Preparing your food when you are hungry can make the food taste even better. However, making meals is not an easy task. It is fun until you need to chop onions or cut fruits or vegetables to the perfect shape.
Regular knives will not be of any use in such matters. Instead, you will require the best paring knife out there for such kitchen works.
This article will focus on how to use a paring knife correctly in 5 different cutting ways and shortly describe Top 5 Best Knives for veg and fruits.
Page Contents
Things to Check when Buying a Paring Knife
Before you learn about using a paring knife, you must buy a well-functioning one. A paring knife is usually a small knife with the blade being 3 to 5 inches tall.
When you are buying a paring knife, several things should be checked before completing the purchase.
The first thing to check is the size of the blade. Ideally, you should pick a paring knife with a blade size of 3 to 3.5 inches.
Then comes the functionality of the blade. The blade should be sharp and agile enough to cut through any weight of food and tight corners.
In addition, it should be flexible to bend easily to cut foods in particular shapes.
Finally, consider buying a paring knife with a firm grip. The grip should be comfortable for you to perform cuts without any hindrance.
How to Properly Grip a Paring Knife
It would be best to have a good grip on the paring knife before you start using it for cooking purposes. The hold will give you control over the blade.
You will be peeling, slicing, and trimming with the paring knife. Therefore, the grip of the knife should be comfortable and well-balanced in your hand. Hold the knife in your palm in a way that it does not slip.
Most paring knives will not easily slip out of your hand unless you grip poorly. Therefore, please do not hold it too tightly. Just a gentle hold should be enough to complete the cutting process.
How to Use a Paring Knife: 5 Smart Kitchen Hacks
Once you start comfortably gripping your paring knife, it is time to learn the tasks you can do with it. A paring knife is a great companion to prepare tasty meals. Here are five uses of a paring knife in a kitchen.
Peeling basic ingredients: A paring knife is a great tool to peel onions, ginger, or any other primary ingredient needed for almost all kinds of food.
However, you may need to learn through the process before becoming a MasterChef in the kitchen.
The easiest way to peel is to hold the ingredient in one hand and grip and twist the paring knife with the other hand.
Remember to move the blade slowly towards your body. Do not push hard, and make sure to cut the skins gently rather than taking off more than just the skin of the ingredient.
Hulling fruits: Cutting the outer layer of fruits is one of the most challenging jobs in the kitchen. Paring knives can reduce the complexity of the process.
Insert the paring knife into the skin of the fruit and slowly carve the skin in a circle. Gently pop out the fruit’s seed, and you are ready to bake or cook with the hulled fruit.
Deveining shrimps: Another difficult task in the kitchen is deveining the small and delicate shrimps. It is not an enjoyable process.
When you devein a shrimp, you must be remarkably steady and possess good knife handling skills.
A paring knife can make the task much more manageable than anything else. Hold the shrimp in your hand and find the dark line on its back.
This part is called the intestine, and this is what you will cut out using the paring knife. Make a small slit down the middle and use the blade’s tip to pull the black line up.
Scoring meat: There are certain areas of the meat that have fats stored inside. For example, suppose you are roasting the meat. If you leave the fat in the meat, it can add an extra flavor to the meat.
Or you can score the meat to add the flavor deliberately. For this, you will need to draw small cuts through the fatty portions of the meat.
However, the meat type will determine the kind of cut. For example, you will need to cut to equal parts around the fatty areas for a pork piece.
Coring tomatoes: Before peeling the tomato, you may want to core it. For this, insert the tip of the blade about 1 centimetre left of the seed.
Next, go 1 inch deep and twist on a circular motion all around the core of the tomato. This should automatically pop the source out of the tomato.
How to Safely Store a Paring Knife
Like any other sharp and small object, securely storing the paring knife is an essential part of using it.
You can use unused wine corks to cover the tip of the blade. This can ensure that the sharp edge of the blade is protected.
In addition, this can secure the fingers of family members from getting cut from the shard blade.
Conclusion
Knowing how to use a paring knife can make the cooking process much simpler and more fun. You can do many things besides cutting, peeling, or coring with a paring knife.
For example, professionals use it to carve fruits or other food items into unique shapes. Whatever you use it for, always remember to follow safety protocols to avoid cuts.