How many knives?

Mew

Mew

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Joined
10 Sep 2013
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I always thought that marketing bombs us with special tools that just end up taking space and collecting dust.

I mean yeah sure, they do have their purpose in professional level cooking, but in the everyday kitchen ?

Nowadays I only keep two, a Chef's knife, and a paring knife. (plus 6 steak knives)

What do you guys do ?
 
I have a large Santoku knife that I use for just about everything. I like the wide sides on it because it stabilizes the knife for much straighter cuts, as opposed to using a boning knife.

I use my meat cleaver to chop up drummettes and wing tips for homemade buffalo wings.

Once in a blue moon if I decide to be adventurous and break down a chicken on my own, I will pull out my boning knife and my butcher knife.
 
I have two I use mostly - a normal medium sized kitchen knife, and thing bladed serrated one that I use mainly for cutting cheese. And there's a bread knife for the rare times I buy unsliced bread.

A good cook can do pretty much everything with one good knife - or even a cleaver if they are skillfull. I certainly don't feel the need for a huge selection.
 
In terms of food preparation knives I use a small 4' knife for most day to day cutting along side a good sharp bread knife. I do also have a set of knifes that get progressively bigger, 6', 8', 10' and of those I tend to use the largest knife to cut pizza in one long rolling action as if it was a sector of a giant pizza cutter. I also have a 3' fruit knife that I should use more often.

I do also have a cleaver but I don't have the same skill with it that my Dad has. He uses his almost exclusively.
 
I think I have 4....
  • a bread knife because we only usually buy unsliced bread
  • a 10" chef's knife which is usually what I do most of my cutting with
  • a paring knife with an ancient wooden handled knife
  • a another knife which I have never see another of which I find really useful but it could be a really old turning knife which is so well worn it no longer has the downward point on the end...

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i use a santoku knife for general jobs,a flexible global fillet knife that i am on my 3rd one used for boning filleting and general meat trimming.a large vetorinox chopping knife ,a tomato/veg knife ,and thats about all of my regularly used knives,have loads of knives over the years but you get comfortable ones you stick with
 
I have four good knives -- a large one for cutting up roasts, a medium one for most things and two smaller paring knives. I find I don't need any more than that.
 
As well as a small selection of varying sizes of general purpose kitchen knives, we also have a break knife, a tomato knife and a cheese knife. All 3 have serrated edges which make the specific tasks so much easier.
 
Now that I think about it... I'm pretty sure I only use one knife for everything. I actually can't remember when I would have picked up another knife for preparing food... guess I'm good with 1!
 
When I got into culinary school I got a chef's pack of knives. Its like in a roll these are the knives that I have and I use them as accordingly.

  1. Big chopping knife
  2. Boning knife (red handle) to bone chickens and other meats (red for blood)
  3. Fillet knife (blue handle) to fillet fish (blue for the sea)
  4. Carving knife (yellow handle) to cut cooked meats and also used as a bread knife.
  5. Small chopping knife
  6. A steel to sharpen all the knives.

I use most of these knives not everyday but at least once a week. They do come individually too and they are not that expensive either.
 
We have dozens around the kitchen, but I typically only use a few. A small one mostly for spreading butter, and a large steel one I use for just about anything else. There's also a long one with a serrated blade I use for pretty much nothing but cutting bread.
 
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