Knife Skills and Kitchen Equipment
Knife Skills and Kitchen Equipment tests both physical skill and judgement: the grips and cuts, the exact dimensions of classical cuts, how an edge is maintained, and how to choose the right pan or machine for a method. Questions are often deceptively simple, asking for a cut size in millimetres or the difference between honing and sharpening.
The knife
- Parts: tip, spine, edge, heel, bolster, tang, handle, rivets.
- German-style knives in soft stainless steel such as X50CrMoV15, 56–58 HRC, take a 20° edge and tolerate bones.
- Japanese knives are harder (60–64 HRC) with a 15° edge, thinner and more brittle, so no bones or frozen food.
- Carbon steel takes the finest edge but rusts; wash, dry and oil immediately.
Grips and classical cuts
- Pinch grip on the bolster, claw with knuckles as the guide, tip kept on the board for rocking cuts.
- Brunoise: 1.5–2 mm cubes. Julienne: 1.5–2 mm × 40–50 mm. Bâtonnet: 6 × 6 × 50–60 mm. Macédoine: 5 mm cubes. Paysanne: about 10 mm across and 1–2 mm thick. Chiffonade: 1–2 mm ribbons. Mirepoix: 10–20 mm rough dice.
Maintenance
- Honing realigns an edge; sharpening removes metal to create a new edge.
- Whetstone sequence 400 for repair, 1000 for the edge, 6000 for polish; hold 15–20°.
- Steel briefly before each task, sharpen when the tomato skin slips rather than cuts.
Equipment choice
- Copper conducts best but reacts with acid; aluminium reacts; stainless is inert but a poor conductor unless sandwich-based; cast iron holds heat and needs seasoning.
- Induction requires a magnetic base, so copper and aluminium pans will not work alone.
- A rondeau suits braises, a sautoir has straight sides, a chinois strains finer than a colander.
- Forced-convection ovens run 10–20 °C cooler or about 25 % faster than still ovens.
Worked example
You need 400 g of 5 mm carrot macédoine. Whole carrots yield 82 % after peeling and topping, and dicing loses a further 8 % of that as offcuts. AP weight = 400 ÷ (0.82 × 0.92) = 530 g. Cut on a colour-coded polyethylene board with a 20 cm chef's knife: trim to a block, cut 5 mm slices, then 5 mm batons, then cross-cut into cubes, keeping the claw throughout.
Traps that cost marks
- Claiming a steel sharpens an edge.
- Glass or marble boards that destroy edges.
- Assuming a dull knife is safer: it needs force and slips.
- Using the poultry board for vegetables in the same service.