Honing - Stropping A Kitchen Knife Is The Reverse Of Steeling A Kitchen Knife

In the last couple of blog posts I have been discussing the subject of honing and/or sharpening your kitchen knives using any number of honing rod types from the standard grooved steel to the ceramic steel and the newest in technology the diamond coated sharpening steel which in conjunction with  a quality professional grade ceramic sharpening rod I can and you can get your kitchen knives razor sharp on the fly.

Honing is a very important step in kitchen knife maintenance as it will allow your primary cutting edge to remain in top cutting condition for up to twice as long as if you were not honing your kitchen knives at all! If you don't have a honing steel or sharpening rod you can strop your knives frequently in between full on knife sharpening treatments. Knife strops come in many forms and knives can be stropped in many ways and on many mediums.

Knife stropping is a double edged form of knife maintenance as it works to keep a knife honed and, because honing your kitchen knife removes metal from the blade it is also a form of sharpening. If you don't have a honing rod or a sharpening rod then you could strop your kitchen knives to a razor edge with very little trouble or effort on your part. (See Video)


You can strop your knife on a plain piece of leather,(See Video) or you can strop your knife on a piece of leather that has been charged with either a spray abrasive, a powder abrasive or paste/wax type abrasive. You can strop a knife on a piece of wood, a piece of cardboard or on a old slack belt charged or not charged with the very same abrasives as mentioned above. (see the video) Any of these types of stropping will work in honing and sharpening your knives to razor nirvana! To an extent stropping serves the same purpose as steeling a knife on a rod and that is to realign the cutting edge of your blade. The method is basically the same but, the position of the strop and knife are different.

As a side note some of the really hard steels that are coming out of Japan like ZDP189 or CPM-10V, CPM-S125sv from Crucible Particle Metallurgy which all are at least a Rockwell C Scale of 63+ and as high as 65+ will not respond honing on a rod or on a strop! In cases like this you will have to find someone or some company that makes custom honing rods made of something called Borosilicate Glass rod or a quality professional ceramic sharpening rod both of which have a Rockwell testing that is in the 80's.

Honing a kitchen knife by stropping it is really good for steels in the Rockwell 62 and less hardness range as the abrasives will take hold of the steel and remove the proper amounts of metal to give you a glowing polished and deadly sharp razor keen edge if you have done everything else right up to that point! Know this: If you are going to be stropping your kitchen knife of a piece of leather or cardboard that is charged with an abrasive you will not actually be realigning your kitchen knifes edge, you will actually be removing metal from the edge and that constitutes sharpening your kitchen knife!

Stropping is the reverse of knife steeling. In other words when you steel a knife you are moving the knife downward from the top of the steel toward the handle guard of the rod. When you strop your knife you are moving the knife in a backward motion away from you and then bringing the spine of the knife back toward you in reverse motion. (see video) The one constant that both methods of honing/sharpening a knife have is that you do not over pressure your strokes! Light pressure, let the medium do the work for you! Match your edge angle to the medium and take your time! Stropping is a wonderful thing to do after a full on sharpening treatment for the micro beveling and and final polishing of your kitchen knives.

If you have never stropped you kitchen knives before and you are really into knives, not just kitchen knives but sporting knives of all kinds then you need to learn how to strop your knives as you will increase the edge quality of your blades and the performance of those blades will be superior!

There are benefits to steeling and stropping your kitchen knives and the quickest one is that it is the easiest and fastest honing/sharpening method that you can employ to enhance, extend and maintain your kitchen knives and sporting knives as well! In all the years I have been in the cutlery business it always amazes me the shear number of professionals and non-professional chefs and gourmet home chefs alike don't strop or don't know how to properly steel or strop a kitchen knife. If you have followed along these last three blog posts with me then you know how and that puts you way above the curve!

For the optimal performance of  your valuable kitchen knives I highly recommend that you  steel and strop your knives before and after each use! OK! if you don't want to do it before each use then at least do it after each use of  your knives and I promise that your kitchen knives will give you cutting performance twice as long as if you never steeled or stropped your kitchen knives at all!

Knife Sharpening How To Sharpen Knives With A Sharpening Steel Part 2

Knife Sharpening

 

Welcome back this is part 2 in my series of posts about knife sharpening  using a sharpening steel or honing rod.  As stated we use the honing steel in order to realign the blade of our knives or to straighten or true the blade back to it's correct geometry before having to do a full on knife sharpening. Many people over the years have asked me what makes a knife edge go dull? There are many reasons why a knife edge will go dull but, when it comes to knife sharpening it is a matter of returning the edge to it's proper angle and this is also so when it comes to using a honing rod. I will say however that you can only "hone" a knife edge for so long with a honing steel before it is time to do a full on knife sharpening from scratch with multiple stones at multiple grits.

