dr. J family chiropractic
coming back with your weekly wellness
video this is week two in June our
introduction to wellness cooking back
with Rachel Zierzow natural food chef and
cooking class purveyor here with cook
love and heal in Austin Texas so today
we're going to talk about some basic
knife skills and this is something that
I asked for because I cook a lot but I
wing it and totally I don't know what
I'm doing I cut all my vegetables the
exact same way and it kind of works but
it's not the way that it should be so
Rachel's gonna tell us a few things here
about how to actually make some
different cuts in these vegetables but
first of all let's get it to how you've
got a set up here that's just a lot
different than what I use at home
what are your thoughts on you know
choosing knife and cutting board I'm
assuming does you know that's the equipment you need so there are
so many different kinds
of chef knives I do recommend having
one knife in your kitchen that's a good
quality solid chef's knife this is a
Japanese vegetable knife you don't have
to have this kind that's just one that I
enjoy using for cutting all my
vegetables but you can use a more French
style or more Italian style knife it
doesn't have to be a squared off one
like this but I would recommend getting
one that's the right size for your hand
that means it feels good when you're
holding it it's not too heavy it's not
too long it's not too short I believe
this is a six inch knife but I also have
some 8-inch knives that are a bit big
for me but I use them for big jobs like
cutting open a kabocha squash or a
butternut squash I need a little bit
bigger knife sometimes but does it
matter on cutting board that or is it
cutting board I prefer to use a bamboo
or wooden cutting board okay because
it's it's a natural material I don't
like using plastic for a few reasons
they've actually shown that there's
antibacterial properties in natural wood
 and so you can just wash it off the
hot water or a little soap if you have
meat on it that's fine and then dry it
keep it oiled maybe every couple of
weeks and it'll last a super long time
and it won't dull your knife plastic
boards I find dull your knife instantly
really bad yeah when you use it you want to
keep the edge on your knife sharp so I
like using wood or bamboo that's the
next thing we're going to talk about is
is knife sharpness is huge and most
people that cut themselves do it with a
dull knife because they're going in
there thinking the knife is going to cut and
it doesn't it slips it turns something
and then whoops you are cut so we're gonna
talk a little bit more about knife
safety while you're cutting but real
quickly how often do you sharpen your
knife and how do you do you sharpen at
home you take it in what do you what do
you do for that right I sharpen this
knife at home there's a few others that
I take to the farmers market to the
mobile knife party guy and he does an
awesome job but I sharpen this one
myself with a ceramic stone because it
has a carbon steel blade but you don't
have to sharpen your own I only need to
sharpen it every maybe six weeks of two
months and I'm using it constantly great
but it stays sharp enough that I can cut
right through a tomato because I'm using
this kind of board and I'm taking care
to cut up and down instead of scraping
it across the board like this if you
want to move your veggies out of the way
with the knife just turn it over so
you're not using the blade or use your
hand or use a bench scraper but please
don't don't use the blade
you'll watch on Food Network or other
cooking shows the chefs are doing that
all the time in your saying
what are they doing but they have a
staff of people that can sharpen their
knife all the time and they can get a
new one whenever they want right
so who cares if it gets dull it matters
in your kitchen but it matters to me
and matters to you so keep your
knife sharp less accidents that way and
then you don't have to sharpen in as
much perfect what are we gonna be cutting up
today so we're gonna cut up some
vegetables that we're going to use later
on to make a soup so we'll start with an
onion yep a lot of times onions are a
lot rounder this one's sweet yellow onion
so it's not quite as round I always like
to start with my vegetables being flat
on the board no matter what it is so I
cut a little bit off the bottom I'm
gonna cut straight through this is going
to be a diced onion and it make it
easier to peel I also like to take a
little bit off of the top okay each one
if you near the stem area right
if you try to peel the onion without
taking a little off the bottom and the
top do you want to peel that one sure
Dr. J I'll peel it and we want to take enough
off that we don't have that papery
kind of hard texture yeah and another
thing another little tip is when I'm
cutting onions I like to wipe the board
