: You could, but think about how easily this fits right into my hand. You see how small that blade is? I can get right into something and do tiny little work right here, but I am also going to try to do it with that, how am I going to get that tip right into something. You see it's the lot further away from the product and also once it gets in here, it also becomes almost kind of a part of you hand again. You have much more control when the blade is smaller like this. So that's a really good question. But if you are going to do something with very small, delicate work, you always want to make sure you grab one of these. Any other questions? I thought you might. Well, why don't we start doing some cuts, I think that would be fun. We have cutting boards. We have safety and sanitation buckets. We need to have towels underneath so here are our towe