In a professional kitchen there is always a pair of shears within reach. Not to replace knives, but for all the jobs where a blade on a board is slow, clumsy or messy. Here are eight.
1. Spatchcocking a chicken
With the chicken breast-side down, cut along both sides of the backbone, from the tail to the neck. Remove the backbone (keep it for stock), turn the chicken over and flatten it with the heel of your hand. It cooks flat, faster and more evenly. With a knife it is an exercise; with shears it takes a minute.
2. Herbs, straight over the plate
Chives, dill, flat parsley: snip them into short pieces over the dish. No board to wash, and the herbs aren't bruised.
3. Bacon
Bacon slides about and sticks to a knife blade. With shears, cut it into strips straight over the cold pan, then turn on the heat: over medium, with no oil, the fat renders on its own.
4. Pizza and quiche
A pizza wheel squashes the topping and doesn't always get through the crust. Shears cut cleanly without scratching the dish or tray.
5. Canned tomatoes
Put the shears into the open can and cut the peeled tomatoes into pieces without taking anything out. No juice on the board.
6. Trimming meat and poultry
Removing excess fat from a thigh, extra skin from a breast, a sinew from an escalope: it is more precise with shears than a knife, and the rest of the meat is left intact.
7. Noodles and long pasta
Cutting over-long rice noodles in the bowl, shortening spaghetti for a child, trimming fresh lasagne sheets to size: three snips.
8. Prawns and fish
Opening a prawn shell along the back to remove the vein, trimming the fins of a whole fish before cooking: shears do it better than any knife.
What they don't do
Small poultry bones, yes. Large beef or pork bones, no: that needs a cleaver. And don't use them to open cardboard or hard plastic packaging, which dulls the blades.
Care
- After raw poultry, wash them straight away in hot soapy water, paying attention to the pivot.
- Dry them completely, open, so no water sits near the pivot.
- No dishwasher: it dulls the handles and wears the edge.
- A drop of food-safe oil on the pivot now and then keeps the action smooth.
Our shears
14C28N kitchen shears — CHF 109. Blades in Swedish Sandvik 14C28N steel (56 to 58 HRC), one micro-serrated so it doesn't slip on poultry, aluminium handles, 215 g, nutcracker notch. In matte black or brushed silver.
They have their own slot in our acacia knife block, next to the honing rod. Why a softer steel than our knives: what a blade's steel tells you.
