Knives play an imperative role in making your food appealing. An apt knife is to be used as it is necessary to watch out the chopping style. Veggies when chopped in a specific fashion make your dish look perfect and tempting. Not just the vegetables, even chopping meat into pieces, is a chief task. At times, you need chunks of meat pieces or at times mince. Remember very well that taste of your food depends on the sizes of chopped ingredients and the style of chopping.
A basic knife-set should consist of a Chef’s knife or a French knife, a Boning knife, a Bread knife, a Kitchen knife/ Utility knife/ Slicing knife/ All-purpose knife & Paring knife or a Coring knife.
A professional kitchen may even include a Butchers’ knife, Cleaver, Oyster knife, Carving knife etc
from l-r :- Boning knife, Bread knife, Chef's knife, Kitchen knife, Paring knife.
top :- Scissors
Chef’s Knife or a French knife: A chef's knife was originally designed primarily to slice large cuts of beef. Today it is the general-utility knife for most Western cooks. The blade of a chef's knife is typically made of carbon steel, stainless steel or ceramic. Technique for the use of a chef's knife is an individual preference. Most cooks prefer to grip the handle, with all four fingers and the thumb gathered underneath. For more precise control, some grip on the blade itself, with the thumb and the index finger grasping the blade.
For fine slicing the handle is raised up and down with the tip remains in contact with the cutting board and the cut object is pushed under the blade.
Boning Knife: A boning knife is used for removing the bones from poultry, meat, and fish. A stiff boning knife is good for boning beef and pork, but a very flexible boning knife is preferred for poultry and fish.
Bread Knife: A bread knife is typically used for slicing loafs of bread. A bread knife is usually long and the blade is serrated.
Kitchen Knife: A kitchen knife is a general-purpose knife used to slice or chop vegetables likes onions, shallots, tomatoes, okra, French beans etc or even leafy vegetables like spinach, coriander, parsley, scallions etc . The blade of this knife is typically sleek, slender and long made of stainless steel.
Paring knife: A paring knife is used for cutting out the cores from a fruit. The blade of this knife is short yet sharp and generally made or stainless steel.
Butchers’ Knife: A butchers’ knife, as the name suggests, is typically used for slaughtering animals. It is generally not a part of regular kitchens as the blade is broad, sharp and the knife being heavy is hazardous. Even in hotels’ kitchens these knifes are barely used. They are widely used to places or factories where meat is manufactured after slaughtering animals or at times are used in some exotic places where the meat served needs to be just fresh.
Cleaver: Cleaver is a knife with a huge blade for hacking through bones. It is somewhat similar to a butcher’s knife but slightly smaller than that. The shape of its blade varies but is roughly rectangular. The broad blade is even used for crushing ingredients like garlic or green chillies.
