Knives are the most common household items with various commercial applications, especially in restaurants and the food industry.
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Therefore, when talking about knives, typically kitchen knives hold the center stage. It helps everyone from professional chefs to home cooks and even those who practice their culinary skills at home as part of fun and enjoyment. Knives are versatile kitchen tools that contribute to kitchen efficiency. By choosing the right type of knife, you can accomplish the tasks faster and more accurately, making cooking look relatively easy.
Having a complete understanding of the types of knives will help select the right ones according to the type of food you want to prepare. The knife use for cutting vegetables will be different from that used for cutting meat. For some specific applications, you need some particular type of knife. For example, to carve out something, you need a carving knife, and to make fish fillet, you will need a fillet knife. The selection of knives depends on the cooking tasks.
Here are some different types of knives for various applications.
Chef knife or French knife
The Chef’s knife is a standard kitchen tool that you will find in most homes and restaurant kitchens. The knife is multipurpose as it helps cut and chop vegetables and any meat. The versatile tool comes with a wide blade that tapers off at the front end to create a pointed edge. The knife can handle various kitchen tasks like chopping, dicing, slicing and available in sizes between 7 inches and 12 inches. The large blade is sometimes helpful for crushing spices and herbs like olives and garlic. Having only a Chef knife in the kitchen will help to perform almost all kitchen tasks.
Paring knife
Since the vegetables and other food items come in all shapes and sizes, it is hard to complete all tasks using only one kind of knife, which might be too big for the task. Using a Chef knife for the smaller task is risky because it is hard to control the cutting or chopping of smaller items. A paring knife available in sizes between 2 to 4 inches with a smaller blade than the Chef knife is ideal for smaller cutting tasks like cutting fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, and even peeling vegetables. The knife is safe to use for more precise and delicate cutting.
Santoku knife
A Santoku knife has many similarities with a Chef knife, but the design is different. It has a broader and straighter blade that many chefs find suitable for mincing herbs and chopping vegetables due to the knife’s design. You might not need a Santoku knife at home if you have a Chef knife, but professional chefs would like to use the Santoku knife instead of the Chef knife for performing many tasks.
Serrated knife
Serrated knives have narrow, long, and thin blades with a serrated edge and are most suited for cutting bread by avoiding tearing or smooshing while the knife passes through the bread. It is also suitable for cutting other bakery items and softer foods and vegetables like tomatoes.