Free At Home with Chinese Cuisine by T P Hong Page B

work is like learning KungFu: One has to be at inner peace. Start from the basic posture and aim for perfection through practice. If one is to take knife skills seriously, the first step is to learn how to stand properly. It is about how positioning the body vis-à-vis the work surface and cutting board in order to stay comfortable while working. It is also about how one wields the knife. The process demands concentration. One’s thought should be to follow the blade, and the blade follows our thought. Learn to work the fingers, palms, wrists, and arms in tandem nimbly and flexibly so as to work accurately, decisively, and safely.
     
    There are more than twelve categories of knife work, and each is subdivided into more specific, technical applications. Among them, we can find similarities with how the kitchen knife is handled in the West. One can also find more detailed description of some techniques with clearly defined applications that are less common in the Western kitchen.
     
    Cutting ( 切 ), cross-hatching ( 剞 ), horizontal slicing ( 片 ), and chopping ( 剁 , including mincing) are the most common categories of knife work in China. Shaving/peeling ( 削 ), jointing/boning/filleting/dressing ( 剔 ), and pounding ( 拍 ) are also common. Splitting and hacking ( 劈 , when using more force to cut open a carcass or splitting a fish head into two), turning, and food carving ( 旋 ) are predominately for the professional kitchens.
     
    Cutting is probably the most universal knife work there is. Under this category, the Chinese include the following basic cutting techniques that we practice often but do not categorically divide them as such.
     
• Straight cut: This is the most common knife work in the kitchen. Hold the knife at a 90° angle to the cutting board.
• Push cut: The centre of gravity is towards the base of the knife. The tip of the knife normally points towards the front left in an angle if you stand parallel to the cutting board. The contact point with the ingredient is in the middle and the base of the knife. Push the knife away when cutting.
• Pull cut: This is the opposite of the push cut. The centre of the gravity is towards the tip of the knife. This is a technique for shredding, for example, soft vegetables. The gentle action of pulling the tip of a sharp knife towards the body while cutting across the mushroom is a breeze.
• Sawing cut: This is for slicing bread with a serrated bread knife.
• Rocking cut: This is for cutting in half a firm squash or a giant watermelon.
• Slant cut: It is about holding the knife at a slant to cut diagonal slices.
• Roll cutting: It is a technique of cutting that starts from one end of the vegetable, straight cutting at a 45° angle. Roll the vegetable 90° towards the body. Repeat the cutting at the same angle to obtain pieces of similar size. It is done to increase the contact area with the heat and seasonings. It is also done for presentation purposes.
     
    Preparing julienne (long, thin sticks) or strips is shredding in Chinese knife work vocabulary, and dicing includes preparing mirepoix (roughly diced) and brunoise (finely diced). Both shredding and dicing belong to the broader category of cutting.
     
    Cross-hatching is a category of knife work that is closely associated with Chinese cooking. One often sees chefs scoring a diamond pattern in the skin of the duck breast or scoring the sides of the fish with diagonal cuts spacing out evenly; these are the examples of cross-hatching. Cross-hatching is called Ji in Chinese. Ji is a curved knife for carving. It is also a category of knife work in the context of food preparation. This knife work is often deployed on ingredients sensitive to the heat such as kidney, gizzard, or squid. The raw surface of the ingredient is cut with horizontal, vertical, and/or diagonal knife patterns. With the cooking heat, the ingredient will curl up, and the effect of the knife work shows through. It can turn into a