Essential Knives for Your Kitchen

The most important kitchen tool and how to get it.

The first step to becoming a professional chef (chief) is to enroll in a culinary school such as The Culinary Institute of America, or Le Cordon Bleu. You can then become an executive chef in a restaurant or a catering business or even an executive chef in a culinary school. Does that mean that the person who becomes the “chief cook and bottle washer” at home is not a professional chef? No, it does not. But the majority of the chefs at home learn to prepare and cook meals through the school of hard knocks without one minute of the training a person gets after enrolling in a culinary school. After years of on-the-job experience, some of these chefs at home become excellent all-round cooks. Others find they excel at being a pastry chef or at being a short order cook while some excel at treating the family to junk food that has been prepared by someone else.

Why don’t these chefs at home enroll in a culinary school before attempting to become a professional chef? The nearest they can get to it then is to take a high school class in home economics. That may be the extent of their culinary training and that’s unfortunate because most of them could become professional chefs at home much sooner than they can by learning the hard way.

In culinary school a student learns just about everything there is to know about the restaurant or food business, including the fact that a chef’s personal cutlery will become as important to the success of his or her career as the fingers on their own hand. Their first assignment in a culinary school will almost certainly be to go directly to a cutlery store and purchase the knives they will be using throughout their culinary training and more than likely the rest of their professional careers.

So, if you have not had the rare good fortune to have been able to attend culinary school, the following report on which types of knives you will need to become the professional chef at home is intended to give you the insights into just what you will need to do to equip your kitchen the same way a graduate of the best culinary schools in the world would do. Their instructor will let them know which types of knives are essential for completing their training. While they may not have any restrictions on the brand of knives they buy, they will be advised to choose a quality knife, something that will last them for a long time and one that fits their hand and is comfortable to use for long periods at a time.

This is a very important step in the process because, as they develop their skills, their knives will become like an extension of their hand. Skillful use of their personal knives will enable them to excel at their craft in short order.

Following are the types of knives these culinary students may be instructed to shop for and a brief description of the use of each type. You can easily duplicate it.

Bare Essentials

The following knives are an important part of a professional chef’s arsenal of the tools required to prepare dishes that will leave a good taste in the mouth of just about any discerning diner. They make food preparation easier and faster and they are critical to the advantageous presentation of these dishes.

Equip yourself with the types of knives described below and you will have done a lot toward launching your career as a professional chef at home.

Chef’s Knife, Cook’s Knife or French Knife

The blade on this knife varies from six to 14 inches in length and is used primarily for chopping, slicing and mincing vegetables. A quality chef’s knife will give you the proper balance and enough weight to make slicing pots and pots of vegetables without tiring. This is a work horse in the kitchen, yet with a properly sharpened knife the tip can be used to do some very delicate decorating.

Carving Knife, Slicer or Sandwich Knife

A carving knife is used for slicing cooked meats or as a “sandwich” knife. The blade on these knives vary in length from eight to 14 inches and it is much thinner than the blade of a chef’s knife. You can slice a roast beef, a ham steak or turkey breast with a minimum of drag and effort.

Utility Knife

A utility knife may vary in blade length from five to seven inches. It is used for multiple light cutting chores and is undoubtedly one of the most used knives in the kitchen. It is large enough to slice through most fruits and vegetables, yet small enough and light enough to be easy to handle.

Paring Knife

Paring knives are small by comparison where blades measure from two to four inches and are used for cutting, trimming vegetables and fruits. You may find two or more of these small knives to be real time-savers.

Boning Knife

The boning knife, usually rigid with a blade of six inches or so, is used to separate meat from the bone.

Serrated Bread Knife

The blade of a serrated bread knife varies from six to eight inches in length and makes cutting breads much easier without mashing the loaf flat.

Cleaver

Used for chopping, heavy enough to chop bones. Some would even use the cleaver to handle tough jobs such as cutting open an acorn or butternut squash.