Knives - Milk Hates Me

A good sharp chef’s knife. It all starts there. After a chef’s knife the next knife that every kitchen needs is a 3 1/2 or 4 inch paring knife. From there a bread knife should be on hand. It not only cuts bread but can be used to carve meat. Boning, cleavers, carving, butcher, breaking, utility, cimeter, deba, oyster, or nakiri knives as well as a few other specialty knives can come later or never. We’ll try to give you our perspective on knives and the knives that we use day in and day out in our kitchen.

A Knife Must Be Sharp

A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp knife. For the kitchen we are going to focus on knives that you sharpen. Serrated edge knives have a couple of uses in our home. First, bread knives. Second, steak knives. With that out of the way, you need to sharpen your knives. Most chefs know how to use a sharpening steel and send out their knives from time to time. Normal people don’t get the angle right for a sharpening steel and are better off with either a manual or electric knife sharpener. We’ll recommend a couple later.

What We Use

Wustof. There I said it. It doesn’t mean that we don’t own and use other knives but the workhorses in our kitchen are Wustof. We also have vintage carbon steel Dexter’s and classic French carbon steel knives that get used all the time. Our collection of paring knives go from reasonably priced Victorinox to our favorite Wustofs. We even have some Winco branded knives that have provided a good value and performance. The 12 inch Winco Chef’s knife is used to cut up large items like watermelon and squash.

The most used knives in our kitchen are chef’s knives in the 6 inch to 12 inch range. These days, we find ourselves reaching for a 6 inch Wustof most often. It is comfortable and well sized for most normal kitchen tasks such as slicing mushrooms or taking the rind off cheese. The other knife that has found almost constant use has been a 7 inch Santoku which excels at chopping, mincing, and dicing. Bread knives also get a lot of use. As mentioned earlier this is the one exception where we prefer serrated over a traditional knife. Finally, every home needs a couple of paring knives in the 3 1/2 to 4 inch range.

The final knife that deserves special mention is that of the cleaver. We have found that the best use for a cleaver is cutting up whole chickens or even to section a thick roast quickly. The cleaver also makes quick work of smashing garlic cloves. The best thing about cleavers is that you can find a quality one for a reasonable price. Ours is a 6 inch model by J.A. Henckels International.

Reasonably Priced Brands

If you want to use what a lot of working kitchens in the United States use then you really can’t go wrong with Victorinox. Like Wustof, they just work. Unlike Wustof, they are reasonably priced. Kitchens use these because they work well, are extremely reliable, and are very durable. They aren’t refined like a high priced German or Japanese knife but that’s not the point of them. We have also had great luck with knives from the International line from J.A. Henckels as well as the previously mentioned Winco branded Chef and Utility knives.

Recommendations

Buy a knife sharpener and use it
We love Wustof Classic knives
Start with an 8 inch Chef’s knife
Get one or two decent quality paring knives
A Cleaver is a great multipurpose tool in the kitchen

A Knife Must Be Sharp

What We Use

Reasonably Priced Brands

Recommended Chef Knives

Recommended Pairing Knives

Other Knives

Knife Sharpener

Recommendations