TC- Hung's Knife Skills - NY Mag

[gyozagirl]

http://nymag.com/daily/food/2007/10/t...

Say what you will about Hung, but I can only hope that I have knife skills like this someday.

[chef chicklet]

He does have a different sense of humor, a little dark but funny. I enjoyed watching him slice and chop as I do any good chef! Now we need to see Casey (TC) slice onions again! That was excruciatingly painful and exhibits truthfully how bad and dangerous a dull knife is.

[Blueicus]

Ha, I love him. Bring it on.

[orezscu]

What's all the hype? He has the sort of moderately fast knife technique that any experienced cook probably does -- nothing amazing. Watch Jacques Pepin purée garlic with his "rocking" technique, or think of how Hiroyuki Sakai peeled the apple that one time on the original Iron Chef - *those* are great knife skills.

Does anyone have any other examples? Someone who's amazing with a knife is a treat to watch. Martin Yan has a few staple tricks in his bag (e.g. his "instant puree of garlic or ginger"), you can catch him on PBS on Saturday.

[Bunson]

Martin Yan was the pioneer of "great for TV fast knife skills" especially with his "no-look" chopping.

I forget which iron chef it was, but someone took a huge daikon radish, shaped it like a cylindar, then using I think it was a chinese cleaver carved a paper thin sheet out of it by going around the radish. It wasn't fast but the precision was incredible.

[Discoethan]

There was a knife skills challenge on season 1 of Next Food Network Star. Chef Morimoto judged and as a demonstration, thinly sliced a cucumber in about 1 second, leaving the skin on the bottom intact. When he held up the cuke, it looked like it was made of rubber.

[Axalady]

Congratulations to Hung. Here's a clip of the Granddaddy of knife skills http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT9lKA...

[notmartha]

Thanks for the link!

What brand of knife did Hung said he used?

[Bunson]

Misono UX10

http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/UX1...

But there's so many variations, can anyone confirm which one he uses? It looks like the Sujihiki in the video...

[notmartha]

Thanks!

[LindaWhit]

I love when Hung pulls out the Chinese cleaver, he says "This is the knife that almost killed people on the show!" and then he broke out laughing. :-)

What I *wish* he had also included was a small comment about making sure your knives were well sharpened before each use (and professionally sharpened at least 1x a year) before attempting to do that type of slicing and dicing. Many home cooks don't sharpen their knives each time, much less have them professionally sharpened. Which reminds me - time to get mine done again. :-)

[Chew on That]

Haha I loved that comment he made too! Hung is soooo fast. I still don't know how he doesn't chop his hand off! They should have also had a disclaimer NOT to try this at home...hehe.

Thanks gyozagirl for showing us this article/video clip!

[goodhealthgourmet]

i just told my mom she MUST do the same thing. i'm visiting and nearly sliced my finger off chopping vegetables for dinner last night because the blades on her knives are so dull one of them even slipped right off a zucchini...so i grabbed another chef's knife, which completely mangled some bell peppers - couldn't even cut through the skin.

she's been sharpening them herself. not just honing, sharpening them with one of those home-sharpeners. a word to the wise: unless you've been taught the proper way to use one and have a lot of practice, it's a baaaad idea. if yo don't do it at precisely the right angle you can totally destroy the blade.