with some water before and after but
that way absorbs the water and not the
onion juice and then I've got my root
end right here the stem end over here so
the root end keep away from me and I'm
gonna do a diced onion by cutting along
the ridges but I'm not cutting all the
way through okay and you can but this
makes it easier so that it holds
together and then I can move my hand
over here so this whole end is not cut
all the way through doesn't go
down to the end and then I just turn it
a little bit curl my fingers under
make a little claw uh huh
and this will make a very evenly diced
onion there's different ways of dicing
an onion you can probably find 10 or 15
ways of diced onion but that's my
favorite way of doing it and is the
fastest I mean you take
the ends and just bingo chop it up
however you can I love it and so that's
our basic diced onion there's your diced
onion right there that's beautiful
nice little uniform pieces very very
quick she nailed it
and you can dice ten onions and probably
five minutes with that technique so just
practice it you'll get really fast in
your practice okay and then we're gonna
use some carrots these are small carrots
sometimes you have very large carrots
and you'll actually need to cut them
down to size so that they'll be about
like this I just cut a little bit off
the top and the bottom because it's
usually dirty there I've already washed
all these vegetables and they're all
organic so I'm actually not gonna peel
it there was mold or huge amount of dirt
on these I would peel it or if they were
old to kind of refresh it I would peel
it but I don't need to and since the
carrots a little bit smaller than my
blade I don't need to chop it down any
further but if you had a huge humongous
carry you cut it into some size would
cut it into smaller so for example I
would cut it in half what it does make
it easier there you go and then I could do
anything with this carrot I could make
it into half moons rounds but I'm
actually going to dice it so I'm
make what's called a plank and just cut
it into a few planks planks and then
each one of those planks I can make as
small as I want I can cut these into
three or four but I'm just gonna cut
them into to make sure that they're flat
on the board I always make sure my
veggies are flat and then just put them
all together look at that you can be
very efficient that way and get them
very even now why do I need to keep
those veggies evenly cut can I have big
pieces and little pieces
cook at different times right so you
want your veggies to cook around the
same amount of time otherwise you're
gonna have some that are overcooked and
some that are undercooked right so
uniform size now we got some celery I
got some celery you probably all know
this way if you want to do diced you can
cut it into sections and do just what we
did with the carrot it's a little easier
just cut strips and then dice but we're
actually gonna make some slices here
okay
and you could either make diagonals or
you can just go so that's how you do the
bias cut is to just turn your knife there
we go
it looks a little bit fancier and you'll
see that I'm using kind of like a using
my whole arm instead of using wrist
action I'm actually did you want to try
that dr. J do you wanna try
so you want to curl your fingers under
your fingers under okay yeah and
then if you want to slide it through
yeah boy this is the feel of your
cutting board now I'm getting it the feel
your cutting board is quite different
than my own and see it's a little thick
I'm gonna go back and make that a little
more uniform you're all evenly cooked up
here so one reason why the I'm sliding
through is a good idea you don't have to
do that but sometimes we'll slice through
a veggie and you realize it didn't go
all the way through you have it kind of
hanging on and sliding through prevents that
yeah now we got a zucchini zucchini my
friend who's Italian told me once ooh
kinis called a zucchino I never knew that
but come zucchini
yeah and so what I'm gonna do is
actually slice it in half lengthwise and
we could either do half moons like this
okay or if it were a bigger zucchini or
zucchino we could do good
right down the middle
down the middle and that'll be quarters and
so for efficiency's sake we can put both
of them together I actually like when I
do the soups I try to keep it in a half
I find that the skin holds the zucchini
together a little bit like I've had my
zucchini just turning mush in my soups
and so and I usually find that when I
cut it up let more than this
good idea yeah so there we go i have got to
practice because you look a lot better
well you know you're you're much better
at adjusting people's backs than I am too
then our last item not yet you got herbs you have to do the garlic and then
we're gonna do herbs so garlic
I don't know if you've ever tried
this before but you can take the blade of your knife and smash it
