Kitchen knife
Knives are used for cutting and preparing food. There are many different types – read on for a helpful breakdown of the most common kitchen knives.
A knife is a tool with a sharp blade attached to a handle. Kitchen knives like the chef’s knife, bread knife and the meat cleaver are used to prepare foods. Table knives, on the other hand, are used to consume food (butter knives and steak knives). The blade of the knife is usually metal but it can also be made of plastic.
A good set of kitchen knives is a kitchen must have but with so many different types its hard to know which knives are for what! Here is a list of the most common and useful kitchen knives and what they are used for…
- Chef’s knife – Is the most versatile knife in the kitchen. It has a long, wide blade, it is broadest at the base of the handle then it narrows and curves to a fine pointed tip. This curve allows the knife to rock back and forth making it perfect for dicing, chopping and mincing. Because of its size, it makes light work of cutting hard foods like potatoes and carrots.
- Utility knife – Looks like a small chef’s knife but it’s much smaller which allows for more precise cutting. It’s good for finely slicing vegetables, cutting cheeses or slicing meats.
- Bread knife – Like the name suggests is specially designed to cut bread. A bread knife has a long serrated blade, like a saw. This design allows you to cut through soft foods without destroying them, it can be used to cut all types of bread, cakes and soft pastries.
- Paring knife – A paring knife has a small unserrated blade with a pointed tip. Because of its small size, it is perfect for delicate slicing and cutting fruits, vegetables and meat.
- Carving knife – is a long slim knife with a sharp point. It’s used for slicing through cooked meat. Because of its shape, it allows the user to make clean evenly sized slices in meats like poultry, pork, lamb and beef but it can also be used to cut larger fruits and vegetables.
- Meat cleaver – are large rectangular-shaped knives used for chopping raw meat. Its blade is usually quite thick and heavy which makes it easier to cut through meat and bones.
