Knowing your knives is one of the most important things to make you successful in the kitchen! Here’s all that you need to know about the knives for your kitchen.
Firstly the length of the knife is the most significant, the longer the knife, the more difficult to handle because it is heavier. Therefore people with small hands should choose shorter blades.
Utility Knife/ Petty Knife
True to its name, the utility knife also known as the petty knife is user-friendly because it is lightweight and is used for miscellaneous light cutting.
The Classic Chef Knife
The classic chef knife is something that every kitchen should have because it can be used for almost 90 % of your kitchen chopping and cutting tasks.However, it should not be used to skin large vegetables or to carve poultry.
The Slicing or Carving Knife
‘This is used for large cuts of meat or fish but it can even be used to slice ham or salmon finely. The same can be used to slice a round, large cake.It looks similar to a filler knife but this one is longer and less flexible.
The Cleaver Knife
A wide and rigid blade is what makes this knife perfect to shred, chop, pound or crush food. The blade is heavy and thick
The Paring Knife
The paring knife is a great one for all the slicing and mincing you need to do in the kitchen. It is easy to handle and is great to use while coring and peeling foods.The blade is thin and narrow.
The Serrated Knife
The serrated knife is great for foods that have a slightly waxy and slippery surface like tomatoes and capsicum etc.But the only drawback is that these are difficult to sharpen, no wonder then that many of the professional chefs prefer to spend less while buying these. The serrated knives with a longer blade are used to cut food that is hard on the outside and soft on the inside like bread, while the ones with shorter blades are used to cut fruits and vegetables.
The Peeler Knife
The peeler knife as the name suggests is used for just that; it’s used for peeling fruits and vegetables. The blades of the peeler knife can be swiveling or stationary. While the stationary peelers are good to peel vegetables like carrots and radish, the swiveling one is best for round vegetables like potatoes.
The Turning Knife
This one is used to make a specific cut in a fruit or vegetables. The beautifully carved fruits and vegetables that you sometimes see at a buffet table at restaurants is carved by using the turning knife.
The Fillet Knife
This thin flexible blade is perfect for filleting fish.So the next time you plan to make fillet-o-fish at home, you know which knife to reach out for!
The Boning Knife
This is best to use when it comes to fish, meat or poultry as you need a flexible blade to move and blend.It has a long narrow blade and is quite flexible.
Additional Tip:
Always keep a cutting board, it doesn’t matter whether it’s wood or plastic but it’s important to have one. Also, keep a separate cutting board for your meat and for vegetables.
