How to use the other side of your chef’s knife

We’re all familiar with how to use the business-end of our chef’s knives. But did you know that the back of the blade, also known as the spine, is also very useful? Joe Sevier at Epicurious does, and he tells us six ways to use the other side of a chef’s knife.

The blunt side of your knife is perfect for tasks like bruising lemongrass to get rid of its tough outer fibers. It’s easier to just flip your knife over instead of digging through the drawer to find a separate tool like a meat tenderizer (which also means one more thing to clean). 

You can also use the dull edge to scale a fish or to “milk” an ear of corn. Any task that requires this sort of dragging or pulling is better suited to the dull edge, which is sturdier than the thin cutting side. Keeping this thought in mind, let’s turn to the most common scraping task – sweeping the foods you just cut off of the cutting board and into your pan or bowl. Most people just use the blade to do this, but that is hard on the cutting edge. You can keep the knife sharper longer just by flipping it over before scraping the foods into the skillet.