There was a time when every singe piece of knife in the house were too worn out and blunt to cut anything. I don’t know how is that possible and i don’t know how the boyfriend manage to live without a usable knife in the kitchen… maybe he used scissors to dice his food -_-”.
So off i dragged him to the store to grab a few pairs of new and sharp kitchen knives. The problem is the both of us had no idea there were so many different type of knives and we ended up buying the wrong type. It was utterly useless. Slicing vegetables was so tedious and cutting meat was out of the question! I think we bought a bread knife hahahaha!
So, now that i’ve learnt my lesson, let’s share some useful information about kitchen knives.
First of all there are quite a number types of knives available but there are only 6 basic ones that is actually needed in the kitchen.
Chef’s Knife also called a cook’s knife or a French Knife has an all purpose design for all types of kitchen task such as chopping vegetables, dicing, slicing and mincing meat.
The curved design allows the cook to rock the knife on the cutting board for a more precise cut and it comes in various lengths of 6, 8, 10 and 12 inches. Get one that fits your hands because the bigger and longer it is the harder to handle.
A Paring Knife is a small knife with a straight, plain edge blade that is ideal for peeling and other intricate work like removing seeds or coring food and cutting small items. Generally 21/2 to 4 inches long, it’s easy to use and it’s designed to be an all-purposed knife much like the chef’s knife except it’s smaller.
Utility Knife is similar to the paring knife except it’s larger at 4 to 7 inches long. It’s a lightweight knife used to cut items that are too large for paring knife and too small for a chef’s knife such as cucumbers, apples and for slicing cheese or meat. They are also called the sandwich knives because of it’s general uses.
A Boning Knife is generally 5 to 6 inches long with a flexible narrow blade. It’s used to remove the main bone within a cut of meat. While a stiff and rigid boning knife is good beef and pork, a flexible one is preferred for poultry and fish.
The Cleaver is mostly a rectangular knife with wide rigid blade around 6 inches in length with a sharp cutting edge. The blade is thick and heavy for splitting or cleaving meat and bone. The flat blunt side of the blade can be used to pulverize meat. If the handle is flat on the end it may be used to crush seeds, garlic or other similar ingredients.
Finally, the Bread Knife which is a type of serrated knife is usually between 6 to 10 inches in length with 8 inches being a common length. The serrations on the blade make it ideal for cutting bread (and other foods with hard/soft composition).
My favorite knife of all if you would like to know is none of the above. Not that they are not good (they are of great use) but i find that i always fall back to using the Chinese Chef’s Knife.
A Chinese Chef’s Knife looks like a cleaver but the blade is not thick like a cleaver. Instead, it is thin bladed designed for slicing, chopping, and mincing vegetables, fish, and boneless meats. Often mistaken for a cleaver or a Chinese Cleaver. It’s is a all-purpose knife similar to the Chef’s Knife. I use it all the time.
I prefer the Chinese Chef’s Knife to the common Chef’s Knife because it gives a good grip and the wide, blade keeps the my fingers well off the cutting surface unlike the Chef’s Knife where my knuckles always knocks the cutting board whenever i chop or mince ingredients. Also, the wide blade offers a larger surface to scoop up chopped food into the bowl.
Happy cooking!
October 11, 2010 | Posted by 
Categories: Knife Set Reviews | 
Tags: bread knife, cm 5, ikon, knife block, paring knife, professional chefs | 
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