Chef's Knife & Serrated Knife (Equipment Overview)
- Courtney Slutz
- Apr 19, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 27, 2023
While no one will dispute the fact that every chef needs to have knives, there is some debate over which knives you actually need in a kitchen. As with many tools and equipment in a kitchen, personal preference plays a role in finding the right knives. They come in many shapes, sizes, styles, and colors, but at the end of the day, as long as a Home Chef maintains their knives, they only need two: a chef’s knife and a serrated knife.
THE CHEF’S KNIFE
The French chef’s knife, which is the iconic symbol of cuisine, has more than earned its place as the most important tool in the kitchen. It’s rounded blade profile encourages efficient cutting movements and it’s high handle prevents chefs from smashing fingers into the cutting board. At 8-10 inches, it is big enough to mince larger amounts of herbs, but maneuverable enough to debone a leg of lamb or skin a filet of fish. Overall, the Chef’s Knife is a versatile tool.
THE SERRATED KNIFE
The versatility of a Chef’s Knife comes with a caveat: it needs to be sharp. The problem is that much of the time, a Home Chef has other things they want to do other than sharpen a knife. This is where the serrated bread knife comes in handy. Foods like bread or tomatoes that require a straight edged knife to be as sharp as a laser beam cut easily under a serrated knife. The serrated knife allows you to keep your chef’s knife sharp enough for everything else, without constantly honing the edge.
SHOPPING FOR A KNIFE
If you are looking for one or both of these two knives to help you make the best food at home, here are a couple things to keep in mind.
- Hold the knife. This seems silly, but make sure that the knife fits your hand, feels balanced, is a comfortable length both in the handle and the blade, doesn’t have any uncomfortable edges, and is a tool you are willing and excited to use.
- If you can, try cutting with it before you buy it. Not every store allows this, but some have potatoes on hand so you can test out a knife before spending money on it.
- Understand how the balance affects performance. Point heavy knives have gravity to help them move down through food as you slice back and forth, so you spend less energy pushing down, but more lifting the knife and manipulating it at different angles. Handle heavy knives work with you a little more when cutting sideways or at weird angles, but you may find yourself pushing down a little extra as you are cutting. Knives balanced in the middle offer a balanced experienced.
- Learn how to work with the hardness of the steel in your knife. A softer steel will deform more easily, which means that it will sharpen easier. However, this means that it will lose its edge quicker and will require more sharpening. A harder steel will hold an edge longer, but is more difficult and time consuming to sharpen, and will tend to chip at the edge rather than curl. Generally, steel hardness for kitchen knives will range from 55 (softer) to 62 (harder). If you are a novice Home Chef and are shopping for your first knives, start with a softer steel knife.
- Make sure you can keep it sharp. Once you start using sharper knives, you’ll notice how difficult cutting through foods can be when your knife is dull. When it comes to different styles of sharpeners, the simplest and least time consuming sharpeners for most Home Chefs are pull through style sharpeners. They are incredibly easy to use, and as long as you research and make sure to buy one with the right angle that matches the angle of your knife, the sharpener can be used to maintain your knives for a long time.
RECOMMENDATIONS
If you already have a knife or knives that you like, that fit in your hand, that are sharp, and that perform, then there isn’t a need to go buy a new one. But, if you would prefer to upgrade your knives, here are some recommendations with varied price points.*
Miyabi 8" Chef's Knife ($$$)
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