Knife Selection and Cutting Raw Meat

hi and welcome to the meet minute I'm

Stacey's Ellie here at Purdue University

and what we're going to talk about in

this video is nice selection and also

some basic cutting skills whenever we're

dealing with raw meat now if you go to

buy a knife set a lot of times you're

gonna see knife such as this the chef's

knife or even more serrated looking

knife this is a steak knife or if you

buy the super duper set you might

actually get one that looks like this

and even though these can be really nice

for a variety of products when we're

looking at cutting raw meat none of

these are gonna be all that great this

is probably the best one and this is

really only meant to go through bones so

a lot of times you're not going to be

using a knife such as this what I do

recommend is you look into purchasing

something such as this this is known as

a boning knife and some of the key

characteristics of a boning knife really

come down to the shape and edge of the

blade when you look at the tip of the

blade you notice that a chef's knife is

quite large at the tip where as a body

knife is quite narrow that narrowness is

really helpful when you're gonna go

ahead and separate muscles or separate

out bones away from meat so having a

narrower edge is very very helpful for

that that's where again a chef's knife

not really wonderful because it's got

such a sick tip to it the other type of

knife that a lot of people will grab is

one such as this which is a steak knife

and you'll notice that it has a texture

to the edge it's actually got a

serrations serrated pardon me and when

it's serrated like that again it's not

gonna cut nice and smooth and it's not

going to be as useful whenever you're

trying to separate out your various cuts

so purchasing a boning knife is very

helpful again you're looking for a nice

smooth edge and you also want to make

sure again it's got a very narrow tip to

it another question that people ask me

many times is how do I maintain at the

edge of that knife many times your meat

cutting knife set will actually come

with something that looks like this this

is actually known as a honing steel this

is actually not designed to sharpen your

knife what it can do is help realign the

blade let's say you accidentally hit the

cutting board or you hit in that a bone

when you're cutting a honing honing

steel pardon me can be very helpful if

you actually have a fully dull blade you

need to find yourself a sharpener this

is actually going to end up removing

some pieces of metal from the tip or I'm

sorry the edge and that will actually

add a bevel to that edge this is just

meant to actually realign it whenever

you're using a honing steel you want to

lay your knife nice and flat and you

want to raise it about 45 degrees and

make sure you get the entire length of

the blade now if I just do this that's

great but I've only done one side of the

blade and there's two sides to every

blade so you need to make sure you come

on her and do the other side as well

so make sure we're getting both sides of

that blade nice and honed and that's

going to maintain again the the

integrity of your blade now whenever

you're using a knife to go ahead and cut

meat there's two ways you can hold it

nice and effectively one is to make sure

you've got your thumb parallel to the

blade this is gonna give you a very firm

grip and it's gonna give you very good

control the other way that you can hold

it is the overhand method now this one

usually gets people their eyes a little

scary when you think it looks like a

serial killer but this is actually very

steady and firm weight again to hold the

blade and you can have a lot more

control with it whenever you're using

the knife in order to cut seams and

things like that so I'm going to show

you on this turkey thigh how we can

actually remove this very sink this very

bone pardon me so you can see that I've

got a bone that starts here ends here

and I'm just gonna use the tip of my

knife in order to come down and yes I'm

gonna use the overhand method again I

could use the normal acid a lot of

people think of but it puts my elbow

kind of high in the air and I'd much

rather use the overhand I feel like it

gives me better control now notice I'm

not having to do too much sawing action

just a little bit here and there but

otherwise I'm just gonna let the knife

do its job and cut through the meat

let's turn toward you

and in doing so I'm not gonna tear to

much I'm actually gonna let the knife as

I said cut so we're gonna let that

finish off and so I've been able to

remove that and you'll notice that my

knife is only dirty here at the bottom

couple inches that's all I needed to use

in order to separate that out now if I

had a bigger cut I might end up making

it a little bigger or making it a little

more dirty but again all that's all you

need to use generally using the center

portion of your knife is not going to be

that necessary whenever you're moving

bones or again removing seams