The Three Knives You Really Need
Why Knives Matter
When my husband and I decided to marry six years ago, we had the very important conversation we called the pre-knifials. We are still married because we decided it was best to share everything in our lives– except our chef’s knives.
When you cook all the time, your knife becomes another appendage; an extension of your own body. Your handle and your hand fit together just so. Working in unison, your knife and hand translate your thoughts into action. They know just the way you’ll strike or glide on the board and your edge has developed in response to this knowledge. You are afraid that if someone else holds the handle, works your knife differently, it might break this mystical understanding. Your knife will be sullied.
Most home cooks don’t have this relationship with their knives because they won’t spend as much time with their knives as professionals do (nor do their knives help pay the mortgage). But owning the right knife is still important– and incredibly useful. Good knives and good knife skills help get dinner on the table faster, make your food look more appealing, and make it taste better. Those are big promises—but they are all true, and here’s why:
• Quicker: A good, sharp knife, used properly, makes shorter work of chopping onion, mincing garlic and all the other basic tasks that can take two minutes or ten, depending on your skill level and equipment. A dull knife is slower—and far more likely to cause accidents. (Info on keeping your knives sharp in a future post).
• Prettier: Food looks better when it is sliced and diced smoothly and evenly. And looks do matter, because we certainly eat with our eyes (and nose, mouth, ears, fingers…but that is a story for another time).
• Tastier: Flavor can truly be affected by your knife skills. If you don’t mince garlic finely enough for it to cook in the allotted time, the sharp bite of raw garlic may overwhelm the flavor of, say, a delicate scallop.
You don’t need a big fancy set of knives. Just three– a chef’s knife, paring knife and serrated knife— do almost everything you’ll need.
The Chef’s Knife
This is the big knife, and the one you use most often. Don’t be afraid of its size: your chef’s knife is a gentle giant whose heft protects you from fatigue and imprecision.
A chef’s knife may be anywhere from 8 to 12 inches long (mine is an 11-inch; my husband’s is an 8-inch), and has a gently curved or tapered blade that is widest near the handle. The weight and shape of the tapered blade takes the tiring physical labor of chopping away from your shoulder and arm. By leaving the tip of the knife on the chopping board and rocking the rest of the knife back and forth with a subtle movement of the wrist and forearm, the weight of the widest part of the blade (near the handle) adds force as it slices through food.
If you hear the sharp knock-knock-knock of your knife hitting the board when you chop or mince, you may be raising the tip of the blade off the board—which makes it harder to get precise cuts and easier for your arm to tire.
The tip of the knife should also stay on the board most of the time when you slice. The motion is a glide, almost like ice skating: follow the curve of the blade as you move it forward and downward. Most of the cut happens towards the back of the blade, closest to the handle. The weight and the sharp edge of the blade do all the work—it doesn’t take force or arm strength. Look at the photos below consecutively and you can see how the knife glides forward, with the cut happening under the very end, not the point, of the blade.
After you complete the slice, draw the knife back towards you with the blade just above the food. You don’t cut as you bring the knife back: you cut only on the forward glide.
Once the knife is fully drawn back, as in the photo above, you are ready to glide forward again and begin the next slice.
It is important to position your non-cutting hand properly. You want to avoid the very messy and painful “chef’s manicure”, so tuck your fingertips under, like this:
What you use the chef’s knife for
Almost everything! Including but by no means limited to:
• Cut up a chicken
• Slice onion, steak, vegetables (such as carrot, zucchini, scallions)
• Chop onions, bell peppers, and most other vegetables and fruits
• Mince herbs, shallots, garlic
How to buy the right knife for you
Price can matter! Inexpensive knives are unlikely to hold their sharp edge.
Pick up the knife and hold it as you would if you were about to use it. Does the weight feel substantial but not too heavy—as though it will do work for you, but not control you? This may seem hard to judge if you are not an experienced cook, but you want the knife to feel balanced, as though it is an extension of your arm. If the blade weighs down when you hold it out, it may be too heavy.
Next, take it for a test drive. No, you can’t bring an onion with you to the store to try it out, but you can put the blade in position on a surface as though you are about to chop. Rock back and forth with the tip on the surface: does the length feel right? The weight of the blade?
Also look for a smooth grip. Be sure nothing pinches, scratches or rubs your hand when you hold the knife in its working position.
Key traits of a great knife
High-carbon stainless steel: Don’t confuse this with high carbon steel, which can be sharpened to a beautiful edge, but discolors and needs sharpening more frequently. Look for a Rockwell rating above 55, which tells you the knife will hold its edge. The Rockwell rating indicates how hard the steel is, and is listed in any decent knife’s product information. Too high a Rockwell rating (64 and above) and the knife may be brittle and difficult to sharpen.
Forged: The blade is formed by shaping and compressing hot metal—not by stamping it out of a sheet of metal. Precision forged knives are usually heavier and more durable then stamped knives.
Full tang: The metal of the blade runs all the way through the handle and is usually visible along the on the top and bottom edges of the handle. My Henkel has a “rat tail tang”, which means the piece of metal that forms the blade runs the length of the handle, but tapers down in size to fit fully encased inside the handle. Either way, when the tang runs through the handle, the knife is more stable; the handle won’t wobble away from the blade, nor will the knife snap in two.
Brands and Deals (not)
Some of the best brands of knives have been around for centuries, including Zwilling J.A. Henkels, F. Dick, Messermeister and Wusthof-Trident from Germany and Sabatier from France. My personal favorites are Henkels, Wusthof and Sabatier, but there are many other great knives out there.
Don’t fall prey to the “Great Deal!” of buying a knife block filled with more knives than you’ll use. Chances are the knife quality will not be as good (even some of the best brands offer varying levels of quality). You are likely to end up with more knives but of lesser quality.
For an entire, incredibly useful and gorgeous book on knives, see my friend Norman Weinstein’s book, Mastering Knife Skills, here.
I will write about the serrated knife and the paring knife in (separate) upcoming posts. I will also cover how to clean, store and sharpen your knives. Feel free to comment with any specific questions you have, and I’ll address them when I next write about knives.