What’s the Chinese Cleaver?
The main cutting techniques used in Chinese cuisine
In Chinese cuisine, which is characterized by "stir-frying", we need a square-bladed knife to process ingredients into slices, cubes, or shreds of uniform shape and size. This not only helps the ingredients heat more evenly but is also one of the keys to a good stir-fry. Slicing plays an extremely important role in Chinese cooking, especially for stir-fried foods. Ingredients cut into small pieces can be stirred and turned easily, cook faster with less heat, and are convenient to handle with chopsticks. What’s more, cutting enhances aroma and flavor by allowing spices to act on more food surfaces. Before cutting a particular ingredient, carefully consider its type and texture, how it will be cooked, and what it will be combined with. For frying, ingredients are usually cut into larger pieces, while for steaming and stir-frying, they are cut into smaller pieces. For stir-fried dishes, the main vegetable determines the cutting technique. Diced meat goes with peas, strips of meat with bamboo shoots, and small shreds of meat with bean sprouts. Sometimes it is the other way around—for example, when you cut vegetables into narrow strips to accompany narrow strips of meat. Whether cut into slices, cubes, or strips, the ingredients in each dish should be cut in the same way. This allows them to cook more evenly, and the finished dishes will look more appealing, neat, and harmonious. It also makes them easier to eat with chopsticks: Uniformly cut pieces are easier to pick up than a strip of this and a chunk of that. A Chinese cleaver is a multi-tasking knife whose features make it well suited to the cutting techniques used in Chinese cuisine. Whether you are a kitchen enthusiast or a professional chef, your culinary journey is incomplete without a cleaver. For an all-purpose slicer, there is nothing better than a Chinese cleaver. The six main cutting techniques are slicing, dicing, chopping, stripping, crushing, and notching. With a Chinese cleaver, you get a wider blade that is very useful for transferring cut pieces from the chopping board. Mastering a Chinese cleaver requires considerable skill and practice. But once you become familiar with it, the knife’s various applications will stand out. Below are some of the cutting techniques used with a Chinese cleaver:
Slicing
The Chinese cleaver features a thin blade that is ideal for slicing meat and vegetables. This can be done in three ways: straight, diagonal, and rolling cuts. Straight or vertical slicing is used for delicate items such as mushrooms, scallops, and liver. The diagonal or slant cut is used for coarse-grained meats and hard, fibrous vegetables. The rolling cut is a variation of the diagonal cut and is used on coarse, cylindrical vegetables such as radishes, carrots, and beets that are suitable for slow cooking. This produces an irregularly shaped slice with many cutting surfaces, which contributes to faster cooking. Slice and roll until the vegetables are completely sliced.
Chopping
Chopping with a Chinese cleaver is very common and easy. It is highly efficient and easy to handle. This technique is used in many recipes, such as soups and stews. It involves first chopping the ingredients quickly in one direction, then in another, continuing crosswise until the ingredients look as if they have been put through a mincer. You can also achieve this by pressing the food once through the coarsest setting of a grinder. This saves a little time, but often squashes the fibers, releases the juices, and makes the food tougher.Dicing
Because of its thin blade, the Chinese cleaver works efficiently for dicing meat and other vegetables. The easiest way is to cut the ingredients first into strips, then crosswise into cubes. When dicing irregularly shaped ingredients, start at the narrowest end and work toward the thicker one.Stripping
This technique is commonly used for cutting celery, carrots, onions, zucchini, bell peppers, and potatoes with a Chinese cleaver. This cut is usually applied to vegetables, but it also works for meat or fish, especially in stir-fries. With a julienne cut, the ingredient is cut into long, uniform strips. Julienne cuts are often used for salad ingredients and green vegetables.Crushing
Crushing is used with garlic and ginger to release their aromas during cooking, or with radishes and cucumbers in cold dishes to help the sauce penetrate the ingredients. The ingredient should be broken up but remain relatively intact rather than falling apart. When crushing garlic, keep the broad side of the knife parallel to the chopping board so that nothing splatters. To begin, slice the ginger into a 1/2-inch-thick piece and strike it hard once with the flat side of the knife. The fibers hold the slice together so that it can be removed again if necessary.Notching
Chinese cleaver knives allow you to process whole fish or large pieces of meat. The surfaces are scored, either parallel or crosswise, with light cuts to allow spices and hot oil to penetrate more deeply. This shortens cooking time and improves the flavor.Appearance is not everything
Just because a Chinese cleaver looks like a cleaver does not mean you can use it to chop bones. Heavier cleavers are designed for that, but the main function of lighter cleavers—often called Chinese chef's knives—is to cut meat and vegetables. Chopping bones with these lighter cleavers can ruin the blade. If you are not sure what kind of cleaver you have, contact the store where you purchased it. The most important thing is to find one that is well made. Your comfort level is also important. The cleaver should feel firm but not too heavy. If your arms become strained when you hold the cleaver, try another one. Preparing dinner should not strain your muscles!How to take care of a Chinese cleaver
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