So what is it that causes a knife edge to go dull? What you are cutting dictates how long the blade stays sharp or how long it takes for the blade to go dull. The primary cutting edge of your knife is very thin, remember that the thinner the blade the sharper the blade but, the more susceptible the blade is to rolling, bending and chipping. When you cut something you use either a "push cut" or a "pull cut" and these cuts require pressure to be performed properly. Sometimes we as knife users don't realize how much pressure we are putting on our cutting edges and they will go dull sooner rather than later, because if your knife is sharp and depending on the cutting chore you should just let the edge do the work with the least amount of pressure necessary. A person could end up putting hundreds of pounds of pressure on a knife edge and it is just impossible to keep a knife edge straight. When it comes to knife cuts, vertical cuts put the least amount of  pressure on a knife blade. On the other hand, lateral or horizontal cuts are the hardest on knife edges. So let's summarize: What dulls a knife:

1. improper pressure
2. cutting medium
3. steel hardness
4. steel softness
5. blade angle
6. what you are cutting
7. misuse of the knife for the wrong chore which can chip the blade
8. improper honing technique
9. improper sharpening technique
10. Improper stropping technique
Here is something to think about as well. This is a review of your basic kitchen knife grind types. These grind types will dictate how you will hone as well as sharpen your knives and will also lend itself to you for making the best choice possible when looking to buy kitchen knives as well! buy kitchen knives.



As stated in my last post the harder the blade of a knife the the longer it will stay sharp although not straight but, the longer it will take to hone or perform a full on knife sharpening on it but, the softer the steel the shorter the lifespan of the sharp edge will be but, the easier it will be to perform a full on knife sharpening or honing! As a knife goes dull the blade rolls or deforms in some way and creates a shoulder above your primary cutting edge. As this shoulder is formed it will become harder and harder for you to either push cut or pull cut through the medium you are cutting. As the knife dulls this is when you will perform honing tasks to maintain the edge for as long as possible. It will eventually get to the point when "honing" will no longer work and then you will have to use abrasives(stones, ceramics, diamonds, carbides, naturals and synthetics) to do a full knife sharpening on your knives by thinning the secondary bevel with multiple grits in order to thin your primary edge again to cutting capacity.


In order to perform a proper knife honing, knife sharpening or knife re-sharpening you will need to be able to set the correct angle to your knives. I think at this point I am going to leave you guys hanging and, I will discuss knife sharpening and knife edge angles  concerning honing and sharpening in my next blog post so please stayed tuned! (See video above to review standard kitchen knife grind types and the associated.)

Thanks,

Richard

Knife Sharpening How To Sharpen Knives With A Sharpening Steel Part 1

Knife Sharpening

 

Knife Sharpening is one of those gray areas for many people in the culinary world and, the day to day world of people who carry knives in their pockets. I have been in the cutlery business for over 30yrs and, in that time I can tell you that sharpening professional cutlery tools is really a misunderstood process and art. I have been a professional sharpener for 20yrs of the 32yrs in the cutlery business. So it is in this post that I am going to begin to address knife sharpening with a series of posts and videos that I promise when I am done you my much loved readers will know more about knives and knife sharpening than anyone else you know and this I promise!

In this post I am going to begin to address "knife sharpening" with a "knife steel" or "honing rod" that you will find in every chef's kit and every home cutlery set. Using a steel is very misunderstood in the world of knives and sharpening. "Steeling" a knife is actually good for the blade and will extend the sharpness and cutting performance of the blade if the process is performed right. Most people I know think that "steeling" a knife is "sharpening" and knife, but, it's not! So many of us have watched people on T.V., celeb chefs and people on the internet stroking/rubbing their knife against a steel or up and down on a steel of even stroking the knife in reverse on the steel and explaining that this is  how you sharpen your knife. They are wrong! Period! Steeling is not knife sharpening, it is knife honing!


So let me begin by telling you what "knife steeling" is not:

Using a steel on a knife is not knife sharpening, it is honing or truing or straightening a blade that has rolled to one side or the other. On the other hand, knife sharpening is the process of removing metal from the blade in order to thin the blades bevel. The thinner the bevel the sharper the blade. Your bevel is made of two parts: the secondary bevel and the primary cutting edge. Now, even though "steeling" isn't sharpening it will make your blade feel sharper. Technically speaking a knife steel is also called a file by us old timers and this file cuts micro serrations into the primary cutting edge of your blade, especially if your are using a "grooved" steel. Now, when you watch these people on TV or the net and they are rubbing the blade on the steel all they are really doing is deforming the blade. What will happen if you hold the blade to high to the steel(see video for explanation) you will dull the blade and deform it and if you are doing this on a "grooved" steel you run the chance taking pieces of steel from your primary cutting edge.  If the blade is held to low to the steel then the angle of the edge will never meet the steel correctly and nothing will happen except that you will scratch up the primary bevel or profile of your knife.(see video for explanation) This is part one of how to sharpen knives with a sharpening steel.

