Home Dipo -Not all kitchen knives are equal – often a fashionable brand can be found selling poor quality knives at a high price, while it is possible to find a better quality set for cheaper with a lesser known brand.
Before setting out to purchase knives, consider the type of knife you will need in your kitchen. Available in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, kitchen knives can meet a huge variety of needs, and the extent of knives needed depends on your cooking style and habits.
• A chef's knife (20-23cm / 7.8–9 inches) – used for chopping, dicing, mincing, and cutting.
• A bread knife (serrated) – used for bread, cake, fruit, and tomatoes.Only buy if you need to chop serious pieces of meat.
• A filleting knife – helps to fillet fish. Only buy if you intend on filleting; most people don't bother anymore but buy food ready filleted.
• Sharpening steel, knife-honing stone, or electric honer
When buying knives, hold each knife in your hand. If you are going to be using this tool, the grip should be comfortable and sit well in your hand. The best knives are made from a single piece of steel, hand-forged (although these are rare and often cost prohibitive), while cheap knives tend to be thin with insubstantial hilts and handles covered thickly in plastic.
Feel the weight of the knife. A lightweight chopper is good for speed and precision, whereas a heavy knife requires far more work in using it for chopping a lot of light ingredients. Examine the balance of the knife. A quality, well balanced knife will balance at that point and not fall off your finger.Naturally, utmost care should be taken when doing this test! The key reason to consider balance is that a well balanced knife makes any cutting action easier and requires less effort.
Look at the hilt of the knife. It should be solid, easy to clean and well joined. If you can see any gap, not only will this increase the weakness of the knife but it can also trap minute portions of food and breed bacteri
Old fashioned bone handled knives are not a good choice as bone becomes brittle after time. Low density or soft woods or other low density materials are not recommended for knife handles.Cheap ceramic knives should be viewed with high caution.Carbon steel knives are easy to sharpen at home but need vigilance to prevent rusting.
Aim to purchase high-carbon stainless steel knives; they require sharpening but they won't rust. With less carbon content than rust-prone older carbon steel knives, these ones hold their edge better and are harder.If you're on a budget, an inexpensive stainless steel is a good choice until you can afford a high-carbon stainless steel knife.
Avoid knives that claim to never need sharpening.Look at the width of the cutting edge. The best knives are smooth as though polished with no sign of pitting in the metal. The cutting edge should run the full length from tip to the hilt.
Serrated chef's knives should be avoided for general use such as vegetable and meat chopping as they can be very unsafe, being more likely to slip than cut. Serrated knives should be included in your set but only forslicing bread or baked products.Maintain your knives in good, sharp condition.
Stones will restore an edge or improve an existing cutting edge.Very often people sharpen the middle of the blade on a steel, which also often happens most when you sharpen it with high speed (as it can look impressive to sharpen knives that way).
Most knife handling injuries are caused by blunt knives rather than sharp ones as more pressure is applied to cut and the knife is more likely to slip.Ultimately the most knife injuries where bluntness was not the cause was someone using a knife with which they were unfamiliar.
Store your knives carefully. Some knives come in their own storage box, but many chefs simply wrap the knives in an old apron (ensuring no knife touches another) for storage, with the apron strings securely wrapping the bundle so it does not fall open.
Shop around for your knives. The internet can be excellent to find good prices from quality brands and many hospitality wholesalers have buy-direct websites to get robust knives at a very good price.
