Australia’s Legendary Blade Expert, Leigh Hudson, Gives His Top Tips for the Perfect Xmas Roast
Christmas is all about getting together with family and friends, sharing, and caring and perhaps most importantly showing off your impressive kitchen skills with your loved ones. Whether you’ve mastered the perfect pink lamb roast, basted the juiciest turkey or prepared Australia’s best seafood platter – carving up your meaty masterpiece is definitely one of the most anticipated moments on Christmas Day.
Here to ensure you nail the job, Leigh Hudson from Chef’s Armoury has the top tips for Christmas Day carving… and he knows his stuff.
Lauded for being the creators of the first Japanese knife store in Australia and the third Japanese knife store outside of Japan, Leigh and his wife Stephanie, have harnessed their passions to catapult their first low-volume online store designed to “just make enough sales to cover our yearly trip to Japan” to a thriving business that has transformed the culinary landscape in Australia.
Here’s Leigh’s Top Tips for the PERFECT Christmas Roast.
Choose the best knife for the job. Look though the knife drawer for a knife that is long, maybe 24-27cm and not too deep 2-3cm width so that you can carve though dense proteins easily. At a push a chef knife can do the job but it needs to be immaculately sharp.
Of course, many things are easier if you use a more specific blade. For example a Yanagiba will slice perfect sashimi, Sujihiki is excellent at slicing both raw and cooked meats and a Nakiri (rectangular shaped blade) isn’t just fun to use but makes dicing veggies so much easier.
Make sure your knife is properly sharp. Yes this means getting out the stones and putting some effort to getting the perfect edge. If you need to brush up on knife sharpening tips follow this video.
Nervous about sharp knives? Don’t be. As Leigh explains, sharper knives are actually less dangerous.
“A sharper blade needs a lot less pressure to slice through food making it easier to cut, and therefore less likely to make errors. It’s also less likely to slip as it is cutting its own path through the food without using blunt force. In addition, knowing that you are holding an extremely sharp knife will also make you pay more attention to how you’re cutting and encourage you to keep your fingers out of the way.”
Bone in, or Bone Out? Carving especially in front of an audience is a daunting task – there are two options, bone in or deboned.
- Bone in is impressive but can be difficult if you don’t knife where the bones are. Top tip here is to use long slicing cuts with reduced pressure so the knife ‘feels’ where the bones are and prevent chipping the knife.
- Deboning after cooking whether it’s a leg or removing the breast in the case of a bird and presenting them on a board to carve in public is a safe option. Peripheral bits like legs and wings can be presented on a side plate for good measure.
Do a test run on a smaller roast. It’s always a good idea to have a practice run, and we recommend practising your skills a couple of weeks out from the main event.
Of course, there’s no need to cook the full serving – for example, if you are roasting a turkey on Christmas day, perhaps cook a chicken a few weeks out to test your carving skills and learn where the bones are.
Key Facts:
Here to ensure you nail the job, Leigh Hudson from Chef’s Armoury has the top tips for Christmas Day carving… and he knows his stuff.
About us:
About Chef’s Armoury:
Chef’s Armoury launched out of the back of an Italian-Japanese café operated by founders Leigh and Stephanie Hudson in Rosebery, NSW in 2007. Fifteen years later, they are still the go-to experts on Japanese knives and cult Japanese ingredients including yuzu juice, yuzu kosho, real mirin, binchotan charcoal and artisan soy sauce. Chef’s Armoury introduced Australians to Japanese knife sharpening techniques and the high calibre of Japanese craftsmanship. They pride themselves on unmatched integrity as an importer, retailer and educator.