Stay tuned for part 2 and we will get further in depth in this subject.

Thanks,

Richard

Knife Sharpening - How To Use A Sharpening Steel

Knife Sharpening

 

When it comes to cooking and using knives on a daily basis one of the things that needs to be done from time to time is knife sharpening. Between the times when the culinary professional or gourmet home chef will perform knife sharpening they will tune their knives up on a sharpening steel or "Honing Rod" or "Butchers Steel" or today it's just called a "Steel." Well, the fact of the matter is that when you are "Steeling" a knife you are not "Sharpening" your knife. When using a steel, you are merely "honing" or tuning up your knife edge. What you are really doing is taking a knife edge that is bending or rolling over to one side or the other and "truing" that edge by making it stand up straight again. The bad part about "Sharpening" or "Honing" your knives on a steel is that in most cases it is done incorrectly. In fact it's even done incorrectly by many of the celebrity chefs out there that are just stroking their knives on a steel at high velocity and then telling you that this is how you sharpen a knife. This is just plain wrong. To use the steel incorrectly is one of the best ways to trash your quality knifes edge! There is a correct way to "Steel" a knife and we will discuss it here.

Let me first say again that "Steeling" a knife is not sharpening a knife. To sharpen a knife is to remove steel from the knifes edge in order to make it thinner. The thinner the knifes edge the sharper the knife is! Now, when you "Steel" a knife on a "Butcher's steel" or steel that has corrugated lines in it you are taking minute levels of filings from the knife, but this does not constitute "Sharpening", this constitutes "honing" if you are holding the knife against the steel at the correct angle and you are using the right amount of pressure on the steel. If you hold the blade to high to the angle of the knife you will deform the blade and most likely rip steel out of it. If you hold the blade to low to the angle on the steel you will not "hone" anything and most likely scar up the profile face of your blade. How many times have you seen a chef or cook that has a knife that is all scratched up on both full surfaces of the blade? Most likely incorrect "Steeling" technique. So lets take a look at how to use a "Honing Steel" correctly.

Honing Steel Types:

[caption id="attachment_668" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Standard Honing Steel"][/caption]

Your standard honing steel in made of case hardened steels like stainless and tool grade steels depending on which is the country of origin and they come with Rockwell hardnesses ranging from RC. 58 to Rc. 65 or even more in some cases. This type of steel is either corrugated or smooth on the surface and each type produced a different kind of edge quality. The corrugated version commonly referred to as a Butcher's steel create more pronounced micro serrations on the primary cutting edge of your knife and the smooth steel creates a much finer micro serration.

[caption id="attachment_673" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Diamond Steel"][/caption]

The standard diamond steel for knife sharpening is made of a rod of nickel or harder steel and is impregnated with industrial diamonds of  industrial zircon stones that are mono surfaced meaning just one surface versus inferior diamond products that are made with poly surfaces which means many surfaced and is much harder on your knives and removes much to much steel. The diamond style sharpening rod not only hones your blade but actually accomplishes the task of metal removal which is the definition of sharpening. The diamond knife sharpening rod will allow you to thin your blade to the desired thickness and desired angle and then you can micro bevel the blade with a ceramic sharpening rod. Since this type of rod uses diamonds you don't have to worry about what the hardness of your knife is because the diamond is the hardest substance known to man and this type of rod will cut any steel known to man.

[caption id="attachment_679" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="ceramic sharpening rod"][/caption]

A ceramic sharpening rod will allow you to take your knife sharpening or honing to another level by polishing out the fine micro scratches that the prior rod put on your cutting edge. Micro beveling means that your edge will get thinner and sharper using a ceramic sharpening rod after using a honing steel which will give you better cutting performance. Some ceramic rods  are made of a resin based ceramic much like a Japanese water stone is resin based synthetic ceramic. Some of the newer ceramic sharpening rods are made of alumina ceramic which is an unbreakable synthetic ceramic rod. Ceramic rods can come in many grit strengths from standard 1200 grit to as high as 8000 grit to allow for different levels of micro bevels.

Stay tuned for Part 1 of how to keep your knife sharp with a honing steel.

