How To Use An Ulu Knife

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An ulu makes excellent, quick work of chopping or mincing almost all foods, speeding the work of even an inexperienced cook. — An ulu makes fantabulous, quick work of chopping or mincing almost all foods, speeding the work of even an inexperienced cook.

What Is an Ulu Knife Proficient For?

Mincing
Chopping
Slicing
Scooping
Scraping (similar to a demote scraper)
Fleshing hides

Advantages

Versatility
The pocketknife is piece of cake to maintain.
It increases cutting efficiency by equally much as 40 pct for an untrained cook.

My First Experience With This Pocketknife

In the summer of 2004, my husband brought home a strange, small, curved knife he picked upwards at a garage auction. It had a fake-antler handle, and information technology came with a little cradle of a wooden stand, which had a groove for the blade. Information technology was plain a souvenir someone had picked up on a trip to Alaska, and it had never been used. The box had barely been opened, and it included an info card and the original packaging.

Two days later on, friends acquired big boxes of cherry bong peppers and yellow onions. They decided they had brought domicile too many and gave me a box of each.

What to do with this abundance? I had no actress refrigeration, little freezer room, and an oven of a tiny 1925 house. I decided to can them. I had been given a Blue Brawl Canning Book for my birthday the previous winter, and I'd been dying to attempt out a dozen and one ideas listed in it.

First Time Canning Alone

I settled on a sweet pepper savor. The first thing was to make a fine die of all the vegetables.

I had grown upwards gardening and preserving foods, but I'd never canned annihilation alone earlier this. Information technology was a beautiful adventure!

Armed with my trusty new ulu, I diced and chopped and minced for a couple of hours, through the hot, viscid afternoon. I discovered in short order that I had a gem of a knife. Cheap though it was, made of poor-grade steel which refused to hold a keen border, it sped up the vegetable prep past nearly twice what I had been able to practice with a usual kitchen pocketknife.

I used it on a regular, flat wooden cutting board, lacking a peculiarly matched wooden bowl, but was able to core, slice, and chop with astonishing speed, without the usual strain to my wrist.

I had fallen in dear with that knife.

Ulu Sit-in, With a Variety of Foods and Methods

I use my ulu on a daily basis for chopping and mashing garlic. By loosening the skins with a blow with the flat of the blade, I can prep, crush, or mince a garlic head as fast as I can process it in a food processor. — I use my ulu on a daily basis for chopping and mashing garlic. By loosening the skins with a blow with the apartment of the bract, I tin can prep, crush, or mince a garlic head as fast every bit I tin procedure it in a nutrient processor.

Curl to Continue

Winter Chile Cooking Marathons

Every wintertime, my husband and I make several batches of chile, stew, menudo, burrito beans, and such-like. Our Colorado Plains winters tend to be long and harsh, and we give our forest stove a conditioning.

We also go through dozens of heads of garlic, several bags of onions, and bushels of peppers.

That's a lot of chopping.

I somewhen got a slightly college-quality ulu, whose blade stays a flake sharper, longer. My original Alaskan knife fell apart subsequently 13 or more years of extensive use, requiring a new handle. My son, an avid fix-it guy, fashioned me a knew one out of wood. He did a good job, making an ergonomic, pretty, long-lasting handle of which I am proud.

An ulu makes equally quick work of tough roots such as horseradish, which must be roughly chopped before being ground in a traditional grinder, or minced in a food processor.

Summer Food Preservation Work

During the summer, my knives get to help with all kinds of food preservation chores. I put up pickled vegetables, jams and marmalades, dehydrated vegetables and fruits, canned and pickled fruits, and anything else that sounds interesting and tasty.

The ulu easily cuts through course and sometimes fibrous root vegetables, slashes rock fruits to pit and slice them, slices cucumbers and carrots and zucchini, and has washed nearly everything I've ever asked it to do.

The task of chopping or mincing bacon is made simple with an ulu.

How to Acuminate an Ulu Pocketknife

Please Tell Us Almost Your Knife Preferences

Ulu Origins

Every bit I sympathise it, the ulu has been traditionally used by Alaskan natives for processing fish and fleshing hides. Original knives were made of slate or other rock, with bone or antler handles.

Different sizes of blades, and a few different handle styles, accept been adult for split up uses.

I have a little experience preparing hides of deer and goats, and I tin testify that, with a chip of practice, a loftier-quality ulu does indeed do a fine job.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author'south knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.