Intro to cutting part 1 of 3

This is my first video of my intro to the kitchen series. So many people ask me kitchen questions that I decided to put it in a video.

This is a bilingual video; it is done in both Mandarin and English; so if you are an English speaker, you can learn Mandarin while you to cook. If you are Chinese, you can learn English while you learn to cook.

I cover the basics of a cutting board, a chinese cleaver, the chop, the push cut, and a draw cut. I hope you enjoy the video. Feedback and suggestions welcome!

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Cutting
• Chopping
• Kitchen
• Chop
• Cut
• Draw Cut
• Push Cut
• Chinese Cleaver
• How to use a knife.

[woodpieces]

Could you possibly tell me how thick the the knife is at the spine?

Also, how much does the knife weigh? I am looking for a lighter Chinese chef's knife. Thanks!

[twoblink]

@woodpieces What a strange request! Spine is 3mm, the handle is 12cm. Total weight of the knife on my home food scale is 258grams. I don't know how accurate the scale is though. Hope that helps.

[coffeenciggy]

I troll the knife and cooking forums; as someone said, the French and Japanese are anatomists. This comes across in the way they prepare their food.

I agree - Chinese cleaver is the best all-purpose knife. Gets the job done in record time to feed the hungry masses(family), with "limited resources" ie. in the olden days, poverty was common. There was only 1 knife per household; some families even share. The cleaver is a very practical solution, serves the purpose for Chinese style cooking.

[twoblink]

@coffeenciggy I had a kid; and so now I don't have time to post videos.. But I do have a video of me cutting watermelon; I like the way I do it over everybody else's. I will try to do voice-over commentary for it and post it. Let me know if you have any requests, I am more motivated to do it if I think it's beneficial for someone.

[coffeenciggy]

As mentioned in another post, I have watched most of your cutting videos - good job!

Cleaver is great to do 90% of the work, it is such a fantastic tool! My dad and I uses it on fruits as well lol.

In his younger days, my dad would hold an apple in his left hand and cut/slice into it with the cleaver in his right hand. He would stop right before the end, and the apple falls into 2 halves. It is the most amazing and scary thing to watch! Never saw anyone else do this 0-0

[twoblink]

@coffeenciggy I do this cutting tofu; and it scares the be-jesus out of people. I cut tofu with a cleaver on my hand. One of these days, I will do some garlic, onion, and ginger as fast as I can without any commentary. There was a show called "Master Chef" and people were cutting onions. They cut like 8 onions in 30 minutes..!?!?! I think by myself I would have outcut the entire crew.

[zsollose]

Thank for a good video. How do you sharpening the cleaver

[ThomasBaluWalter]

How much does your cleaver weigh?

I was not able to find a chinese cleaver even in specialized shops here in Muenster/Germany. On shop tries to order one for me though. It's a "WMF Chinesisches Hackmesser Spitzenklasse" which you can get with 17cm / 6.7" and 18.5cm / 7.28" blades.

I'm afraid it's more like a heavy meat chopping knife butchers use to cut bones, etc. than an all purpose kitchen knife.

BTW: I'm fairly sure that french people started cooking some time before 1450 ;-).