Stuffed Chicken Breast With Cranberries, Pistachios and Gorgonzola Cheese

Stuffed Chicken Breast

[caption id="attachment_1057" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Stuffed Chicken Breast---->Click To Enlarge"][/caption]

I love stuffed chicken breast! It is one of my favorite dishes to make and stuffed chicken breast recipes are plentiful, as you can stuff them with just about anything you can think of. It is one of the dishes that my girlfriend really loves me to make. When I make a stuffed chicken breast recipe I usually buy a whole chicken and bone it out to the part the way I need them. I do this for two reasons and the first one is that I am doing my best to be economical in this current economy I am sure all of you have seen the price of food lately, and the other reason is that I like to keep up with my knife skills.

It went like this: I went shopping for the items I would need to make my stuffed chicken breast dish and the main item I needed  was the chicken. I went to a couple of markets to check prices on things because to tell the truth I love to shop and dilly dally in the supermarket always looking for something I can use on sale. The average price I was seeing for boneless and skinless chicken breast was $3.50 per pound! Ouch! It used to be $1.50 or less! Don't get me wrong, I am not cheap at all and I always buy the best I can get in anything I want, but at this point in time I am doing my best to be frugal. So at one market I shop at they were selling whole chickens with a coupon and card for $3.00! I bought a 5LB chicken for $3.00! Now that's a bargain!

So, I bought my bird and the rest of the items I needed to make this dish and away I went  home to make stuffed chicken breast. Here is another kicker about buying the whole bird which was a money saver, and that is the fact that after I separated the meat from the ribs, I used those ribs and some vegetable ends that any good cook can and should be saving and I made a wonderful chicken stock that I will use for many other recipes.

I cut and stuffed the chicken breast with the cranberry, pistachio and Gorgonzola stuffing and cooked the breasts on the stove top in my Anolon Nouvelle Copper nonstick pan until they were about halfway done and then I put them in the oven at 450 degrees. I put the potatoes in the oven about ten minutes before the stuffed chicken breasts so that everything would be ready at the same time. the potatoes I mixed up in a 1.5qt Pyrex Baking Dish and the white wine sauce was made in the same Anolon nonstick pan that I used for the stuffed chicken breast recipe. I hope you enjoy the video and I truly hope that you make this dish, it really is delicious!


The Brine:

1 cup of any kind of white wine.
1 tsp. sugar.
1 tsp. salt.
1/2 tsp. black pepper.
1/2 tsp. olive oil.
1 tbsp. lemon juice.
Mix all ingredients in a glass bowl and put the chicken breasts in the brine for minimum 2hrs before prep for stuffing.

The Pilaf:

1 cup white rice.
2 1/2 cups of chicken broth/stock.
1 tsp. salt.
1/2 tsp black pepper.
1/4 to 1/2 tsp garlic granules.
1 tsp olive oil.

Pour olive oil in saucepan and heat it up. Once hot then pour in the rice and coat the rice with the oil until translucent. When translucent pour in the chicken stock and stir. Bring to a boil and stir again. Put lid on sauce pot and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes and in that time stir it at least once more. Then take off of the heat and let stand 5 to 10 minutes until the rice is fluffy.

Once the rice is done put about half of the rice into a either a glass or large metal bowl and add the following ingredients:

1 to 1 1/2 tbsp of finely chopped dried cranberries.
2 tbsp. rough chopped unsalted pistachio's. Rough chop for depth of texture and crunch.
1/2 cup or more of Gorgonzola cheese.
Salt and pepper to taste if needed.

Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl while the rice is still hot/warm as it will soften the cranberries and pistachios and it will get creamy from the Gorgonzola cheese! Yummy! Put this mixture aside until it is time to make the stuffed chicken breast.

Cutting The Chicken Breasts: See The Above Video.

Take a sharp knife and start a  cut into the breast about one inch from whatever end you are starting at.Lightly cut across the breast lengthwise until  about one inch from  the end of the breast.Separate the cut and see how deep the cut is. Go deeper to make a pocket but don't cut all the way through the breast.Once this is done, take one side of the pocket flap and stick the knife into that and create a side pocket on each side of the initial cut of the breast. PLEASE WATCH VIDEO TO SEE HOW THE CUT IS DONE.

Garlic And Rosemary Potatoes:

4+ potatoes of any kind you want rough chopped into one inch chunks.
Put in  glass bowl or Pyrex baking dish and pour some olive oil over the potatoes and mix the oil into the potatoes.
Next sprinkle some salt and black pepper on the potatoes and mix.

