Kitchen knife tips & tricks

This is a knife that'll probably get used the most in your kitchen, a large cook's knife.

One like this, about 19 centimetres in size, covers lots of cutting jobs. The upward curve tip allows for a rocking motion, which is great for finely chopping fresh herbs. And its large heavy size makes it perfect for bigger ingredients, like chopping up a pumpkin, but I'm going to show you how to use it to slice ham.

This is really handy if you don't have a specific carving knife and forks set. Holding the hock steady, slice on a slight angle down to the bone, making your slices as thick or as thin as possible. And just continue slicing towards the hock.

If the slices don't come away as you cut, you can run your knife horizontally along the bone to remove them. 
 

Slicing an onion is one of those basic kitchen skills every home cook should know how to do. With the right knife, if it's nice and sharp, there should be no tears.

Here, I'm using a small santoku knife which has a wide blade with a straight edge, perfect for slicing and dicing a variety of ingredients. Things like cutting up watermelon or pineapple into chunks after peeling.

To cut your onion, slice it straight through the middle from the root to the tip. Then place the flat side on your chopping board and slice off the tip.

Using a claw grip, that's with your fingers curled like this to avoid cutting yourself, make even cuts into the onion from the root, making sure you leave the onion intact at the root end. And you just slice nicely, about three quarters of the way up, moving your fingers along, just like that.

Then, if you turn it on the side, and just do about two or three slices of the onion, and then you just go down like that. And you get that nicely diced onion.

And there you have it - finely diced onion ready to cook or toss into a salad.

This here is a large santoku knife, an Asian-style knife with a straight blade.

Like a cook's knife, a santoku knife is a fantastic multipurpose kitchen knife with a thinner blade than a cook's knife.

The santoku knife is great for precision cutting, like slicing a capsicum into even size batons. Now, to do that, hold the stem of the capsicum in one hand, then slice from top to bottom.

Slice all around by turning the capsicum until you're left with a centre membrane and seeds attached, which you can then just toss into your compost. Working with one piece of capsicum at a time, place it skin-side down and press gently to flatten it slightly.

Keeping the tip of your knife on the board, slowly lift the knife up and down to thinly slice the capsicum, just like this, which we chefs call julienne. These lovely thin batons are then perfect for sauteing or using to top pizzas before baking. 

Now, a bread knife is just what you need for cutting bread, especially sourdough loaves and baguettes that have a really crispy crust. But there are some surprising uses, too.

The large size and serrated blade of a bread knife is excellent for cutting the tough, rough skin off a pineapple, and I'm going to show you how.

Firstly, place the pineapple on its side and cut off the end, just like this. Then turn it around to the other side. With both the ends cut off, it's easy to stand the pineapple upright like this, so you're ready for the next step.

Starting at the top of the pineapple, just like this, move your knife back and forth as you slice down the side of the pineapple, following the natural curve of the fruit to remove the strip of skin. Make sure not to cut off too much flesh.

Turn the pineapple a little and continue slicing like this until all the skin is removed. Then just chop a slice of flesh as your recipe requires.

You can either leave the eyes of the pineapple in, or use a utility knife to carefully remove them. Just like this, really simple, just carve that eye out just like that. And there you have it, really easy.

For more tips on knife skills, click on the videos below.

As the name suggests, a steak knife is your go-to knife for serving a steak like this delicious juicy Scotch fillet here. But with its razor sharp, serrated edge, a steak knife can also work well for slicing through the delicate skin of tomatoes.

Use the knife in a back and forth cutting motion to cut the tomato crossways into thin slices, just what you need for a classic burger.

Of course, you can also slice it down the middle and cut through the flesh into wedges to add to a simple salad, just like that.

For more tips on knife skills, click on the videos below.

Eating juicy mangoes is one of summer's greatest pleasures. Delicious on their own or added sweet and savoury recipes. It can sometimes be a little fiddly to cut up a mango though, especially if it's a bit on the soft side.

Now, I'm going to show you how easy it is to slice and dice your mango. It all starts with the right knife.

A utility knife is perfect, it's smaller than a cook's knife and larger than a paring knife. It's also really useful for other ingredients like cucumbers and even cutting the kernels off a corn cob.

So, back to the mango. Place your mango on a chopping board and, starting from the stem end, cut down close to the pip, curving around it slightly to remove the cheek. There we go. Now repeat on the other side.

Now you can score the flesh in a crisscross pattern using the tip of your knife. Don't go all the way into the skin, just about three-quarters and just crisscross it like that.

Turn it around, so you sort of got little diamonds. Look at this, beautiful!

To remove the skin from around the pip, again, put the knife between the skin and the flesh and roll the pip over the knife until the skin comes away. And there you have it - a mango ready to use in any recipe you like, or just eat it.

For more tips on knife skills, click on the videos below.