Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook (6 page)

A Few Basic Knife Skills

 

The more you chop, dice, and slice, the better your knife skills will get. It helps to know the correct way to hold a knife, but really it’s practice and intuition that makes almost perfect. We say “almost perfect” because the skills are constantly evolving and we’re always figuring out new stuff and what works for us. That said, it doesn’t hurt to have a little practical guidance, and since minced garlic and diced onions are included in most all of our recipes, here are a few tips for getting them prepped quickly while keeping your fingers intact.

 

Garlic

Wet your hands and your knife before beginning. That will keep the garlic from sticking to your fingers and the knife. Break off a few cloves and lay your knife blade squarely over a clove. Use the palm of your hand to give the clove a whack. That should crush the clove and loosen the skin. The papery skin should slip off easily once it’s been whacked. Discard the skins and continue smashing as many cloves as you need.

Once you have skinned all the cloves, bunch them up on the cutting board. The quickest and easiest way to mince is to use a seesaw rocking motion. Use your writing hand to grasp the blade and use your other hand to rest on top of the blade to provide balance. Rock the knife back and forth steadily, stopping once in a while to bunch all the garlic up again, because it will spread out as you are mincing. When you have this method perfected you should be able to mince a whole bulb of garlic in two or three minutes.

 

Onions

First, slice off the top and bottom of the onion. Then slice the onion in half lengthwise. Now the skin should come off easily. Once the skin is removed, place the onion cut side down. With your fingers safely curled in, grasp the onion at the bottom to hold it in place. Slice the onion widthwise, trying to keep the slices intact. Then turn the onion and slice lengthwise.

Isa swears that if she breathes through her mouth, she never cries from cutting up onions. Try it for yourself and see if she’s lying and crazy or not.

 

 

How to Get Knife Skills Lessons for Free

 

HIGH-END housewares stores usually have a well-educated staff working their way through cooking school. And the wonderful part is that they are usually bored out of their minds! When you are shopping around for your expensive chef ’s knife, employees will gladly take the time to demonstrate the proper way to hold the knife. In fact, when they see your wobbly and awkward grasp they may even feel
compelled
to help you, like Mother Teresas of the cooking world. Often they have a green pepper or an onion hanging around for this very purpose. So go ahead and hop from store to store, gathering knowledge as you go. It’s cheaper than a degree from the Culinary Institute.

 

 

HOW TO STOP YOUR CUTTING BOARD FROM SLIDING

 

We’ve all been there. You’re blasting your Neil Diamond and getting into your cooking zone, but the damn onion keeps getting away from you because the cutting board is sliding across the counter like Brian Boitano.
Veganomicon
to the rescue! Lay out a damp kitchen towel and place your cutting board on top of it; this will give you the traction you need to keep your workstation is place. Wet paper towels work for this, too.