DMT D8F 8-Inch Dia-Sharp Continuous Diamond Fine

• Sharpening surface accommodates range of edges– from large knives to small pointed tools
• Fine diamond for a razor sharp edge
• Sharpens knives faster than conventional stones with DMT’s monocrystalline diamond surface
• No oil is needed-sharpen dry or with water
• Durable construction will provide years of consistent performance and reliable service

Quickly hone a razor-like edge with the uninterrupted diamond sharpening surface of this DMT 8″ x 3″ double-sided fine dia-sharp stone. This continuous diamond surface stone provides a cutting edge performance and is recognized for superior quality. Sharpening with diamonds is fast and easy. No oil is needed. You can sharpen dry or with water. Fine grit puts a keen edge on a regularly maintained edge. It is also great for water stone flattening.With long, continuous flat surface, this sharpening stone is ideal for honing most kitchen cutlery, up to an 8-inch chef’s knife, and also puts an edge on tools with either flat or pointed blades. Measuring 8 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 3/8 inch thick, the stone is great for long strokes and has non-skid rubber feet to prevent it from sliding during sharpening. The surface is coated with tiny particles of diamond, the hardest known material for sharpening, in a 600-mesh fine grit, enabling this sharpening stone to put an extremely sharp edge on blades. The surface should be moistened before sharpening and the blade should be passed over the whetstone with light pressure at a 20-degree angle to get the proper edge without dulling it. DMT generously vows to replace any product found to be defective free of charge. –Cristina Vaamonde

DMT D8F 8-Inch Dia-Sharp Continuous Diamond FineDMT D8F 8-Inch Dia-Sharp Continuous Diamond Fine

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Slicing celery with a Chroma 301 chef’s knife. (This is neither me nor my knife.) Photo: M. Brandt at Kochmesser.de

Staying true to my “relearn how to cook” objective from earlier this year, I’ve enrolled in a six-class back-to-basics course at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Gary’s taking the course as well as he, too, would like to be able to cook simple or gourmet dishes without cracking open a cookbook each time.

First up: Knife skills

In this first class of the Back to Basics series, Knife Skills, we learned the parts of a knife (tip, edge, spine, bolster, heel, tang, handle, rivets) and the materials or structure that makes a quality knife a quality knife. I now know how to hold, hone, sharpen, clean, and store my knives, and how several knife-users can safely coexist in a busy kitchen. I organized all the tips and tenets learned into two categories: Respect Your Cutlery and Respect your Safety.

Respect your cutlery

• Keep knives sharp.
• Keep knives honed.
• Keep knives clean; wash immediately after use if possible.
• Use the right knife for the task.
• Store knives smartly and securely.
• Only use knives to cut food.
• Do not wash knives in the dishwasher.

Respect your safety (knives edition)

• Always use a cutting board.
• Secure cutting board to counter (put a wet dishcloth or rubber shelf liner under the board, or use a board with rubber feet).
• Use the right knife for the task.
• Find or create a flat surface on the item to be cut. Rest this surface against the board. (Not sure how to follow this advice to create onion rings.)
• Cut away from yourself.
• Keep an eye on your blade.
• Keep the other eye on your fingertips.
• Clean one knife a time.
• Don’t leave knife in sink full of water.
• Hold the supporting hand in a claw position to prevent fingertipectomies. (The hardest tip for me to follow.)
• “A falling knife has no blade; do not attempt to catch it.”

