More Kitchen Safety Tips

• Never put cooked food on the same plate that was used when it was raw.
• Put your sponge or scouring pad in the dishwasher every time you run it. This will keep bacteria from growing.
• Clean and disinfect sinks and often touched kitchen surfaces.
• Select and use cutting boards carefully. Cutting boards can harbor bacteria in the cracks and grooves caused by kitchen knives. Choose a smooth, durable and nonabsorbent surface. Plastic is less porous than wood, making it less likely to harbor bacteria, and easier to clean. Wash your board with hot soapy water, and scrub with a brush to remove food and dirt particles. After washing the cutting board by hand sanitize in the dishwasher.

More Kitchen Safety Tips

• Wash your hands in hot, soapy water making sure to scrub for 10 to 15 seconds before and after handling raw meat, poultry, seafood or eggs. Always make sure to wash fresh vegetables and fruits thoroughly.
  
• Make sure that your refrigerator is set to no more than 40 degrees and your freezer at zero or lower degrees. Don't store raw fish in your refrigerator for more than 24 hours. Raw poultry and ground beef will keep for one or two days and raw meat for three to five days. Thaw frozen food in the refrigerator or in the microwave, not at room temperature. Food defrosted in the microwave oven should be cooked immediately after thawing.

Kitchen Safety Tips When You Are Food Shopping.

• Don't let juice from raw meat, poultry, or fish drip on to your hands or any fresh foods in your grocery cart. Raw juices may contain bacteria.
• Always shop for cold and frozen foods last. In the summer use a cooler for the ride home, especially if you are running other errands and not going home promptly.
• Always try to avoid unpasteurized milk, juice, and eggnog or other foods made with raw eggs.

Know Your Knife

The tip of the knife is the most delicate part of the knife. This is ideal for slicing mushrooms. The mid-section is the most commonly used area and does the majority of the work. The heel or back 1/3 of the knife is the heavy work area, it is ideal for cutting off a bunch of celery.

Clean Knives After Use

Carbon steel knives should be washed and dried immediately after using to prevent rusting. Do not place your knives in the dishwasher. Always wash them by hand or the wood handles will gradually deteriorate and the blades will dull. This is also a good practice even with all stainless steel knives. A well cared for knife will last a lifetime and maintain it's sharpness longer.

Purchase A Good Knife

A good knife is heavy and well balanced compared to a flimsy knife that can easily bend or snap. Poorly constructed knives have a difficult time maintaining their edge, and they can warp over time. A good, forged knife with high carbon content and a molded handle will last a long time, if cared for properly. Knives are the most important tools in your kitchen, purchase good ones.

Using a Knife

The most important tip I can give you is to chop slowly and carefully. Always cut away from your body. Make sure your hands are dry and the surface you are woking on is nonslip.

Curl your fingers under on the hand holding the food. This might take a while to get used to, but will become second nature with practice. If your fingers are curled under, the chances are good you will never cut yourself. Watch what you are doing at all times, be careful. Keep kids and pets out of the kitchen when you are using knives. Using your dominant hand, hold the knife firmly, and using a rocking motion, cut through the food being cut. The knife should not leave the surface that you are working on. Move your hand (with the curled under fingers) along as the knife cuts the food.

Sharpening Knives

A knife that is not sharp is dangerous. It can slip off the food you are cutting and easily cut your fingers. A steel should be part of your knife collection. This long, round object sharpens knives by straightening out the edge. Hold the knife in your dominant hand and the steel in the other, with the steel point pressed into a solid waist-high surface. Hold the knife base at the top of the steel at a 20 degree angle. Slowly draw the knife down the length of the steel, pulling the knife back so the entire blade, from base to tip, moves against the steel, as if you were slicing off pieces of the steel. Repeat on the other side. Do this five or six times, then rinse the knife off and dry immediately. Make sure you sharpen each side the same number of times to retain the knife's balance.

This short little note on knife sharpening was taken from Linda Larsen's Guide to Busy Cooks.

Knife Maintenance and Storage

Each kitchen knife is designed for a specific use and should be used only for that purpose. They should not be used to pry lids off cans, bottles or cut against hard surfaces. If given adequate care, they last a life time. Buy a honing steel to straighten the edge and a sharpener to sharpen the edge. Get a pair of good wood cutting boards, one for meat and the other for cutting vegetables. Wooden cutting boards are easier to clean and harbor less germs than plastic ones.

Keep the blades of your kitchen knives dry, and wipe finger prints and moisture off after each use, with a soft cotton cloth. This is particularly important with blades of high carbon steel. Tarnishing is a normal property of carbon steel and cannot be avoided. Applying a couple of drops of any quality oil or silicon treatment to the blade with a soft cotton cloth will provide excellent protection. Check your kitchen knives often for possible trouble spots. If any stains appear, try removing the stains with a standard metal cleaner or polish. Never use a dishwasher for cleaning your good kitchen knives. Doing so could possibly remove the temper from the edge and render the blade soft so it will not hold an edge. Always use soap or hot water to clean your kitchen knives after they have been used to cut poultry, fish or meat. Wash by hand and dry immediately.

Store kitchen knives in a knife block or in a magnetic knife rack designed specifically for storage of kitchen knives. Kitchen knives stored in a drawer will dull more quickly.

Kitchen Knife Materials

Kitchen knives are made from several types of materials. Regular steel knives are low cost and available in all sizes and shapes. They form a patina (a surface sheen) over a period of time which will not allow further rusting. They need to be stored dry and require regular honing to keep their edges sharp. High carbon stainless steel which last longer is one of the most expensive and ideally recommended kitchen knife materials. It will not stain and holds a sharp edge longer than other types of knife materials.

Ceramic knives are popular because they do not need sharpening for years if used properly. They have to be used only on a cutting board and never on another ceramic, plastic or glass surface. Ceramic Knives need to be professionally sharpened and must not be honed at home. They are brittle and require care in usage.

Titanium which is a matrix of titanium and carbides is also used for making kitchen knives. Titanium is lighter than steel. Titanium alloy knives can be used for boning and filleting, but not for decorative cuts as they are more flexible than steel.

Kitchen and Knife Safety

Every kitchen should have a set of quality knives. Chef's choose and maintain their knives with great care, because they know that good well maintained knives makes preparing food a pleasure. They also know that if they are not used properly, knives can be very dangerous to everyone in the kitchen, especially children and pets.

Here are some suggestions for knife safety:

• Cut slowly, with the blade point facing away from your body and the knife's edge at a 20 degree angle. Make sure your fingers are curled away from the blade, and have a strong grip on the item you are cutting. Don't use a knife to cut string, bones, metal, or paper.
• Always use a cutting board, keeping it firmly in place by putting a damp towel or paper towel underneath to keep it from moving. Never cut anything in your hand, always use the cutting board.
• Use the correct knife for the job at hand.
• Hand wash all knives and dry thoroughly. Never put knives into the dishwasher or into sudsy dish water, and always hold a knife by its handle.
• Never attempt to catch a falling knife. Step away and let it come to rest before picking it up.
• Store knives in a knife block if possible, but if you must put in a drawer, make sure to keep them in a separate compartment away from other utensils.