More on Knives
Last diary was about defining the parts of the kitchen knife, with some basic cuts thrown in for fun. This diary is about the types of knives used in a kitchen and how to care for them. Tomorrow's diary will be about sharpening knives - not a definitions diary, but a Culture of the Kitchen diary since it involves skill rather than definitions.
Over the millenia, humans have developed specialty knives for a variety of purposes. Nowhere is that more evident than in cooking and hunting. We'll get to hunting knives later, this diary is about cooking knives. First, how to care for kitchen knives. Then a long, long list of the different kinds of kitchen knives, with links to pictures.
How to Care for Kitchen Knives
This is everything but sharpening your knives - which gets a diary to itself.
Cleaning: Hand wash them with hot soapy water. Rinse well, Dry immediately with a soft cloth. Do not put your good kitchen knives in the dishwasher. The power of the water sprays and the jostling can damage the edges and points. For ceramic knives, they can actually break in the dishwasher.
High Carbon Steel Knives: These knives will rust. Keep them dry. After hand-washing and drying them, lightly rub them with food grade mineral oil.
Storing: Please don't toss your good, sharp knives into a drawer will-he nill-he. That's a quick way to both dull your knives and get cut. Store them in a block, along a magnetic strip, or make sheaths for them. You can make good sheaths out of poster board and tape - trace the knife onto the poster board, flip it over along the sharp edge and trace the other side, cut the poster board just a little larger than the knife blade, cut it out, fold in half, tape along where the spine of the knife would be and slip the knife in. Then, you can place them in a divided drawer where other items in the drawer won't knock against the knives.
Hone them: To hone a blade,you need a sharpening steel - a long rod, usually of ceramic or diamond coated steel. Hold the knife flat against the surface of the rod and slide it along, gradually raising the back of the blade until it begins to cut into the rod. With the rod in one hand, hold the back corner of the knife's edge to the end of the steel closest to you. "Sweep" the blade towards the tip of the steel, making sure that all of the length of the blade comes in contact with the steel. Repeat 10 times for each side of the blade. Do this after you've used your knife, cleaned it, dried, it and before you oil it and put it away.
Proper Use: Use a knife for its intended purpose: cleavers and chopping knives for chopping, slicers for slicing.
Cutting Boards: Glass, ceramic, and marble cutting boards are pretty but they dull your knives very quickly and may cause chipping and even breaking. Wood, bamboo, and plastic cutting boards are less damaging to your knives, but even they will dull and wear the knife. Do not use kitchen knives on plates, countertops, your knee (don't laugh - I saw someone chop onions against their knee once - left little slices in their jeans), and other inappropriate surfaces.
Test for Sharpness: All knives will get dull with use, even with the kindest cutting boards and gentlest use. The best way to test for sharpness is to hold the knife in one hand, then, starting at the spine of the blade, slide a finger from the other hand towards the edge slowly, feeling for burrs or a a slightly folded edge. Do this for the other side of the knife. Never ever run your finger along the edge of the blade - that's a sure fire way to slice your finger open!
Another way is to hold the knife up at eye level with the edge in line with a bright light. Move the blade around a bit. Knicks, burrs, and dull areas will glint. A smooth sharp edge won't.
I don't like using the newspaper test, but lots of people do. To use it, try to shave a thin sliver of paper off the edge of one side of one sheet of newspaper. If the paper bends or curls, the knife is dull. If the knife snags or tears the paper, it has nicks or burrs. If it slices cleanly, the knife is sharp.
If you knife needs sharpening, it's inexpensive to have someone sharpen them for you. I take mine in once every 5 years to a professional knife sharpener. It costs me about $25 to get all my knives sharpened. The rest of the time, I hone and sharpen my knives myself. That's for the next diary.
Now for the very long list of different types of kitchen knives. I've left a few specialty knives off because the list got really long.
The Essential Knives:
I do not have all these knives, although I have a good many of them. The links are not necessarily to knives I endorse, the picture was just very representative of that particular type of knife. I did not pay attention to brand, price, or availability, just looks. If you want to buy a particular type of knife, this will give you a clue as to what the knife looks like so you can compare prices and brands. I'll discuss brands farther down, before we get to the care of your knives.
Chef's knife (6, 8, 10") It is also called a French knife and a cook's knife. Originally, it was designed for slicing and disjointing beef, but in American kitchens, it's an all-purpose knife. Some people love their chef's knife and couldn't imagine a kitchen without one. I had one, a lovely one made of Damascus Steel, that I gave to my daughter because I can't handle a knife of that size any more.
Petit Chef's Knife (4") This is the size chef's knife I use now.
Utility Knife (serrated) This is not a box cutter! It's an all purpose kitchen knife with a serrated edge. It can slice almost any fruit or vegetable with ease. It can be used to peel, if necessary. It doesn't chop well - the blade needs to be straight-edged for that. But anything that needs slicing, from bread and peaches to onions, can be done with this knife.
Tomato Knife This has a "fork" to separate the slices of tomato. It can also be used to slice summer squashes, eggplants, kiwi fruits, and other such fruits and vegetables that might stick together after slicing.