Choosing the right knife for the job

Hong (our instructor) showed us some common types of kitchen knifes, their uses, and how best to use each type:

• Chef’s knife. The most-used kitchen knife. Common blade sizes are 8-inch, 10-inch, and 12-inch (8-inch is a popular size). The blade can be narrow or thick. A thick-bladed chef’s knife can be used like a cleaver to hack away at chicken bones and such.
• Bread knife. My favorite kind of knife. It is serrated (has teeth) and has a narrow blade. Serrated knifes, especially bread knives, are great for slicing items with a lot of different surfaces and textures going on, or items such as cakes that have compressible, spongy textures too fragile for a toothless blade to slice through without damaging the food. A bread knife is good for slicing crusty bread (of course), tomatoes, pineapples, pies, and chopping chocolate. (This surprised me; I’ve always used a chef’s knife to chop chocolate.)
• Paring knife. Perfect for in-hand peeling of foods such as garlic and apples. Also good for chopping small items such as garlic, separating citrus fruit into sections, and hulling strawberries. Because paring knifes are used for a lot of in-hand tasks, using one safely requires a lot of control. One caveat of many: Make sure you can see the tip of the knife when paring.
• Boning knife. Use a boning knife to trim meats from bones. A flexible blade that can easily slide through and around bones is key. We don’t own a boning knife probably because we rarely buy whole chickens or bone-in meats. We shall strive to be more adventurous in this realm!
• Fillet knife. For filleting fish, of course. Has a thin, flexible blade that can slide right through the flesh of fish and detour around bones as necessary. Another knife we don’t own; we generally buy our fish already filleted.

When I had my own Henkels 4-star knife set, I used the chef’s knife and the paring knife most of all. The bread knife was a noble runner-up, as I was always happy to have some extra crusty bread, or pumpkin or banana bread at the ready. Gary had his own Henckels Professional “S” set, so after a period of cohabitation and our respective knife blocks commandeering precious food-preparation space, I offered to find a new home for my blades (I kept the bread knife, though, because Gary’s set didn’t have one). I am in love with his Wustof Culinar Santoku knife, which I now use more often than the chef’s knife, even for slicing and chopping. But love can be blind; after the brief these-are-some-common knifes presentation, I decided to reacquaint myself with the chef’s knife.

Hong had set up cutting stations for each of us before class. Each station included a cutting board anchored to the counter with a sheet of something akin to nonskid shelf liner, a chef’s knife, a paring knife, and a vegetable peeler, plus our test subjects—an orange, a carrot, an onion, a pepper, a celery stalk, a few garlic cloves, and a potato. Every two students were given an enormous zucchini to share. Also shared were bench scrapers, bowls of salt, and large garbage bowls.

Per Hong’s demonstrations and instructions, I peeled and de-pithed my orange by cutting off one end, placing the flat end on the board, and using curved, downward strokes of the paring knife to detach pith ‘n peel simultaneously. Then, with the naked orange resting in my left hand, I cut it into segments, leaving the inter-segment membranes behind. Then I ate the sections. The carrot was julienned, then minced. Half the onion was sliced into equal-sized pieces by way of a method I’d never used before but won’t describe here, the other half was diced. The pepper was also julienned after its top and bottom were lopped off, the remaining torso cut vertically then flattened into a strip, and the membranes cleared away. Rondelle was the technique used to prepare the celery stalk. I smashed the garlic cloves with a side of the chef’s knife, peeled and minced them, then added some salt and tried to mush them into a paste. The potato was sliced into batonnet sticks (about 2.5″ by .25″ by .25′). (Please pardon my naive use of these French cooking terms.)

The fruits (and vegetables) of our labors were collected throughout the session; we then prepared ourselves a very tasty lunch of fresh vegetable salad, pasta with vegetables, grilled crusty bread, rosemary-parmesan french fries, and sliced pineapple and watermelon. (Hong’s demo included cutting up pineapples and melons and carving little flowers out of celery root, but we did not practice these techniques in class.)

I’d still like to know how to make uniform onion coins (for sandwiches and onion rings) without using a mandolin. The two techniques I need to practice most are keeping my left-hand in the claw position while the right hand cuts away, and keeping my slices, dices, and minces uniform. I’m not watching what’s happening behind the knife; I’m not making sure my cuts will be the right size before I make the cuts. So much to learn, so much to practice . . . !

