5 Essential Kitchen Knives
February 21, 2014
Whether you’re an army cook out in the field, the head chef at a swanky 5-star restaurant or a loving mom whipping up dinner for her lively brood, the most kitchen-savvy among you likely are using the same arsenal of blades.
Sarge Knives offers tips on the five essential kitchen knives every cook needs:
- Cleaver: These wide-bladed, thick-spined knives make use of their weight to cut through tough foods with a chopping motion. They’re primarily used to cut through meat and poultry bones, but their width allows them to pull double duty, pulverizing meats and crushing garlic cloves and seeds.
- Chef’s knife: One of the most versatile knife types, the chef’s knife is used for chopping and slicing fruits, vegetables, roots and, frankly, most anything else. Most feature a broad blade that curves upward toward the tip. This allows for a rocking motion, making the chef’s knife ideal for fine mincing. Chef’s knifes typically come in blade lengths of six, eight, 10 and 12 inches. Longer blades make for faster cuts, though they can be a bit hard to control, particularly for more petite cooks. Shorter blades are perfectly suited for kitchenistas with smaller hands.
- Serrated knife: Also called wavy-edged knives, serrated knifes are the best option for cutting foods that are dense on the surface, but soft inside such as loaves of bread, sausages and tomatoes. That’s because the serrated knife’s teeth allow for greater pressure exerted on the skin of a food, making it easier to slice through hard bread crusts and tough sausage skins and fruit peels. You won’t catch a sandwich shop worker without a serrated bread knife. While the teeth of a bread knife are too large to cut fruits and vegetables effectively, their 8- to 9-inch blades are perfect for slicing up loaves of bread.
- Fillet knife: Also called boning knives, and essentially smaller chef’s knives, fillet knives are the go-to options for cutting fish or poultry and for removing meat from bones. The come in multiple blade widths and vary in stiffness. Choose a narrow filet knife on ribs and chops to easily cut through bone and cartilage; a wide fillet knife for chicken and pork; and a curved fillet knife for an optimal working angle when cutting close to and around bone.
- Paring knife: These smaller knives typically have blade lengths of just three to four inches, which allow for solid control. Blades usually taper to a point, allowing for intricate work. Varying types of paring knives include bird’s beak knives great for peeling round-shaped fruits and vegetables and for more precise carving and fluting; wavy-edged or serrated paring knives for cutting bread and tomatoes; and clip point or granny paring knives, effective for peeling fruits and vegetables and for removing eyes from potatoes or pits from olives.
Sarge Knives offers a full range of knife types including top-quality fillet, boning and chef’s knives perfect for preparing dinner whether in the kitchen or at the camp site.
