![]() Use a cutting surface that won’t dull them.The easiest system involves keeping your knives sharp in the first place, by giving them a quick honing and sharpening every few weeks. Don’t wait until a knife gets dull before taking care of it.But remember: honing helps maintain the blade’s sharpness, but doesn’t actually sharpen it. It’s a quick process once you feel confident – and it’s fun, making you look, feel, and sound like a serious cook. Many professionals hone their chefs’ knives daily, but doing it weekly is plenty for most home cooks. Honing, which makes the blade of a knife straight, is done with what’s often (and incorrectly) called a sharpening steel, by drawing the blade over and over along an abrasive rod of metal, ceramic, or stone. But they are equally important for efficient knife work. Many people don’t know the difference between honing and sharpening. Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has a guide to building your own knife set. If you are used to a santoku or another Asian knife, by all means use it instead of a chef’s knife, but it doesn’t serve a separate purpose in the kitchen. This blade is straight like a Japanese bocho or vegetable knife, not curved like a Western chef’s knife – so, as with a Chinese cleaver, the cook uses a simple up-and-down motion for cutting, not rocking back-and-forth. Santoku knife: Like a chef’s knife, this East-West hybrid can be used for most prep work. Its long knife has a sharply pointed tip and a narrower blade than a chef’s knife, the better to cut into joints and along bones. A boning knife’s blade is more rigid, making it better for meat and whole birds the filleting knife has a flexible blade that helps it follow the curved shape of fish skeletons and chicken breasts.Ĭarving knife: A carving knife is used for cooked cuts of meat and poultry. These knives are nice to have, but they aren’t necessary for most kitchen work.īoning or filleting knife: Both boning knifes and fillet knifes are useful for cutting up raw meat, poultry and fish, but it’s highly unlikely that you’ll need both in a home kitchen: each has a long, thin blade and a curved, sharp tip. The scalloped cutting edge makes neat slices of soft-skinned ingredients like tomatoes and eggplants. Serrated knife: A large serrated knife ( a 10-inch blade is standard) is useful not only for slicing bread but for sawing through ingredients with firm rinds like butternut squash, lemons, watermelon and pineapples. Small knives are difficult for home cooks to sharpen, and so simply replacing them when they get dull is nothing to be ashamed of. Inexpensive thin-bladed knives with plastic handles are often the most practical choice. They are best for small soft ingredients like shallots, mushrooms and peaches. Many home cooks use these knives for virtually every job: their short blades, 3 to 4 inches long, makes them easier to control. Utility knife: These small knives are in constant use in most home kitchens, so it’s worth having three or four. When buying, look for a comfortable handle and a blade that is thicker at the base than at the tip. Work up to a 10-inch knife, which is more efficient overall. For many home cooks, an 8-inch blade with a plastic handle is perfect, especially to start. Practicing with one really will make you a better cook: they are sharper, stronger and they do more of the work for you than smaller knives. With these three, you can perform almost any task.Ĭhef’s knife: A classic chef’s knife, with its broad, tapering blade, sharp tip and chunky handle is the workhorse of the kitchen. These are the knives you’ll use most often in your kitchen. The knife should be at the same height or just below your elbows, so that the whole upper body, not just the hands, can put downward pressure on the knife.The knife moves in a rocking motion, from front to back, as well as up and down.The hand holding the knife should be gripping the blade as well as the handle.Position all 10 fingers so it’s virtually impossible for the blade to cut them. ![]()
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