Knives are a must-have kitchen tool but the question is which knives to buy for a new kitchen. When you go shopping for knives, you will find that there are so many different types of knives that you can get a bit confused about which is essential and which is not. No matter what kind of cooking you do in the kitchen, there are few different knife types that you can buy to satisfy all your requirements.
A chef’s knife is one of the essentials of your knife collection. It is a very versatile knife that you can use for almost anything whether it is to trim, carve, slice or chop food. While these knives may come in different sizes, the general length of a chef’s knife is 20cm. You can go for a longer or weightier knife depending on your preference. This knife is curved so that you can use a rocking motion to chop food easily. And the tapered edge at the end can do delicate tasks accurately. Another staple is the bread knife. Bread knives have a serrated edge and the length is about 25cm. This, as the name implies is for slicing bread and other baked goods. You can use it to slice soft vegetables and fruits such as a tomato to ensure that you don’t squash them.
Carving knives are used for carving meat. This is a bit longer than the chef’s knife and it is not curved at the end. Because it has a straight end, you can slice meat items accurately. You can get the thinnest slices with this knife. But you need to make sure that the knife is kept sharp so that it doesn’t damage the meat. With a very sharp blade, you will be able to make very clean cuts. The utility knife is a smaller version of the chef’s knife and it has a maximum length of 18 cm. You can also find utility knives that are a bit shorter than this. This can be used for making delicate and fine cuts or incisions.
It will come in handy when you are focusing on a small area of the food. You can do a lot of complicated tasks as it gives you a lot of control in handling them. This is great for making décor pieces out of food to garnish the mains. Another small knife you can have in your collection is the paring knife. This also gives you a greater amount of control. You can use it to prepare vegetables and fruits because you can both cut and peel them with this knife.
You can also use it to remove seeds. While the above-mentioned knives are the basics that you need to carry, there are a few specialized knives that you can use depending on the type of food you prepare. One such knife is a boning knife that is used to remove meat from the bone very efficiently when it comes to fish or poultry. It can let you do very fine work. The Japanese chef’s knife which is called Santoku is also popular for multitasking as it can cut, mince and slice.