keep the blade away from
you and then just kind of lean into it
like that and the skin just peels right off yep bingo look
at that so you don't need any kind of
equipment or anything from time to time
I've had garlic peelers and they just
sit in my drawer and I'm giving them away
just do it with your chef's knife and then you can
smash it a little bit more this is if
you want a minced garlic yeah none of
them like fresh garlic I don't like
buying this stuff oops no I just got a
little too close that's what finger
nails are for they warn you when you get too close yeah so
there's your diced garlic minced garlic
yeah you could keep going you could also
kind of mash it up a little bit if you
want it really smooth for a salad
dressing or something or you can put it
in a mortar and pestle but this will
work great for a soup okay awesome
and then last you're gonna do herbs and
we'll do some herbs so let's look at
rosemary which grows in Austin if you're
watching from Austin you see this on the
roadsides everywhere and should you want
to try taking some off there
so they just kind of go down like that
and it comes right off you go towards
the base towards the base yeah yeah so I
people you try again with that one
so hold it from the end and then go to
and then they just comes right off it's
better see this is why we get a
professional in here to show us how to
do it and you know cooking is all about
gathering all these handy tips yeah over
time and then incorporating them one by
one by one and then your never stop you
never stop learning yeah so I'm just
putting these in a pile and then I
gather then back up into a pile just
keep going through it keep going until
you have the size you want the
uniformity that you want I guess
rosemary needs to be cooked a little bit
we're gonna some of the other herbs you
can just add and improve at the last minute
so I usually like to have rosemary
chopped up a little bit there you go
that's beautiful
smells so good yeah I encourage you if you
don't have a rosemary source on your
block that you can draw from
pilferer from just get one in a pot or
in your yard because they will grow 
a year round without any anything but
water yeah so what we got here some
basil and some cilantro and oh this is
parsley which is both variety does look
like cilantro a lot is that a flat
there's a flat leaf Italian parsley
and a basil and so basil I just take the
leaves leaves off the stems are a little
bit too hard and so I'll take a handful
of leaves and I usually
stack them up is this what you do with
basil no if you want to make sure that
they don't don't you gotta rolling it
and I kind of roll it up so that I don't
bruise the basil it'll turn pretty dark
oh yeah we'll have done that you handle
if you over handle it then it'll it'll
it'll darken and the other major tip
with that with herbs is that usually
what I'll do is I'll wash the herbs at
the very start of my cooking session and
then I'll put them in a jar or a glass
to stay hydrated and then they'll dry
while I'm cooking okay and when they're
super dry they'll mince up really fine
okay if you wash them off put them on
the board and chop them up they're gonna
all gunk together wet and soggy away yes that's that's what I do
so there's another tip that I'm gonna
apply immediately and stems like parsley
stems I always save these and I put them
in a freezer bag with things like
carrots celery onion little bits so
clear celery onion parsley stems and
then I just take that freezer bag out
whenever I'm making broth and just dump
it in the pot and I can make a veggie
stock so you don't have to throw away
much you can compost scraps oh did you
see what I did I kind of folded it up
into a ball if you want to
minced parsley yeah and then I'm trying
to curl my fingers under so I don't hurt
them and then the other way
and this is still a little bit wet so
it's not look at that I mean she nailed
it but just in a I mean how long is that
five seconds yeah they're really fine
that's beautiful yeah so never skimp on
your garnishes because they're so beautiful
and easy okay so we've got quarter moons
on zucchini we've got a diced carrot
we've got this nice bias-cut celery a
diced onion and then look at these
lovely we got diced rosemary and nicely
parsley and basil and where did our
garlic go do we have do we fit oh there
it is and then our minced garlic so you
have everything we need to make a
beautiful soup and we're going to right
yeah we're gonna do it so tune in
sweet next week I don't know the soups
next week
the soups coming there's two more videos
and one of them will be soup so we'll
use all of this in that alright guys
thanks so much here's your knife tips
last one if your knife falls do not try
to catch it that's a bad one that I had
to learn from experience myself so thanks
for tuning in we'll see you next week
