We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie. – David Mamet
Leaves are beginning to curl and change color, the air is getting crisper as the days grow shorter, and this is the best of all kitchen seasons for pie lovers. Enrobed in layers of flaky, crusty goodness, fillings rich with warming spices, succulent fruit or veggies, silken puddings and custards – whatever tickles your fancy – pies are welcome at every table.
One of the essentials of good pie baking is prepping whole comestibles like pears, apples, squash or pumpkins: paring, coring, and cutting. Prep that involves peeling, de-seeding and trimming is a time-consuming aspect of cooking and baking, but the right cooking tools can take the chore out of this labor of love.
You don’t have to be a pie perfectionist to appreciate the versatility of paring knives. These small but sharp beauties are essential kitchen knives, perfect for everything from carving elegant and delicate decorations to scoring a roast or a loaf of crusty bread.
With guidance from the professionals at the Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, we’ve put together a brief guide to paring techniques. Using them properly not only helps prevent injury, but also does justice to the beautiful ingredients you use to make most the unforgettable bite.
Peeling: For most fruits or vegetables, hold the item in your non-dominant hand and hold the paring knife in your other hand. Grip the handle firmly, peel towards yourself, and turn the item to remove all the bits of skin.
Tournée: Our Bird’s Beak paring knives have concave blades designed for shaping hardy vegetables such as potatoes into elegant curves. Hold the veggie segment between the thumb and fingers of your dominant hand and trim the edges, tapering near the end. Rotate the vegetable and pare into the desired shape and size.
Coring, pitting, and deseeding: use the same grip as when you’re peeling, and adjust your hold to access the bits you want to remove. To deseed citrus fruit, slide the knife tip beneath the seed and pop it out of the flesh. Pesky pepper seeds are easy to scrape away with a paring knife, and removing pits from stone fruit is much easier than with long handled knives.
Segmenting: It’s a breeze to banish the pith and membrane from fruit segments to make your presentations prettier and tastier. On a cutting board, slice the item in half lengthwise with the paring knife. Slice each half in half again to make wedges, then cut the white pith and membrane away.
Deveining: It’s safe to eat shrimp without removing the thin black line, but it can be unpleasant to eat. After shelling the shrimp, make a shallow slit that exposes the vein and gently work it out to keep the vein and shrimp from splitting.
Scoring: making shallow cuts or slashes on baked goods or meat is ideal work for a paring knife. In addition to their decorative uses, shallow cuts allow steam and juices to escape during baking, and help meat absorb marinades, tenderize, and have crispier edges.
The elegance and utility of our paring knives is unmatched. Take a look at our selection of these elegant and perfectly balanced kitchen knives that you’re sure to use in every season – and cherish for a lifetime.
Ready to pare down your prep work? Check out our selection of paring knives.
