• The Gourmet Nakiri Knife combines the features of a chef’s knife with the versatility of a vegetable cleaver
• Granton-edge blade, angled on both sides for slicing and chopping, is 30% sharper and holds its edge 30% longer than ordinary Asian-style blades
• No-stick Granton edge makes a cut that forms air pockets, allowing food to release easier from the blade
• Laser cut in Solingen, Germany, from a single piece of high-carbon no-stain steel; full tang
• High-impact handle is riveted to the full tang for superior balance and maneuverability; hand washing is recommended for best care

Product Description
Wusthof Classic Nakiri Knife chops and slices fruits, vegetables as well as meats with precision and ease. The Nikiri edge is angled on both sides for slicing and chopping. The Nakiri combines the features of a chef’s knife and versatility of a vegetable cleaver. The blade in is 30% sharper and holds its edge 30% longer than ordinary Asian-style blades. The handle uses compression rivets to secure the high-impact handle to the full tang for superior balance and maneuverability. The granton edge produces a cut that forms air pockets that allows food to release easier from the blade. Meats will cut deli-thin for sandwiches, or for stir-frying. Gourmet knives are laser cut from German high carbon nostain steel.

Wusthof Gourmet Nakiri Vegetable Knife with Hollow Edge

Parer knife, utility knife, santoku knife, Chef’s knife. That might sound kind of silly, but i am buying knives and I don’t really know why I need so many. What do each of them do and is it really that big of a difference than just using one?
Oh and the santoku knife has 5 inch and 7 inch, what is the diff?

For practical purposes paring is any knife that is designed to be used off the board, in the air basically. Small knife, used for delicate cutting, peeling, destemming strawberries, and such.

Utility knife – Utterly useless knife in the kitchen. Too short and narrow to be anything like Chef’s or Santoku in the kitchen and too long to be a good pairing knife. Proponents of it say, it’s excellent to cut sandwiches in half. So, if you do that all day, may be you should consider it, otherwise skip it for sure, and sav4e money too.

Chef’s knife – General cutting, anything from soft meat to veggies. Can double as a slicer too, if it is long enough.

Santoku – In Japanese means a knife of three virtues. Although, when you dig that part, there are several sets of 3 virtues floating around, so you might be getting a lot more virtues in one knife if U get lucky. Jokes aside, Santoku is a Japanese houswife version of the chef’s knife and a nakiri.
You’ll never see Santoku in a pro environment in Japan, but it’s very popular in households. Beats Nakiri in versatility and shorter/cheaper to compared to gyuto (japanese chef’s knife).
Bunch of other kitchen knife types here – zknives.com/knives/kitchen/misc/usetype/all/index.shtml

5 and 7 in is the blade length obviously. And 5 is too short too. Although, that’s very personal, you have to decide for yourself.

Minimal set for home cooking is 8-12″ long chef’s knife + 3-4″ paring knife and 10″+ long bread serrated knife. That will cover 99% of home cooking cutting. You can add boning knife or a slicer depending on your needs.

Brands – Given your budget from Euro knives VIctorinox/Forschner is your best bet, x50CrMoV15 steel used by them is same as in more expensive western knives.

From Japanese knives you might wanna check out Tojiro knives, that’s pretty close to your budget too and outperforms most of the mainsteram western knives too.

More on choosing kitchen knives here – zknives.com/Knives/kitchen/misc/articles/kkchoser/index.shtml

There are many types of knives around. Here you will find the most popular and the most useful.

Boning knives as it names implies is used for removing the bones from joints of meat. The typical blade on a boning knife is approximately 15 cm in length the blade. The blade tends to be narrow and quite rigid.

Butter knives are quite small and have a blunt edge as they do not need to be sharp. The blade also tends to be quite flat. These are used for spreading butter, jam and marmalade.

Cheese knives are used for cutting hard and soft cheese. The blade is usually quite narrow and flat with a curve at the end which has a forked tip.

Chefs knives are the most common knife in the kitchen and if you own no other knives this is the one you should have. Its main use is chopping, slicing and dicing. They come in various sizes the smallest being 15cm ranging up to 30cm for the more experienced cook.

A cleaver is a very broad knife with a blade of about 15cm in length. It is generally used for cutting meat, it also ideal for pounding due to its broad edge.

Filet knives have a thin flexible blade, which is about 30cm in length. This type of knife is ideal for filleting fish and removing its skin.

Mincing knives can be either single or double bladed. They are specifically designed for chopping food into very small pieces. They are a curved blade with a straight handle attaching to both ends of the blade.

Paring knives are also an essential knife to own after the chefs knife. Paring knives are quite small with a thin narrow blade, which tapers to a point. It is very versatile and can be used for peeling, chopping and coring. This is the best knife for use with small foods such as herbs.

Sandwich knives as the name implies are specially designed for cutting through bread because of their serrated blade. Not just for slicing through sandwiches, these knives can also be used for cutting pies and soft fruits.

Slicing or carving knives can vary enormously in shape and size but the most common being a rigid blade about 20m in length. The blade has a pointed tip and is specially designed for carving meat away from the bone. Often carving knives come with carving forks which are made to compliment the knife.

Electric knives can be useful too for the less experienced knife user. These work on the principle of two blades moving back and forth independently of each other. They cut through a multitude of foods from fruit, bread and meat.

Utility knives are similar to a paring knife only with a longer blade. It is used for items which are too large for a paring knife and too small for a chef’s knife.

When you are looking at cooking knives you might be a little confused when you are confronted with a massive array of different types of kitchen knife. Well the reason there are so many different types of knife is that there each are designed with a specific purpose in mind. Of all the different types of knife though, the most diverse is the chef’s knife. If there was one piece of advice I would give, it’s that if for some reason you are only going to buy one kitchen knife, make it a chef’s knife. A good chef’s knife can be used for chopping up fruits and vegetables, slicing cooked or raw meat, slicing cheese and other general tasks like slicing sandwiches up. OK, so we’ve narrowed down the kitchen knife section to the chef’s knives, but you’re still probably a little dumbfounded at how many different chef’s knives there still are. Well, like with most other kitchen items, this is because different peoples’ hands as well as their cooking styles will affect how well they get on with a particular chef’s knife. There are two things in particular which you need to think about which will help you make the right choice.

The Size of your Hands

Believe it or not, one of the most important things to think about when you buy a chef’s knife is the size of your hands. If you only have small, slim hands then you are probably not going to work well with a large, heavy chef’s knife. If on the other hand you have hands like a bear then you will probably find a small, light chef’s knife a little flimsy and you might find it more difficult to get enough force on the knife to chop things. You should then look at both the dimensions of the knives and the weight of the knives to decide which is going to work best for you.

The other reason that the size of your hands may be important is due to the grips which are on most chef’s knives’ handles. If you have large hands you will probably be able to accommodate any moulded grip the knife has. If however you have small hands you may be better selecting a flattened handle rather than one with a moulded grip.

The Range of Tasks You Need the Knife For

The second important thing to think about is the different tasks which you will use the knife for. If you have a whole host of knives and you will only use your chef’s knife for chopping up smaller vegetables and slicing meat then a short blade may be sufficient. If you are going to regularly perform tasks such as slicing open melons then a longer blade will be necessary. Also, if you are working in a time-restricted environment it may be better to buy a longer-bladed chef’s knife which will allow you to chop more at once than a smaller blade.