I have spent the last few days slicing, dicing, and chopping, all in an attempt to perfect my knife skills. It started with cutting through flour with a pastry scraper for about a half an hour as lookers-on shook their heads in confusion. It may have looked odd, but it really did help perfect the rolling action but without a doubt it was even more helpful in adjusting to the proper position of my guide hand and its precious fingers. It took quite a while to get the hang of the connection between my guide-knuckle and the pastry scraper. To be honest, I am still working on it, but with each assignment, I am getting more and more comfortable with it. From experience with several unintended slices and dices to my own fingers, I can tell you that learning proper technique is paramount. More…I have spent the last few days slicing, dicing, and chopping, all in an attempt to perfect my knife skills. It started with cutting through flour with a pastry scraper for about a half an hour as lookers-on shook their heads in confusion. It may have looked odd, but it really did help perfect the rolling action but without a doubt it was even more helpful in adjusting to the proper position of my guide hand and its precious fingers. It took quite a while to get the hang of the connection between my guide-knuckle and the pastry scraper. To be honest, I am still working on it, but with each assignment, I am getting more and more comfortable with it. From experience with several unintended slices and dices to my own fingers, I can tell you that learning proper technique is paramount. In addition to learning how to keep safe with a knife, there was also time spent practicing how to hone a knife to keep the blade sharp. While a steel cannot sharpen the knife, it can reduce how frequently said blade needs to be sharpened.
From there, I received my first assignment in the unit; to practice my rolling and dicing techniques with onions, tomatoes, celery, and green pepper, and then mix them into a Moroccan couscous dish. I ended up adding a few more ingredients to round out the color. We had it for dinner (and the next day for lunch). For each ingredient, I had to upload an image of the ingredient cut into a small dice as shown below:
I had a little trouble with the onion and it was no surprise when my instructor subtracted points because of this issue. His comments were constructive and relevant. I felt he was interested in helping me improve my skills. Overall, I got a 91% on the assignment so while the onions got the best of me, I cannot complain, overall.
quookie 