Slicing Knife This is the all purpose slicing knife. It can be anywhere from 6" to 10" long. I tend to use the shorter length. Most high quality slicers are best made from ceramic, which means they are brittle and fragile. Don't use a slicer, especially a ceramic slicer, as a chopping knife.
Bread Knife (serrated) If you bake bread or buy fresh baked bread, investing in a good bread knife is essential. I recommend getting a long bladed one. Mine's 11" long and I wouldn't want it any shorter for most of my rustic breads.
Carving Knife This is the knife used to carve hams, roasts, and birds. It's often sold with matching fork to hold the meat in place. It is not a chopping knife.
Meat Cleaver This is a chopping knife. It was designed to take heavy blows and to cut through meat and bone. It won't do delicate work (well, not easily, it won't), but it's the ox in the kitchen, excellently well suited for the heavy work.
Vegetable Cleaver This is a smaller chopping knife, better suited to firm, fibrous vegetables and fruits. It can slice and chop them quite nicely.
Rocking Knife This is a hybrid knife, part mezzaluna, part carving knife, part slicer, part pizza cutter. It works well for all of those tasks.
Santoku This is another chopping knife, smaller than a cleaver, more versatile. It reduces carrots and potatoes to matchsticks in seconds.
Nakiri (6.5" mini cleaver) The nakiri is a smaller santoku, also good for chopping. Because it's smaller, it will also slice very well. I like my nakiri for slicing onions in particular.
Paring Knives:
I separated paring knives because there are several styles and each has its uses.
Paring Knife (3.5, 4.5") This is the general, all purpose paring knife, excellent for peeling, coring, scoring, slicing small fruits and vegetables and small cuts of boneless meat.
Bird's Beak Paring Knife (2.5") The bird's beak paring knife is used primarily for making the tourne cut - an oblong, football-shaped cut with 7 sides. It's also useful for cutting out bruises, soft spots, and potato eyes, and for peeling and cutting soft, tender fruits, the curving dropped tip allowing for speedier cutting.
Sheep's Foot Paring Knife
Hybrid Sheep's Foot/Bird's Beak Paring Knife (4") The bunt tip of the sheep's foot paring knife and the straight, smooth edge gives it the look of a miniature chopping knife, and that's what this paring knife is used for - chopping, mincing, and slicing smaller foods, and is excellent at cutting up celery and herbs for the pot.
Angled Paring Knife Some people think the angling allows for better blade control. I dislike it intensely for peeling and most hand-held decorative cuts, but have to admit that it's almost better than a sheep's foot paring knife for chopping and mincing.
Specialty Knives:
Butchering Knives:
Boning knife The stiff boning knife is used for removing the bones from poultry, pork, and beef. The flexible boning knife is used for boning fish.
Butcher's Knife This knife became popular in America for cutting all kinds of meat, for skinning, boning large game, chopping, cutting meat, and even for self-defense. It took the place of the chef's knife, cleaver, and carving knife.
Breaking Knife The breaking knife is used to break through skin, cartilage, and small bones in meat preparation. I like it for cutting apart ribs because it's sturdy enough to do so with bending or damaging the blade and lighter than a cleaver.
Boning Hook If you buy and prep your own sides of pork or beef, or hunt large game animals and dress them out yourself, this is an essential tool to keep from cutting yourself as you butcher the meat. It is used to hold the bone up while you cut the meat away from it.
Fish and Seafood Knives:
Fillet Knife This is the boning knife for fish. The blade needs to be flexible, between 6" and 9". The smaller size is good for crappie, perch, or bluegills, the larger for salmon and tuna. A 7.5" blade is a good all-purpose size, small enough to not overwhelm the smaller fish, and large enough not to be overwhelmed by the larger fish.
Sushi Roll Knife This knife was specifically designed for slicing delicate sushi rolls without crushing the ingredients.
Sashimi Knife (10") This knife is designed to slice raw fish very thinly, to fillet fish, and to slice the other foods for preparing sashimi.
Fish Scaler This knife quickly removes the scales from fresh caught fish. Just rub it along the body of the fish.
Shrimp De-Veiner Knife While a paring knife can work as well to remove the vein from shrimp, this tool makes quick, easy work of it.
Oyster/Clam Knife This knife is used to pry open the shells of oysters and clams and to remove the meat from within.
Mincing Knives:
Mezzaluna This knife was designed for mincing. It can mince cubes of meat, vegetables, fruits, and herbs. It's usually used with a rounded bowl cutting board to contain the minced food.
Double Bladed Mezzaluna This style of mezzaluna speeds up the mincing process, especially for herbs.
Handled Mezzaluna Style Chef's Knife The position of the handle on this knife makes it a very versatile chef's knife for mincing, slicing, chopping, and for cutting pizzas.
Kulu Vegetable Knife This little knife is a smaller version of the mezzaluna style. I find the handle more comfortable to use than most mezzalunas.
Ulu Knife This is an Alaskan mezzaluna style knife. The way it's shaped allows for easy use in skinning as well as slicing, chopping, and mincing.
