Chef knife purpose?

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Julio

Senior Cook
Joined
Jun 3, 2009
Messages
268
Location
Bronx, NY
Hello,

I did a search but i could not find what i am looking for. I am looking for info on what each knife is for like the chef knife is for?...
 
The chefs knife is the main knife that you use in the kitchen. It can do 95% of what you need a knife for. It is used from chopping, slicing, dicing, mincing, and just about everything else. The only things (off the top of my head) that it is not suited for 9but if you are good can still be used for) are slicing bread, doing delicate work on small items (like turning radishes into flowers), filleting can cutting through big bones.
 
The chef's knife is the general purpose cooking knife. Every other kitchen knife falls into specialty tasks. Quite often you can do those tasks with a Chef's knife too. The Chinese "cleaver" is really a chef's knife. It is thin, not thick and not for chopping bones.

A bread knife is serrated for easily cutting through crust without crushing the loaf. Works similarly for tomatoes if you're so inclined.

A paring knife or petty is largely for detail work.

Those are probably the top three knives whether of a French/Euro style or Japanese style.

The Santoku is intended to be a general purpose knife. In all honesty, it tends to be preferred by those with lesser knife skills though there are exceptions.

Carving knife is for carving large joints of meat for service, not for preparation cutting. Joints is probably a bad choice of words. Think large roasted items.
 
Thank you both for the explanation.

Now i know what type of knife to get on my next purchase. My first and only knife that i purchased like 3 months ago was a rachael ray 5" santoku knife. I'm going to either get victorinox 8 inch chef's knife because of the reviews at amazon or a wusthof chef's knife.
 
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