Pointless Knives

[choclatechef]

But do you like it GB?

 

[GB]

But of course

My wife on the other hand...When I got my cleaver she was terrified. It didn't help matters that I told her I was going to sleep with it under my pillow

 

[choclatechef]

But of course

My wife on the other hand...When I got my cleaver she was terrified. It didn't help matters that I told her I was going to sleep with it under my pillow

Mine is back in corner of the pantry, still in it's shipping box!

 

[mitch_the_chef]

I don't envy men mad at you!

 

[jkath]

Oh my gosh Choclate!
Remind me never to make you upset!!!

<<singing>> "Oh, Choclate Chef is the greatest...la la la"

 

[choclatechef]

Just keep singing jkath.....I'm loving it!

 

[tknaps]

For the average home cook, I still believe you only REALLY need two knives. When I cook at home, 99% of the time I only use one of these two knives:

8" or 10" Chef's Knife
Bread Knife

As long as you invest in a sharpening steel and good quality sharpening stone, you can do pretty much anything and everything with those two knives. Well ok, what about other knives?

Utility Knife: It's basically a shorter Chef's knife. Unless you don't feel comfortable wielding an 8" knife, then this might be better although you'll be handicapped when tackling larger items

Paring Knife: Do regularly make turned vegetables at home? Do you only peel your potatoes or fruits this way? If the answer is no, then you don't need this knife.

I very much agree with you ironchef, but I would make the number 3 and include the paring knife as an essential I really feel a lot more comfortable using a short (3"-4") paring knife for tasks like splitting a red chilli in half, taking the guts out of a red pepper and all sorts of other fiddly vegetable tasks where a 8"-10" chef's knife becomes a bit unwieldily IMO (and potentially a bit more dangerous unless you're careful). In fact, what you call paring knives are called "vegetable knives" in Norwegian

Oh, and one more tool I really like having around in the kitchen, although not really a knife, are some good shears!

In my block knife-set I would say my only "pointless" knife is a 6" utility knife which I very rarely use (I think the only use it sees is if there's more than one cook in the kitchen and there's a lot of slicing to be done )

choclatechef: That cleaver of yours looks quite suited for slaughtering a mammoth

 

[pdswife]

My knives are all so dull... that all of them are quite pointless to have around.

 

[college_cook]

I really only use my chef's knife, I'm trying to get good at cutting very finely with it, and thus eliminating the need for a paring knife. As far as a bread knife, I really dont use it that much, so little that I could probably get away with using a standard kitchen butter knife.

Here's a question though: alot of the knife sets I've used in the past few years have been serated. What's your preference, serrated or "un-serrated"? I went out and bought myself a quality chef's knife about 3 months ago, and it's been so refreshing to have a nice knife, and that's not serrated. I've never been able to get really clean cuts from any serrated chef's knife.

 

[tknaps]

Here's a question though: alot of the knife sets I've used in the past few years have been serated. What's your preference, serrated or "un-serrated"?

Except for the "coarsely serrated" bread knife, DEFINITELY smooth edge. I don't know of any of the well known brands that carry serrated knifes at all. My general impression is that they're serrated so that they appear to stay sharper for longer (you saw through stuff instead of actually cutting it). The other thing is that they're near impossible to hone or sharpen.