Mastering Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Tools in Your Kitchen (with DVD) [Hardcover]

Norman Weinstein (Author), Mark Thomas (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

As the number of gourmet home kitchens burgeons, so does the number of home cooks who want to become proficient users of the professional-caliber equipment they own. And of all kitchen skills, perhaps the most critical are those involving the proper use of knives.

Norman Weinstein has been teaching his knife skills workshop at New York City’s Institute of Culinary Education for more than a decade—and his classes always sell out. That’s because Weinstein focuses so squarely on the needs of the nonprofessional cook, providing basic instruction in knife techniques that maximize efficiency while placing the least possible stress on the user’s arm. Now, Mastering Knife Skills brings Weinstein’s well-honed knowledge to home cooks everywhere.

Whether you want to dice an onion with the speed and dexterity of a TV chef, carve a roast like an expert, bone a chicken quickly and neatly, or just learn how to hold a knife in the right way, Mastering Knife Skills will be your go-to manual. Each cutting, slicing, and chopping method is thoroughly explained—and illustrated with clear, step-by-step photographs. Extras include information on knife construction, knife makers and types, knife maintenance and safety, and cutting boards, as well as a 30-minute instructional DVD featuring Weinstein’s most important techniques.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

For more than 20 years, Norman Weinstein, a chef-instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education, has taught everyone from first-time cooks to professional chefs how to select and use knives. He has been profiled in Wine Spectator and the New York Times Magazine, and has appeared on the Food Network. The 2003 honoree of the New York Association of Culinary Professionals, Weinstein lives in New York City.

Mark Thomas is a NewYork–based photographer specializing in food, lifestyle, and travel photography. His work has appeared in Stewart Tabori and Chang’s Opera Lover’s Cookbook and Endangered Recipes, and he recently completed four books for Williams-Sonoma. Thomas’s work also appears regularly in Bon Appétit.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Stewart, Tabori & Chang; Har/DVD edition (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584796677
• ISBN-13: 978-1584796671
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Professional Cooking > Professional

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 90 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely well illustrated, comfortable pace and layout, great for beginners September 7, 2008

By D. Tsze

Format:Hardcover

This is written from the perspective of someone who has only really started to cook beyond the means of frying eggs and microwaving whatever I could get my hands on over the past year, and realizing how important knife skills are in really becoming an effective cook.

For someone who is relatively new to the kitchen, and beginning to work more with an increasing variety of produce, this book is an excellent start.

For starters, the photographs are top notch. Not only are they in beautiful colour and spaciously laid out, but the appropriate (and necessary) steps are photographed, which is not always the case.

Even when describing multiple cutting techniques for one single product (e.g. onions, tomatoes), every technique is comfortably laid out over a series of pages, rather than rushed into a more cramped, difficult to read format over fewer pages.

The video is well produced, and although I wish I could have seen EVERY technique demonstrated, I understand why it would have been impossible to do so. Techniques I have found myself using frequently are the ones he demonstrates. The two I also found most useful are the video on fabricating chicken (no matter how many pictures I look at from a large number of different books, there is no substitute for seeing someone actually doing it), and carving a chicken (which is not described in his book).

As you can tell, if all of these techniques sound like "Mickey Mouse" endeavours to you, then this book is certainly NOT for you. But if the simple task of carving up a chicken and properly dicing an onion has always eluded you, then this book will not only teach you that in magnificent fashion, but so many other skills you didn't know you needed but definitely will.

I compared this book to two others, but picked this one for the following reasons:
- Knife Skills Illustrated: A User's Manual (Hertzmann) - I just enjoyed the photographs and simpler, more concise and comfortable layout better in Weinstein's book.

- Knife Skills: In the Kitchen (Trotter) - lots of big names attached to this book, the pictures are stellar, and the smaller size of the book actually was more appealing to me, as the Weinstein book is a bit on the large side, especially once you open it up and want to lay it down on the kitchen counter as you work. However, Weinstein is a professional instructor, and I found that his ability to teach (which is what you want out of this book, not the ability to concoct earth shattering recipes - which this leads to, hopefully!) really shines.

Plus, the Trotter book did not break down each product into its own section in as much detail, and the smaller format, although appearing easier to handle, did not allow for the more spacious, comfortable, and easier to read layout (especially when you have it on the table while you are working!) that the Weinstein book afforded.

Content wise, both are comparable. Both have a few techniques which the other does not cover, but Weinstein does a better job teaching the ESSENTIAL techniques which you know you will absolutely be using on a regular basis.

105 of 107 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The only knife book you will ever need July 31, 2008

By HB

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Mastering Knife Skills" by chef Norman Weinstein is a marvel of a book - visually attractive, overflowing with facts both historical and culinary, the ultimate guide to the choosing of knives, their care and upkeep, and their optimal use.

This book fills a real gap in the field of cook-bookery. I, a serious amateur cook, have been cooking for over forty years now, and yet, in forty years of watching television cooking shows and reading cookbooks (of which I own some thirty), I have never before seen any teacher or TV chef relate - really relate in any serious and systematic, way - to this most important of all our cooking tools, at least not until the present illuminating book.

One could be forgiven for expecting such a book to offer mere dry factual knowledge on the subject, but in fact it is excitingly written and lavishly illustrated, and Weinstein's style has a flow and a sweep that pull the reader along from page to page, like a good detective novel, from slicing through dicing, to mincing to filleting to fabricating - yes, fabricating - a chicken. The accompanying DVD, furthermore, is graphic and extremely well presented.

I have seen Norman Weinstein in the classroom. He is an inspiring teacher, who wears his prodigious erudition lightly, and enlivens his classes with a quick and warm sense of humor. That same encyclopedic knowledge, sympathy and warmth come across in his book as well.

And one last note: following Weinstein's instructions I sat down for an hour with a sharpening stone and sharpened all my knives to an edge the like of which I have not ever gotten from the "professionals".

While this may not be the only cookbook you will ever want, it certainly is the only knife book you will ever need.

Harvey B.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The right choice January 17, 2009

By redkat

Format:Hardcover

I spent a fair amount of time deciding which knife book to get, but I'm very happy with my choice. The book is incredibly detailed and has many useful photos. I was a little off-put at first because the author completely poopoos using santuko knives for chopping most things. But after I tried his techniques using a chef's knife (longer than santukos) I agreed with his point. But regardless of what knife you choose the techniques are very useful and easy to follow. I especially liked how each vegetable is given it's own section and instructions. The section on knife selection was also very detailed and helpful. .