"Single" Purpose Knives:
Panini Knife (8") This knife is also called a sandwich knife - it's perfect for slicing through prepared sandwiches, hot or cold, to cut them into halves, quarters, or thirds. Most have an offset handle which makes it even easier to cut sandwiches.
Steak Knife While it was designed to cut steaks, I use it as a portable chef's knife - cutting rolls, slicing cheese and tomatoes and radishes, and otherwise prepping my lunch at work. But it can be used just for cutting plated cooked meats, like steaks.
Grapefruit Knife This knife is serrated on both sides of the blade to make it easier to section a grapefruit half. A paring knife can do the same job, but not as neatly or quickly.
Melon Knife Designed to make short work of cutting large melons.
Frozen Food Saw Designed to cut frozen foods. I've never had any reason to cut frozen foods while still frozen, but apparently lots of people do. Enough that a knife was created for that very purpose.
Garnishing Knives:
Channel Knife Used to make the "V" shaped channel cuts on carrots, cucumbers, and other foods that need a narrow "V"-shaped strip cut from them. Those "V"-shaped strips of food can be used as further garnishes (except the cucumber skin...).
Zester Zesters easily remove the fragrant colored peel of citrus fruits without the bitter white pith just below it. They can also be used to make ornamental cuts in large fruits like pumpkins and watermelons.
Butter Curler Knife I know these are meant to be used for making pretty, decorative portions of butter, but I love them for frozen butter - if you grate or curl pieces of butter off, you don't have to thaw the butter out for dotting pastry doughs or for spreading on toast and bread, or for cutting into pie crusts or shortbread, or using to finish off a glossy sauce.
Crinkle Cut Knife If you love crinkle cut potatoes and carrots and summer squashes, then is knife will do that for you.
Corer If you core lots of apples and pears, this speed the process up. A larger one will core pineapples.
Chopper/Scraper It's not very good as a chopper, but I love this for dividing dough, for scraping dough bits up, for scooping up pie dough and cookie cutter cookies, for slicing refrigerator cookie dough into cookies, and sectioning watermelon rind for making watermelon pickles.
Spiral Slicer If you love those spiral potato chips at the state fairs, you'll love this knife. You can use it for cutting spiral potatoes to fry or bake, for quickly slicing cucumbers and summer squashes like zucchini and carrots - just spiral cut, then cut half through lengthwise down the cucumber, squash, or carrot. I've used it to spiral cut lemons and while it's messy, it works to make neat slices of lemon for preserves and marmalades and punches. It also does a good job of slicing apples and pears for tarts.
Strawberry Knife This is a cute pocket knife that will hull a strawberry in no time - and slice larger berries into bite sizes. I wouldn't buy one unless I grew and used lots of strawberries.
Julienne Shredding Knife This is a high dollar julienne knife, and if it works better than the cheap one I bought, it might be worth the money. I love julienned carrots, green beans, zucchini, potatoes, beets, rutabagas, kohlrabi, and parsnips, so I bought a Titan julienne slicer since their vegetable peeler is pretty awesome. I was sadly disappointed because it was difficult to use and left me with sliced and bleeding fingers no matter how careful I was. But I love the idea that there's a knife out there that really works for this.
Vegetable Peeler, also the Vibe Palm Peeler, the Rotary Peeler, and the Standard Peeler: These make quick work of peeling vegetables. I like the Titan peeler because you can use it both coming and going with ease and it doesn't leave potatoes all slick and slippery. The palm peeler is also a favorite for peeling larger fruits and vegetables. The rotary peeler does a great job of peeling peaches and other thin skinned fruits.
Mandoline: Mandolines have been ousted for the most part by food processors, but I find them useful for small batch cooking.
Bag Opener Knife: I have trouble opening bags like the powdered sugar bags and the ramen noodle bags and such, this knife takes care of that.
Butter Knife: A butter knife can also double as a spreader. It was made to spread softened butter, cream cheese, peanut butter, mayonnaise, mustard, and so on. Except when it's part of a table setting, in which case, it should only be used for spreading butter.
Spreader: This is a peanut butter and jelly spreader, which I thought was cute. But these otherspreaders work just as well, as does using a butter knife.
Cheese Knives:
Cheese Planer This slices semi-firm and firm cheeses.
Parmesan Knife This will cut the hard cheeses like Parmesan and Romano.
Fork Tipped Cheese Knife This cuts semi-soft and semi-firm cheeses - if you get one with cutouts our holes in the blade, it works even better because the cheese won't stick as much to the knife.
Brie and Soft Cheese Knife This cuts the soft cheeses like Brie and Camembert.
Kitchen Shears:
Lobster Shears For cutting apart lobsters.
Joint Scissors For cutting apart poultry, these work well to slice the flesh and cartilage at joints and to cut the flap of skin at the butt and to snip the wing tips off. I find them easier to use than a knife.
Shrimp Scissors These are used to de-vein and butterfly shrimp, and to cut the heads off.
Herb Snips These do an amazingly fast job of snipping parsley, sage, chives, scallions, and other herbs. They also do a good job of chiffonading sage leaves and small greens.