There's a huge variety of kitchen utensils available. Just look in any kitchen store or in the aisles of kitchenware at other retail stores and you’ll see an amazing array of items used for cooking. It you can only use a kitchen utensil for one specific task, sometimes it doesn't get used very often. However, there are other utensils that are more versatile, and needed and used daily.
Knives Are Hard Workers In The Kitchen
If you do much cooking at all, you’ll use not one, but several kinds of knives. Each of these kitchen utensils has a specific function, like chopping, slicing, or filleting food.
All knives have the same major parts.
The Main Part Of The Knife - The Blade
The blade is pretty self-explanatory, being the metal part of the knife used for cutting, from the handle to the tip. It’s the most important part of the knife, and the quality of the blade determines how well the knife cuts. Good quality blades make it much easy to do food preparation for cooking.
A Better Bolster
The bolster is the small part between the blade and the handle, connecting the two together. It's essential the bolster holds the handle and blade securely together so the knife doesn't fall apart.
It's advantageous, however, to have a bolster that does NOT go the full width of the blade. That might seem sturdier, but it gets in the way of sharpening the blade. For that reason, it's preferable that the bolster doesn't reach clear to the edge of the blade.
The Whole Tang
The tang is an extension of the blade. It not only provides a way to attach the handle, but helps give the knife good balance by running through the middle of the handle. It makes a knife more durable to have the tany running into the handle.
Sometimes the tang only goes partway into the handle. They are of varying lengths. A tang that goes the full length of the handle will make a knife stronger and better balanced. Good quality knives are constructed this way.
Getting A Handle
You need a way to safely hold a knife, and that’s the handle. It wraps around the tang and keeps it secure. Many materials can be used for the knife handle, such as metal, wood, or various types of plastic.
Knife handles should not only be sturdy, they should be easy to hold. Since you will use a knife a lot in the kitchen, it's essential it comfortable to hold.
Checking the different parts of the knife for quality gives you an idea what to look for when buying a good knife. There's a huge variety of knife types available however. Some of these include:
· Boning Knife
· Butter Knife
· Cheese Knife
· Chef’s Knife
· Cleaver
· Deli Knife
· Filet Knife
· Frozen Food Knife
· Mincing Knife
· Paring Knife
· Sandwich Knife
· Serrated Knife
· Slicing-Carving Knife
· Steak
· Utility
There are also specialty knives for chestnuts, clams, grapefruits, deveining, lettuce and oysters, plus specialty knives for different types of cuisines such as Japanese and Asian.
Thankfully, you don't need to buy every kind of knife out there.
The Bare Essentials of Knives For The Kitchen
While every knife has a use, most people don’t need so many of the more specialized knives. Some kinds of knives, however, should be in every working kitchen. These are the knives than can do more than one specific task. They are able to perform many types of food preparation.
The Paring Knife
If you don’t have any other knife, you need a paring knife. It has a straight, sharp blade and is on the small side. Paring knives run from about three to five inches long with a thin blade that tapers to a point at the tip.
A paring knife is easy to use and easy to handle. The paring knife is so names since its main use if for paring foods. It’s also good for cutting up small items, coring apples and such, and mincing garlic and other foods. Each and every kitchen should have at least one good paring knife.
A Knife For A Chef
The Chef’s or Cook’s knife is another versatile knife. The chef's knife come in several different lengths, from 6 inches to 12 inches long. The shorter knives are called mini chef's knives. A person with smaller hands will find the mini chef's knives easier to use. The bigger, more traditional chef knife, works best for people with larger hands, as that allows the knife to balance well in their grip.
The chef knife picks up where the paring knife leaves off, and can cut bigger vegetables, fruits and meats. A chef's knife works well for slicing foods, plus chopping and mincing foods. The bigger size makes it better suited for the heavy duty work, and making thicker slices than a paring knife.
The Serrated Knife
Instead of a straight edge like the paring and chef knives have, the serrated knife has notches in the blade. It can be anywhere from 5 to 10 inches long. For foods that are hard on the outside, while being soft on the inside, the serrated knife excels. A good example is a loaf of homemade bread since it's crusty hard on the outside, and softer on the inside. A serrated blade also works well for slicing tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables.
Put A Cleaver To Good Use
You could make do with a paring knife, chef’s knife and serrated knife, but there’s one other blade that is highly useful in the kitchen. This knife had a very wide blade which is usually about 6 inches in length.
Cleavers work well for pounding and crushing foods. However, they can be used to chop and shred foods also, just like any other kitchen knife. Additionally, this is a good knife for cutting through hard materials like bones in chickens.
Not only can a cleaver pulverize meat, but the flat of the blade can be used to crush garlic and other herbs. To help make storage easier, most cleavers come with a hole near the end of the blade so it can be hung up somewhere out of the way.
Choose Good Quality Knives For The Kitchen
Whatever knives you chose, get the best quality you can. It will make your time in the kitchen go faster to have good knives, since that will make food preparation easier.
The more you cook, the more you will appreciate using good quality knives, and may wish to expand your selection to include more types. The paring knife, chef's knife, serrated knife are good for a starter kitchen, however, with the cleaver making a nice addition.
Every kitchen can use a few good knives.
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