Next sprinkle some dried and crushed rosemary over the potatoes and then sprinkle some garlic granules over the potatoes and mix it all up. Once this is done put the potatoes aside or in the refrigerator until it is time to put in the oven to cook which will be about 10 to 15 minutes before you put the stuffed chicken breasts in the oven.

Cooking The Stuffed Chicken Breasts:

After the chicken breasts have been cut properly(watch video) it is time to stuff them with the rice, gorgonzola, pistachio, and cranberry mixture made earlier. Make sure your oven is preheated to 450 degrees. Now stuff the chicken breasts with the mixture and really get it in there and don't forget to stuff the side pockets either. Once stuffed, salt and pepper to taste and put in your skillet. I used a 10 inch Anolon Nouvelle Copper pan, I just love it! Now, cook the breasts on the stove top on a medium high heat using 1 tbsp of butter mixed with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Butter for taste and olive oil for smoke point. The butter and olive oil will let the stuffed chicken breasts caramelize on the bottom and mix with the pan juices so that you can make the white wine sauce for the chicken. When the stuffed chicken breasts are about 40% done in the pan put the potatoes in the oven. When the stuffed breasts are 50% done put them in preheated 459 degree oven for 20-30 minutes as each oven cooks a bit differently.

White Wine Sauce:

When the stuffed chicken breasts are done take the pan out of the oven, turn off the heat in the oven if the potatoes are done and if not then leave the heat on until they are done. Plate the breasts and cover them to keep them warm while making the white wine sauce.

1/4 cup white dry white wine.
2 tbsp. flour.
Add wine and flour to pan juices and stir/whisk into a smooth paste.
Make the paste a nut brown color to get the flavor of the flour out of the paste.
Add 1/2 to 1 cup of chicken stock depending on how thick you want your sauce.

Add 1/2 to 3/4 finely chopped mushrooms of choice. I added mine raw and cooked them in the sauce which worked fine, but in retrospect I would saute the mushrooms in some chicken stock or oil and butter in another pan before adding the the sauce mix. Now bring sauce to a boil then reduce heat to medium and reduce your sauce to the consistency you want.

Plate the stuffed chicken breast and put some potatoes on the plate and spoon your sauce over the chicken breast or you can even put the sauce on the plate first and then put the stuffed chicken breast over the sauce. The presentation is your choice. Eat and enjoy!

Cardamom - All About Cardamom Spice

Cardamon

[caption id="attachment_873" align="alignleft" width="258" caption="Cardamom Seeds"][/caption]

One of my favorite spices that is used in one of my favorite teas from India, called Chai is Cardamom. It is a spicy, aromatic spice that is pungent, intense and sweet all at the same time. It is actually a seed that is related to the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) and is called the Elettaria Cardamomum. These seeds are oval shaped and can be anywhere from a quarter of an inch to one full inch in length. Cardamom is geographically indicative of Guatemala and India. Most people are familiar with Cardamom because of it's association with Indian foods and spice stores.There are two major types of Cardamom in use today and they are Elettaria: We call this Cardamom, Green Cardamom, or True Cardamom and it comes from India and Malaysia. The other type of Cardamom is Amomum: This is generally called Black Cardamom, Brown Cardamom, Kravan, Java Cardamom, Bengali Cardamom, Siamese Cardamom, White Cardamom and Red Cardamom. This type of Cardamom comes mainly from Asia and Australia. Both of these types of Cardamom are used as flavorings in beverages, spice in baked goods and an added ingredient in cooking and as a medicine.

Cardamom is a major constituent in Indian cuisine and is used in many of the hundreds of curry blends from the region. It is widely utilized in the Scandinavian region of the world in the new Scandinavian cuisines and is added to baked goods widely. Now, here is a kicker: The greater majority of Cardamom in the world is used in the Arabic countries as an additive to black tea and coffee's, I have some of the flavored tea in my cupboard and believe me it is delicious!

Cardamom as a medicine has been used throughout all of Asia to help treat infections in the teeth and gums and to aid in ailments of the throat and to treat inflammation and digestive disorders. It has supposedly been used to help in breaking up kidney and gall stones. There is also some claim that Cardamom has been used in the treatment of snake bite and scorpion bites as a anti-venom, although I could not find any information to that fact. Cardamom has also been used in the practice of Ayurveda medicine practiced in India and in traditional Chinese naturopathic medicine. In the past Nepal was the largest producer of Cardamom, but that has changed with Guatemala now being the number one largest producer and exporter of Cardamom to the world. As with most herbs and spices store your Cardamom in an airtight container and keep in a cool, dark and dry place and try to not have the temperature go above 75 degrees F.



 

 

 

Photo Courtesy Of: FotoosVanRobin