by Tommy Hayfield

Created on: September 27, 2010

Knives are indispensable to preparing food and having the suitable knife for a kitchen task makes the job of preparing your meal a lot easier.  Here is a description and intended use for most of the knives a typical home kitchen would require.

Frequently Used Home Kitchen Cutlery

Boning knives-they have a 4-5" blade and are used to separate meat from bones like on a ham bone.

Chef's knife-they have a 4-12" blade and are good for dicing and chopping vegetables.  The 12" blade chef's knife is uniquely suited for cutting large items such as cabbage, lettuce, or watermelons. 

Cleaver-has a 6" blade and can cut through bones and joints if you are cutting apart a big side of beef or pork.

Fillet knife-has a long, thin, and flexible 7" blade which is used for filleting and taking the skin off a fish. 

Ham slicer- has a heavy 10" blade which can be sharpened to a fine edge and easily cuts through ham.

Oriental cleaver- has a 7" blade used to finely chop vegetables, herbs, meats, and fruits.  It's not used to chop bones as is the traditional cleaver. 

Bread knife- has a 9" serrated blade which provides more cutting surface than a non-serrated blade which would flatten the bread rather than efficiently cut it.

Birds beak-is a type of paring knife designed for peeling small fruits and vegetables.

Salmon slicer-used to slice smoked salmon skin from the flesh with its very flexible 12" blade. 

Slicer/carver-has an 8-10" blade which is curved up at the end  to smoothly remove meat from bones.

Steak knives- has a 5" blade and is used an eating utensil used to cut steak.

Utility knife-has a 6" blade and as the name indicates is a multipurpose knife used for many tasks in the kitchen. 

Tomato/bagel knife-has a 5" blade with a serrated edge which cuts into rather than crushing a tomato or a bagel which a non-serrated edge would.

Commonly Seen Kitchen Cutlery Metals

Kitchen knives are only useful if they're sharp.  Here are the characteristics of knives you'll find for sale in stores and on the internet.

Titanium knives-this metal won't rust but it also won't form as sharp an edge as other metals.

Carbon steel-knives with carbon steel have about 1% carbon and sharpen to a fine edge.  A drawback is they rust (oxidize) if they're not treated with oil after use.

Laminated knives-these knives are composed of multiple layers of metal and are sharper and harder than stainless steel knives. 

Low carbon stainless steel-it's what most flatware is made of.  It doesn't sharpen to as sharp an edge as high carbon stainless steel and as such it is formed into serrated edges to provide more cutting edge for the softer metal.

High carbon stainless steel-they won't stain or discolor.  They will be advertised as containing molybdenum, cobalt, and vanadium.They have a sharper edge than low carbon stainless steel.

Resources:

squidoo.com/kitchen

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