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Jeffrey Elliot is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and has cooked at Le Cirque and Le Bernardin in New York. He is manager of culinary relations for Zwilling J.A. Henckels, Demeyere and Staub as well as the executive chef for Zwilling J.A. Henckels U.S. James P. DeWan is a chef, culinary instructor and award-winning food writer. His Chicago Tribune column, Prep School,A" is now in its fifth year, and he has served on the culinary faculty at Kendall College in Chicago.
I think that this would make a wonderful gift for any budding home
cook.
*Good Food Revolution*
Slice and dice like a pro.
*SunMedia*
The right tools are great in the kitchen, but if you don't have
technique you're not going to have much success. Complete Book of
Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to Use Techniques and Care by
Jeffrey Elliot and James P. DeWan (Rober Rose, 34.95) is a worthy
text for every cook. Cutting skills are something that are easily
taken for granted, but if you do a lot of cooking, proper technique
will save wear and tear on your knives by using the right knife for
the job and using it in a way that won't ruin the knife. It will
also save you from injury by learning how to keep from cutting
yourself or cramping your hands with improper grip. This hefty
manual covers it all from the basics of vegetables and fruits
through every kind of meat, fish and poultry and even sashimi. It
also covers garnishes ---- the things that take you from utility to
creativity, and that makes it fun. It's beautifully and very
thoroughly photographed. If you know how to prepare it you're more
likely to try something new.
*Winnipeg Free Press*
The best things you can give a cook are a high-quality knife and a
book on how to use it. Zwilling J.A. Henckels' Complete Book of
Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to Use, Techniques & Care (Robert
Rose, 34.95) will be treasured by cooks who would like to improve
their kitchen skills.
*Lexington Herald-Leader*
This is a cooking course in one book, its illustrations explaining
every cutting procedure, and including reducing your tears when you
cut an onion, cutting up that pesky pineapple, and not cutting
yourself. The two U.S. chefs start with tips on knives; they
consider the chef's knife and paring knife basic. Step-by-step
photographs cover all the popular fruit and vegetables, followed by
cutting up a chicken, "frenching" a lamb rack, filleting a fish,
and splitting a lobster. Painless, helpful, and sure to improve
your cooking. Include a name chef's knife with your gift.
*Montreal Gazette*
Here is an excellent book that would be useful on any cook's
bookshelf. Good knife skills are the single most important skill in
the kitchen. They are the difference between enjoyable food
preparation and kitchen drudgery. This very well-prepared book
helps to give you everything you need to know about knives, and how
to use them safely and efficiently. It has far more information
than an average home cook needs, including how knives are made, and
descriptions of scores of different knives, most of which never
appears in a home kitchen. Detailed knife care, sharpening and
honing are essential reading. Knife skill is a practical skill that
is best learned in cooking classes or watching videos. This book,
with numerous first-rate photographs, is the next best thing. Some
techniques are simple, but the more complex ones (creaming garlic,
for example) take your full concentration to follow through photos
and descriptions.The two professional authors guide you through all
kitchen jobs using a knife. The numerous sidebars and graphics
provide great, useful information. The senior author works for a
major knife manufacturer and a slight bias is evident. A DVD would
have been a useful inclusion.
*San Francisco Book Review*
Having a set of good knives is one thing but knowing how to use
them takes you to another level of home cooking. The Complete Book
of Knife Skills is very user friendly with simple instructions and
detailed photographs. I specifically benefited from the section
Everything You Need to Know About Knives. It covers the history,
how knives are made, parts, blade styles, types, and care. I
believe that once this section is mastered the actual use makes it
much easier. It always amazes me to watch professional chefs on TV
slicing, dicing, and chopping. They are quick and precise. This
book shows us amateurs how to master this skill, from which knife
to use, how to hold the knife and the object, to the actual
performance. However, we can know all that but the most important
thing is to be sure the knife is sharp. And, if you don't know how
to sharpen a knife there are instructions and accompanying
photographs on how to do so. For me, this book is a godsend. I have
the whole gamut of professional knives but have never learned how
to properly use them. The step-by-step methods in Complete Book of
Knife Skills are showing me how to hone in on my skills and use the
knives to my advantage. This book would be a wonderful gift for any
aspiring chef or as a wedding present. Of course, having the right
knives is a plus as well, so a Henckels knife would certainly be a
great addition. Highly recommended.
