It happens that you are invited to dinner. And sometimes, when you step through the doorstep with a bottle of wine in hand, your host or hostess hasn’t even started cooking. Work calls that cannot be postponed or force majeure will be used as an excuse. But because, firstly, you are getting hungry and, secondly, you are a helpful person who is devoted to the hosts and the cooking, you just go into the kitchen and start chopping the onions.
And this is where the real problems begin. Because eight times out of ten, you’ll be handed a kitchen knife so blunt that you might be able to juice an onion with it, but never cut it into small cubes. The question of how the host can use it to navigate through everyday culinary life is answered with a guilty shrug. Usually you get a small plastic grip knife with a serrated edge that has been used as a replacement for seven years.
The cutting board should ideally be made of wood
It is not at all rocket science to keep a knife that has been sharpened well over a long period of time. The secret is: careful handling. A good kitchen knife is a bit like a diva, it doesn’t want to be thrown in the dish drawer and certainly not – never! – end up in the dishwasher, where the cutting is completely bought off within a few weeks – because it hits other metal in the dish rack and the salts and acids in the dishwasher attack the high-quality steel. Instead, it feels comfortable in a wooden knife block and wiping with a not-too-rough sponge. Appropriate attitude, so to speak.
Anyone who takes this to heart has a rock in the board. Speaking of boards: Of course, the cutting board must not be made of metal (baking tray) or glass, but ideally it should be made of wood or, if necessary, plastic.
But the diva also needs a bit of care to keep her sharpness for a long time. A sharpening steel is essential for this, you should actually get it when you buy a good knife. There are some made of steel, which only keep the sharpness, and some made of ceramic, which also remove a little material and can therefore be resharpened a bit – and are even suitable for extremely hard Japanese knives.
But the best sharpening steel is useless if you have it lying around in the kitchen drawer and only take it out when the knife is already blunt. The ultimate tip that chefs, butchers and knife sharpeners give again and again: pull the sharp knife over the sharpening steel every day or at least every other day! You hold it like a sword in your left hand and pull the knife several times on each side from top to bottom in a semicircular movement over the steel. The angle should be 15 to 20 degrees, but it’s not that critical.
For all those who have a completely blunt knife lying around, there are two options: visit a knife sharpener and have it sharpened professionally (recommended), then treat it in an appropriate manner. The second option: buy a whetstone with two different grit sizes and discover the meditative art of sharpening. has what.
Hans Gasser loves to cook and learned from his mother how to chop an onion without looking. With a sharp knife, of course.
(Photo: Bernd Schifferdecker (Illustration))