Handbook of Kitchen Management
Table of Contents
- Preface
- A Guide to Kitchen Hygiene
- A Guide to Kitchen Ergonomics
- Work Must Be Economical
- A Guide to Cookware
- Prevent Food from Sticking to Cookware
- A Guide to Food Packaging
- A Guide to Food Containers
- A Guide to Kitchen Knives
- A Guide to Cutting techniques
- A Guide to Sharpening Knives
- A Guide to Cutting Boards
- A Guide to Washing Food
- What's Next?
A Guide to Kitchen Knives
Judging by the form factor of knives, there are four widely available knifes in every culinary culture.
- Heavy duty knife
- Chef's knife
- Paring knife
- Serrated knife
Each of them serve different need in the kitchen, and are made primarily of high carbon steel or stainless steel. Here is a comparison between the two materials.
| High Carbon Steel | Stainless Steel | |
|---|---|---|
| Edge Retention | Not as long as a stainless steel edge because high carbon steel is softer than stainless steel. | Longer than a high carbon steel edge because stainless steel is harder. |
| Brittleness | Not brittle because high carbon steel is soft. It tend to bend on heavy impact. | Brittle because stainless steel is soft. It tend to break on heavy impact. |
| Sharpening | Easy to sharpen using traditional methods. | Harder to sharpen using traditional methods. |
| Rust | Rusts if not maintained. | Good quality stainless steel almost never rusts. |
| Looks | Can be forged into beautiful designs and patterns. | Quite uniform in looks. |
Heavy Duty Knife
A heavy duty knife — such as cutting meat into pieces, gutting and cleaning the fish, cutting larger fruits and vegetables such as the jackfruit into halves or quarters, cutting large tapiocas, peeling them, etc.
The traditional process of cooking was to buy food from the market, prepare it for cooking, cook and eat. The heavy duty Indian knife is used primarily in the preparation process
The heavy duty knife comes is various sizes and shapes, sometimes resembling a farming knife or even resembling a small machete. They are primarily made of high carbon steel or iron.
Chef Knife
The chef knife aims to be the primary knife in the kitchen. It can be used for slicing, chopping, dicing and for every other cuts in the kitchen. Stainless steel is the common material used to make chef's knife. High carbon steel is also used but is expensive. Each culinary culture have their own version of chef knife.
The Indian vegetable knife is the chef knife in the Indian culinary culture. Most Indians traditionally do not use chopping boards to cut food, instead they cut them against their index thumb finger. For this, a low profile desi knife made out of high carbon steel is used. The knife is around 5 to 7 inches long, about 2 inches wide, flat belly, whose edge won't poke your index finger when you hold it to cut food. They look very similar to the Japanese Santoku knife.
The western chef knife is 6 to 10 inch in blade length and 3 to 4 inch in blade width with a slight belly. This belly helps in the rocking motion of the knife when (discussed in the next article).
The Japanese have a similar knife to the western chef knife called the Gyotu. The Chinese have their rectangular vegetable cleaver.
Paring knife
Paring knife is the secondary knife in the kitchen and is used to pare (or peel, trim or cut off) food items in the kitchen. Peeling skins off fruits and vegetables, and trimming the edge of beans are some of the uses of pairing knife. They come in both stainless steel and high carbon steel, and are about 3-6 inch long and 1 to 2 inches wide and have an almost straight edge.
Serrated knife
Serrated knives have a serrated edge designed to cut through tough materials like hard skinned veggetables and breads. They come in various shapes and lengths as per what they are intended to cut.
Serated knives can be both stainless steel and high carbon steel. The high carbon steel version may be difficult to maintain due since cleaning rusts from the serated edge is difficult. Stainless steel serated knives are easier to maintain.
Corrections?
We base our writings on science and reasoning, but we could be victims of cognitive biases whilst doing our research. If there are any inaccuracies in our writings, please do let us know.