If you’re someone who cooks for leisure, or someone who proudly refers to cooking as one of their hobbies, or even if you’re just someone who cooks simply so you can eat every day, you probably know how important it is to have a knife in your kitchen. To put it simply, without one, you just won’t have decent food to eat.
Imagine cooking without a knife; unless it’s some instant, heating-takeout kind of cooking, you probably can’t do anything past cleaning your ingredients. You peel, chop, and slice food with it. You need it before you can even think of assembling or mixing your ingredients. That’s exactly how essential a knife is.
Having decent, sharp knives can also help make your work safer and faster. So, what exactly do you need to do to make sure they stay in top shape?
Clean Your Knives
It’s common sense to clean knives or any utensils every after you use them. But how you properly clean your knives might be something not everyone is completely aware of. Are you the type to toss your knife in the dishwasher? Or leave it soaked in water with the other utensils and plates for you to clean later? – Then you’re doing it wrong.
Firstly, never use your dishwasher to clean your knives. The moisture and heat from the machine can seriously damage your knife. Instead, handwash them using soapy hot water. Further, you also shouldn’t leave them soaked in water. Your job doesn’t end after you’ve washed and rinsed. Make sure you keep them clean and dry.
Sharpen Your Knives
A dull knife is useless in the kitchen and poses more danger than a sharp one. If a knife isn’t sharp enough, it requires you to put in a lot more pressure for it to slice through anything, making it easier to slip and cut you instead. Some recommend sharpening your knives once or twice a year. However, you are still the better judge. Therefore, if you think your knives are starting to feel dull, then it’s probably best to sharpen them.
Honor in Honer
Sharpening grinds away steel, thus making your edge thinner. So, if you use your knives without sharpening them, chances are the edges will bend and render your knives useless.
This is why you need to hone in between sharpening to straighten out curved edges. You can also practice the habit of honing your knives every time you’ve used them to ensure that there isn’t any bending. Since honing is as important as sharpening, invest in a great quality honer. If you’re looking for a great product, you can try Le Beau’s honer – with Le Beau’s honer; there’s definitely honor in honer.
Choose a Good Cutting Board
Other than the utensil itself, where you use it is equally important. Choose a decent cutting board. This can be made of wood or plastic. Never use a cutting board that is harder than your knives, such as glass, marble, or granite.
Knife Storage
Again, don’t just toss your knives with the rest of your utensils after using and washing them. Mixing your knives with your spoons and forks isn’t only bad for your blade but also for you, as you risk cutting yourself. Additionally, your knives moving around and rubbing against other silverware can damage their sharpness.
Instead, you can store them in a magnetic strip or slip them in a dedicated knife block away from the others. However, if you’re someone who only has one or two knives, the best way to store them is by securing your blade with a plastic knife guard. Then you can store them inside your drawer if it’s the only option you have.
Remember, a knife is one of the essential utensils in the kitchen. Besides its functionality, it is also susceptible and prone to damage. This is why you need to consider being a little bit more diligent in how you store and handle them.
Recent Comments