*Reader Views*
I just reviewed a copy of a brand new book, Zwilling J.A Henckels
Complete Book of Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to Use,
Techniques and Care by Jeffrey Elliot and James P. DeWan. Leave it
to a venerable knife company, J. A. Henckels, founded in 1731, to
come out with the ultimate guide to cutlery. This book is one of
the most thorough and complete on the subject I've ever seen,
covering topics like shopping, storing, and sharpening as well as
techniques for cutting, ranging from simple dicing, to fluting a
mushroom, to spatchcocking (butterflying to you) a chicken. If
you're at all serious about cooking, I recommend this book. One of
the first things people do when they develop an interest in the
subject, is invest in a set of good quality knives. But all too
often, I watch, and cringe, as people use the wrong technique,
allow their knives to get dull, and eventually abandon them for an
inexpensive serrated model. Like many things, good knife skills
require practice--remember the scene from Julie and Julia when
Madame Child tackled a bushel of onions with abandon to master the
art of chopping? Purchasing the Complete Book of Knife Skills alone
won't turn you into a pro, but if you buy it, and read it, and use
it as a teaching guide, you'll be on your way. I love the fact that
it's spiral bound so the pages lie flat on the countertop, making
it easy to refer to as you work.
*Good Housekeeping Magazine*
Ask most home cooks what skill they would like to sharpen and they
would tell you the same thing: knife skills. Don't you love how
chefs chop those onions so fast? Now I have some great knives, but
do I know everything I should about using it properly? I know how
to find out. Culinary experts Jeffrey Elliot and James P. DeWan
have written a reference book: Zwilling J.A. Henckels Complete Book
of Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to Use, Techniques and Care
(Robert Rose, $34.95). Learning how to hold and use a knife
correctly will not only help you work more safely, but will also
enable you to work faster and cleaner with less waste, making you
much more efficient in the kitchen, says Elliot. Plus food will
look and taste better. And step-by-step photographs are just what
we've been waiting for. Bring on the onions.
*Providence Journal Newspaper*
The one slightly geeky aspect of cooking that every cook will
benefit from is improving one's knife skills. A better
understanding of how to hold and cut with a knife safely and
speedily, how to hold food when cutting it, and how to cut
accurately and uniformly will make preparing food more pleasurable
and the presentation of food more appealing. The Complete Book of
Knife Skills is a spiral-bound hardcover meticulously-explained
course in understanding how knives are made, the different styles
and uses of knives, how to sharpen a knife, how to set up an
efficient and safe working environment, and how to hold knives and
food for greatest safety and ease of cutting. After an initial
chapter on basic vegetable cuts (dice, chiffonade, rondelles, and
so on), separate chapters discuss and demonstrate how to cut
individual types of fruit and vegetables, poultry, meat, fish and
shellfish; how to carve and how to cut attractive garnishes, such
as ribbons, strawberry fans, and citrus curls... A useful and
visually interesting reference work.
*Louisville Courier-Journal*
This is the most comprehensive and easy-to-understand book on the
correct use of knives in cooking we've come across.
*Mid-Valley News*
My teenage son who chops vegetables each weekend at Biagio's
Italian Kitchen has learned impressive knife skills over the
months, and he's the first to point out how many so-called cooking
celebrities on TV simply don't know how to manipulate sharp
objects. Oh, sure, you can extend your fingers perilously toward
the blade--and it's all fun until someone finds the tip of a human
digit in the salad niçoise. We hate when that happens. This very
well-illustrated how-to book will spare you from making silly and
dangerous mistakes, as well as teach simple knife-carving tricks to
transform, say, cucumber and celery into little sculpted works of
art. Shows you how to save big money by taking two minutes to
properly butcher a whole eviscerated chicken, bone out a leg of
lamb, butterfly shrimp and split a lobster. Learn how to use basic
tools, and be amazed at the utter simplicity of it all.
*Ottawa Citizen*
After their two hands, chefs cite a good knife as their most
indispensable kitchen utensil. Zwilling J.A. Henkels Complete Book
of Knife Skills by Jeffrey Elliot and James P. DeWan begins with
knife construction, safety and care. In textbook-like detail, using
hundreds of photos and illustrations, it teaches techniques for
slicing, dicing, peeling, julienne, chiffonade, rondelles and
oblique and paysanne (tile) cuts for fruits and vegetables. Then it
shows how to de-bone poultry, butterfly chops, French a rack of
lamb, fillet a whole fish, shuck oysters and prepare squid. A final
chapter is devoted to garnishes. If you need a knife to do it, this
book shows you how.
*Sarasota Herald-Tribune*
Very little cooking can happen if you don't wield a knife well, and
that's one reason why The Zwilling J. A. Henckels Complete Book of
Knife Skills by Jeffrey Elliot and James P. DeWan (Robert Rose)
leads this list. Another reason is that it's a terrific book,
laying out the construction and design of kitchen knives before
teaching different cutting techniques and then going on to show how
they apply to a variety of meats and fruits and vegetables. Nicely
illustrated and spiral bound for ease of tabletop use, it's an
essential.
*Metroland: New York's Capital Region Newspaper*
Hurry to a bookstore and purchase it before the first edition is
sold out.
*WinesWorld Magazine*
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