"Imagination can be truly dangerous in the kitchen if the cook has little knowledge of the technique and poor taste buds". (Jacques Pepin)

My chef instructors have been telling me over and over about how important it is to have good knife skills in order to be able to become a good cook. According to them, it's like being alphabetized before expressing your thoughts in writing a book.  

With that in mind, I decided it was time to practice my knife skills and become better at it. On a snowy cold Saturday afternoon I dropped by school with a bag of carrots and a bag of onions and began working. 

My goal was to improve not only my speed in cutting, always in a SAME RHYTHM, but also the precision of each type of cut. That is why I divided each type of cut in different cups.

Above you will see some different types of carrot cuts: Fine Brunoise (top left), Fine Julienne (top right), Batonette (bottom left) and Julienne (bottom right).

Above are the basic tools I used to prep. my vegetables: a Chef's Knife (or French Knife - far right), a Paring Knife (middle) to help remove the top skin of the onion, a carrot Peeler (bottom left) and a Bench Scraper (far left) to pick up the vegetable cut pieces and place them in each cup.

One other vegetable that a cook should master with his knife skills is an onion. According to my chef instructor, in an interview, one of the first things he will ask a candidate to do is cut an onion in front of him. It the person stumbles, discarded at that very moment. According to him, if you don't know how to cut an onion, you will take too long to prepare anything in the kitchen and became an expensive employee for the restaurant. On the other hand, if you have quick and good knife skills, you are useful for many areas.

The only problem about practicing my knife skills on a bag of room temperature onions was that it made me cry so much that by the time I was finished I had no more makeup left on my face. I am glad I was not wearing lenses this day.

Hint: If you chill your onions before chopping them, they will release less acid particles and irritate your eyes less.

Three hours later and seven vegetable cups filled concluded my practice.

Next practice I intend to fill these cups in 2 hours.