The Professional Chef's Knife Kit [Paperback]

Culinary Institute of America (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 5, 1999

High quality, well-made, well-maintained knives - and the skills to use them properly - are among a chef's most important assets. This book explains how to use and care for these essential tools. Easy-to-follow instructions cover all of the basic knife cuts and techniques - including peeling, paring, trimming, carving, chopping, dicing and filleting - and offer an excellent foundation for building speed and ensuring kitchen safety. The book also features invaluable information on small tools, such as rotary peelers and zesters, along with meat grinders, food processors and other larger equipment.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

When you watch a professional magic act, you may find yourself awed by the trick. You are a willing believer in the illusion created by the magician. If, however, you are a magician, you are no longer in awe of the trick itself. You are astonished by the skill and finesse of the magician?the ease, the apparent effortlessness of motion.

Chefs are a great deal like magicians. To the novice, the transformation of a carrot to a pile of perfectly even julienne is almost miraculous. To the seasoned chef, the miracle is the skill, the coordination, and rhythm of the right tool in an accomplished hand.

Founded in 1946, THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA is an independent, not-for-profit college offering bachelor?s and associate degrees in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts. Courses for foodservice professionals are offered at the college?s main campus in Hyde Park, New York, and at its additional campus for continuing education, The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in St. Helena, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (November 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471349976
• ISBN-13: 978-0471349976
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #188,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #84 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Professional Cooking > Professional

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Manual on Knife Skills and Cutting Tools. Buy it., December 15, 2004

By 

B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Professional Chef's Knife Kit (Paperback)

`The Professional Chef's Knife Kit' by `The Culinary Institute of America' contains absolutely everything you ever wanted to know about things in the kitchen with sharp edges and things that maintain those sharp edges.

The book actually goes far beyond the care and honing of knives, as it is also an advanced course on knife skills. The chapters are:

Knife Basics covering history and the range of kitchen tools for cutting.
Knife Care, or how to keep the knife sharp without shedding any blood.
Basic Cuts, possibly the most important and interesting chapter in the book.
Vegetables and Fruits, or how to wrangle onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and other veggies to the pot.
Meat and Poultry
Fish and Shellfish
Summary
Glossary

As a former Boy Scout who took his knife skills very seriously and knew all about Arkansas stones and the proper angle with which to hone a knife, I am really impressed by the level of detail in this book. The Basic Cuts chapter is a wonderful example of how valuable this book can be. Hundreds of hours on the Food Network will cover most of this stuff eventually, but this brings it all together and adds things Emeril never even mentions. Section of this chapter is `Preliminary Cuts', which is roughly comparable to removing the bark from a tree and squaring it off before cutting it into marketable lumber. `Shredding and Grating' shows you how to do the same operation with either a knife or a box grater. The sections on `Slicing Cuts' gives equal time to the chef's knife, the paring knife, and the mandoline, covering both the simple and the exquisite such as the crinkle cut done with a mandoline and the roll cut done on cylindrical veggies done with a knife. Of great value is the instruction on how to do the most basic of cuts such as the Julienne, the Batonnet, and the various dices. You probably have no real sense of the level of detail to which French cooking doctrine goes until you have read the section on decorative cuts of potatoes.

This book is an excellent supplement to Jacques Pepin's `Complete Techniques'. Pepin describes a dozen or so different cuts of a potato, the CIA tells you how to do them.

This book is hands down the best argument I can think of for relegating your food processor to making doughs and bread crumbs and laying out the cash for a really sharp knife and a few hours of practice.

This book is a must for serious amateur and professional cooks.

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book about knife skills for the serious cook, May 5, 2006

By 

Amalfi Coast Girl (Mid-Atlantic, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Professional Chef's Knife Kit (Paperback)

A serious home cook that has spent the last 25 years polishing her cooking skills writes this review. I purchased this book as a supplement to "The Professional Chef: 7th edition" and I very glad that I did not listen to the spotlight review that said it was a duplicate. This book is clearly NOT a duplicate of the information in "The Professional Chef".

This book gives an extraordinary amount of detail about all things related to and involving knifes and knife work. With the knowledge in this book it will be much easier to purchase knifes that are right for you, not someone else. The book discusses knife balance and the feel of the knife in the hand and well as knife construction.

The section on fruits and vegetables was extremely thorough. The book even managed to discuss a couple of cuts that I was unfamiliar with, which in my mind is quite impressive since I am one of those people that eats 10 fruits and vegetables a day. I thought I knew everything about prepping fruits and vegetables, but I was wrong. I particularly liked the spiral cut on the whole pineapple.

The section dedicated to meat and poultry is fabulous. I thought the cartoon drawings of the specific animals underlying skeletal structure were particularly helpful. The book was worth buying for those very drawings alone. I might just have to buy a leg of veal this weekend just to practice boning.

If you are a serious cook, and want to improve your knife work this is an excellent book to buy. I highly recommend this book.

170 of 188 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely essential., January 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Professional Chef's Knife Kit (Paperback)

I'm not sure which version of "The Professional Chef" Mr. Garvin was reading, but in my copy (7th Edition), there were only a total of 9 pages dedicated solely to proper knife usage and technique. 9 pages of 1036...by my math that doesn't get anywhere close to "90-95%" it's more like < 1%.

I made the mistake of believing his review and purchased "The Professional Chef" instead of buying "The Professional Chef's Knife Kit," and boy did I regret it. I now have a 1000+ page paperweight that cost $50. :-( Not that it's a horrible book, but it's hardly a reference for someone looking for a knife course study. The book is interesting, but it's not what I had hoped it would be.

I went back and bought the Chef's Knife Kit book and it's wonderful. Loaded with information, pictures, and helpful hints, it's a must for anyone who's serious about improving their knife skills. Save your money and avoid "The Professional Chef: 7th Edition," unless you're looking for a book that addresses the entire scope of a professional kitchen.