Kitchen knives are one the tools in the kitchen that we cannot do without. Just image how we could cut the onion, tomato, fish or meat without the kitchen knife. How can we cook a whole chicken or whole meat? We have to cut it. I do not think anyone could under estimate the importance of a knife in the kitchen.

I grew up with the practice of washing the knife with a soap then keep it to its rightful place. In fact, that could be in any place. Sometimes it is placed beside the spoon and fork. Sometimes simply place it beside the plates.

However, it is only recently that I learned I had been doing it wrong. The knife should be washed with your bare hands with a non-harsh detergent. Use a lukewarm water to protect the blade. It is important that we use detergents that are not harsh so as to protect the blade. After washing our kitchen knife, wipe it clean with a cloth. For our protection, the cutting edge should be away from us. It should be wiped clean with the blade placed on a flat surface. Again, make sure the cutting edge is away from you. As soon as one side is already cleaned, turn the other part of the blade on the flat surface then repeat the process. As soon as you are sure your knife is dried and cleaned, it is advisable to place it in a wooden or polyethylene knife block. Remember also to regularly sharpened your kitchen knife. However, please note that some knives need more sharpening than others. Inquire this when you buy your kitchen knives.

Not to sound too repetitive but allow me to remind you again. Please keep the cutting blade against or away from you every time you wash your knife. This goes until the stage when you are already wiping your knife dry as well.

Hope I am able to share something today.

By the way, picture came from bestkitchenknives.files.wordpress.com

Take care always.

A sharpening stone is the easiest way to return your knives and other cutlery to a useful state once they begin to dull. Not only knives but also scissors, razors, chisels, and plane blades can be sharpened with a stone. Sharpening stones are made of very hard stone or a manufactured material, such as ceramic or diamond stone. Usually in the form of a block that you hold in your hand or set on a flat surface, although they can also be found in the form of bench stones, wheels, or rods, these blocks are also called whetstones or waterstones.

Most stones are assigned a grit size; the finer the grit, the finer the grinding ability. Some sharpening stones are fine on one side and coarse on the other. The coarser grits begin the sharpening process, while a finer grit sharpening stone is necessary to refine the blade.

When using a sharpening stone, there are three keys to success. First, ensure that you are leaving a controlled edge angle on the knife blade by using an angle guide. Second, make sure that you establish an entirely new edge by sharpening until you raise a burr on the steel. Third, make sure that the new edge is smooth by honing or polishing the blade.

Before using a sharpening stone to sharpen your knife, moisten it with water or oil. This moisture will absorb the metal and stone dust that will be created during the sharpening process. It also makes the stone more effective at sharpening the knife. Diamond stones sometimes have an interrupted surface covered with dozens of recessed dots that collects the removed metal swarf and keeps it out of the way as you sharpen your blade.

To use a sharpening stone, try to hold the knife as if you are trying to slice a very thin layer off the surface of the stone. One of the most important parts of using a knife sharpener is to maintain a consistent angle as you sharpen the blade of your knife. Many people accidentally lift the edge of the blade against the stone, creating too much of an angle between the blade and the stone. Over time, this will diminish the quality of the edge you are able to achieve. To correct this problem, you may want to use an angle guide when sharpening your knives to ensure a consistent angle.

While sharpening your knife, Place the blade across the stone, and tilt at the desired angle. For most kitchen cutlery, this is somewhere between 15 and 35 degrees. The optimum angle should be stated in any paperwork you have for your cutlery, but use 20 degrees if you are not certain. With your wrists held rigid, draw the blade against the stone. This grinding action will remove a thin layer of the blade. Periodically move the stone so that you are working on a different section of the blade. Ensure that the blade is sharpened to a point by rubbing the stone on each side of the blade until the tip of the blade reaches the desired sharpness.

When sharpening a knife using a sharpening stone, keep sharpening until enough steel has been removed to form a burr on the edge of the blade. This burr will be removed during the honing and polishing process, but it is the easiest way to ensure that you have removed enough metal, exposing a completely new knife edge. Once the knife is polished, it will be ready for use again.