An Essential Kitchen Utensil - A Good Knife

You can buy all sort of kitchen utensils. Just look in any kitchen store or in the aisles of kitchenware at other retail stores and you’ll see an amazing array of items used for cooking. Kitchen utensils that are only good for one tash aren't used as much. However, there are other utensils that are more versatile, and needed and used daily.

Knives Are The Workhorse Of The Kitchen

If you do much cooking at all, you’ll use not one, but several kinds of knives. Each of these kitchen utensils has a specific function, like chopping, slicing, or filleting food.

All knives have the same major parts.

The Main Part Of The Knife - The Blade

 

The blade is pretty self-explanatory, being the metal part of the knife used for cutting, from the handle to the tip. It’s the most important part of the knife, and the quality of the blade determines how well the knife cuts. Good quality blades make it much easy to do food preparation for cooking.

A Better Bolster

The bolster is the small part between the blade and the handle, connecting the two together. Keeping the knife securely in one piece is an important function of the bolster.

It's advantageous, however, for the bolster to only cover part of the full width of the blade. That might seem sturdier, but it gets in the way of sharpening the blade. That's why it's better if the bolster doesn't quite reach the bottom edge of the blade.

The Whole Tang

The tang is an extension of the blade. This extension provides a way to attach the handle since it runs into and through the middle of the handle. It also helps give the knife good balance. The tang running into the handle also strengthens the knife, making it more durable.

Sometimes a tang runs only partway into the handle, and other times it goes the entire length of the handle. A tang that runs the full length of the handle is found in higher quality knives, as this make the knife stronger and more well-balanced.

Getting A Handle

You need a way to safely hold a knife, and that’s the handle. The handle wraps around the tang and holds it secure. The handle of a knife can be made from several different kinds of materials, including wood, metal and various types of plastics.

A handle should not only be sturdy, it should be easy to hold. A knife should fit your hand well and be comfortable to hold, considering how much you'll be using it.

Types of Kitchen Knives

Checking the different parts of the knife for quality gives you an idea what to look for when buying a good knife. When it's time to purchase a knife, however, you'll discover there's a great many types available. Some of these include:

· Boning Knife

· Butter Knife

· Cheese Knife

· Chef’s Knife

· Cleaver

· Deli Knife

· Filet Knife

· Frozen Food Knife

· Mincing Knife

· Paring Knife

· Sandwich Knife

· Serrated Knife

· Slicing-Carving Knife

· Steak

· Utility

There are also specialty knives for chestnuts, clams, grapefruits, deveining, lettuce and oysters, plus specialty knives for different types of cuisines such as Japanese and Asian.

Fortunately, you don't need to buy one of every type of knife available.

 

The Bare Essentials of Knives For The Kitchen

While every knife has a use, most people don’t need so many of the more specialized knives. Every kitchen should have a few essential types of knives however. Able to do a number of different types of food preparation, these are the more versatile knives.

The Paring Knife

If you don’t have any other knife, you need a paring knife. It's a smaller sort of knife with a straight, sharp blade. Paring knives run from about three to five inches long with a thin blade that tapers to a point at the tip.

This little knife is easy to handle and use. It's main function is for paring foods, just as the name indicates. It’s also good for cutting up small items, coring apples and such, and mincing garlic and other foods. Food preparation requires at least one good paring knife.

A Knife For A Chef

The Chef’s or Cook’s knife is another versatile knife. Coming in lengths of about 6 inches to 12 inches, there are several different sizes of chef's knives available. Mini chef's knives are the smaller sizes. This type of chef's knife works well for people with smaller hands. A larger sized chef knife is better for larger sized hands, as it allow the knife to balance better in the hand.

The chef knife picks up where the paring knife leaves off, and can cut bigger vegetables, fruits and meats. Slicing, chopping and mincing foods are handled well with a chef's knife. The bigger size makes it better suited for the heavy duty work, and making thicker slices than a paring knife.

The Serrated Knife

Instead of a straight edge like the paring and chef knives have, the serrated knife has notches in the blade. It can be anywhere from 5 to 10 inches long. For foods that are soft inside, but hard on the outside, the serrated blade of this knife is the best one to use. A perfect example is a loaf of homemade bread. Slicing tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables is also a good use of the serrated knife.

Put A Cleaver To Good Use

You could make do with a paring knife, chef’s knife and serrated knife, but there’s one other blade that is highly useful in the kitchen. This knife had a very wide blade which is usually about 6 inches in length.

Although it can be used to shred and chop foods like other knives, a cleaver really shines at pounding and crushing foods. Also, this is a good knife for cutting through hard materials like bones in chickens.

Not only can a cleaver pulverize meat, but the flat of the blade can be used to crush garlic and other herbs. Most cleavers come with a hole near the end of the blade so it can be hung up somewhere out of the way. This takes care of the problem of the cleaver taking up so much room in one of your kitchen drawers.

Choose Good Quality Knives For The Kitchen

Whatever knives you chose, get the best quality you can. It will make your time in the kitchen go faster to have good knives, since that will make food preparation easier.

The more you cook, the more you will appreciate using good quality knives, and may wish to expand your selection to include more types. The chef's knife, paring knife, and serrated knife are a good basic set of knives, with the addition of the cleaver.

Every kitchen can use a few good knives.