Cooking 101: Equipment Identification - Knives
August 19, 2008
This post is part of a series called Cooking 101, which introduces the basics of cooking. The series follows the book Culinary Fundamentals, with supplements from The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America. Check out the previous posts here.
Unit 7: Equipment Identification
Part 1: Knives
Kitchen equipment is a pretty broad subject, so I’ll break this unit into two parts - knives and cookware. Most of the other stuff is either self explanatory (spoon, mixing bowl, etc.) or you won’t have it in your home kitchen (convection steamer). So today is a basic overview of the different types of knives and how to recognize them.
Chef’s Knife
This is your basic, all-purpose knife. Usually between 8 and 12 inches long, it will perform a majority of your cutting tasks well. Make sure you find one that feels comfortable in your hand - the traditional French shape versus the Santoku shape is really just a personal preference. For further a further discussion of chef’s knives, check out my previous article.
Utility Knife
The utility knife is a smaller version of the chef’s knife that can be useful for less vigorous cutting tasks. The blade is normally 5-7″ long. I actually have a 7″ Santoku for my chef’s knife and a 5″ Santoku as my utility knife. I find the size difference not to be particularly important for my 5″ knife, but the best thing is having a second knife for cutting or chopping vegetables if you dirty one cutting some sort of meat. It’s easier and safer to pull out a new knife if you need to chop an onion after cutting up your chicken breasts.
Boning Knife and Filleting Knife
The boning knife is used to cut meat from bones. It is around 6″ long and rigid. The filleting knife, on the other hand, is used for fish and is flexible. It is also around 6″ long.
Paring Knife and Tourné Knife
The paring knife, with a 2-4″ blade, is used for smaller tasks, often trimming fruits or vegetables. The tourné knife is a variation of the paring knife and it has an inwardly curved blade which is supposed to help when cutting curved fruits or vegetables.
Slicers
Slicers come in a wide variety of shapes and styles. Some are smooth, some serrated. Some have a pointy tip, some rounded, and others flat. Generally they are used for slicing large cuts of meat. Serrated versions are often used for slicing bread or tomatoes.
Cleaver
The cleaver - a large rectangular blade for chopping through meat and bones. Who doesn’t want one of these? Well, maybe a vegetarian, but I digress. I was surprised to learn that Asian-style cleavers are actually used for all sorts of other tasks too, including peeling, cutting, mincing, dicing and chopping.
My Knives
Right now I have 7″ and 5″ Santokus, and a 3 or 4″ paring knife. I’m not sure what I’ll add to the collection next. Maybe a serrated slicer for bread, but I also want to start making stocks soon, so a cleaver could be useful for working with the bones. We will see.
Next up will be Part 2 of Equipment Identification.
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August 19th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I followed the advice of Mario Batali on one of his shows and invested in an 8″ chef’s knife, a 4″ paring knife and a 10″ serrated bread knife. He claimed you don’t need anything else to be a cook and since you’re only buying three items, you can better afford to buy higher quality knives. I read very similar advice from Alice Waters. Only recently, after cooking for two years now, did I really begin to seriously consider any additions to that trio… Even then, I ended up purchasing another chef’s knife, so I could have friends over to cook with me!
The “bread knife” is also an excellent caving knife for roasts and for slicing soft foods without smashing them (tomatoes, fresh mozzarella) in addition to, well, slicing actual bread.
Also, I make a fair amount of chicken stock and a cleaver might come in handy, but since I’ve already learned how to quickly and efficiently cut up a whole chicken using a chef’s knife, the cleaver as a shortcut doesn’t really have much use for me.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the advice! I guess the serrated slicer may be the way to go. It makes sense that chicken bones aren’t so big that they can’t fit in a pot.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:53 pm
The cleaver is better to cut up a whole chicken because the extra weight makes splitting the breast so easy. You do have to keep an edge on the cleaver for this.
The cleaver isn’t that useful for stock, it simply wont go through beef or veal bones of any thickness. It is useful if you fabricate meat from larger primal cuts as I do.
A fileting knife is probably the next best, although a second chef’s knife - perhaps in a different style - is also a good choice.
The comment about only needing three knives is correct, but I would not get the serated knife as the third item (you can buy cheap ones at the supermarket in plastic for a bread knife). Your chef’s knife will carve very well. What you must have as the third item is a steel.