Oak Forest HS Culinary Arts Students Learn Knife Skills from Chef

Oak Forest High School Senior RhiAnna Dunn and Junior Sam Freedom watch intently as Chef Karl from Kendall College demonstrates knife skills while cutting a whole chicken in Oak Forest High School teacher Vicky Vogel’s Culinary Arts Class.

Chef Karl demonstrated safety rules about using various types of knives and the different features of using the knives. Different knives work better for different kitchen tasks. For example, one wouldn’t use a paring knife to cut up the chicken that he had in front of him, nor would he use a clunky butcher knife. Instead, Chef Karl would use a boning knife which is designed to cut precisely through meat and bone safely.

Chef Karl also showed students some basic sanitation rules dealing with raw chicken. For example, one would never use a knife that he used to cut raw chicken to cut vegetables because he had just used it on the raw chicken and that could make a person sick. Also, a person should also change out the cutting board as well because the raw chicken had sat on it and would need to be thoroughly washed before using it again.