Kitchen Essentials: Knives

These are one of the two most important things to not skimp on quality with. Buy a good set of knives, you need at least three and I prefer having nine or ten of them lying around. The three that you definitely need are:

1. Chef's Knife (somewhere between 7 and 10 inches long)
2. Long serrated Bread Knife
3. Short and very sharp Paring Knife

The set that I have come to love is my set of Wüsthof Classic knives that I received for Christmas a number of years ago. These knives are very well-balanced, comfortable to use, and maintain their edge extremely well. The other knives that I am becoming more and more fond of are the knives from Füritechnics (usually seen as simply Füri) popularized by Rachael Ray. I have three Coppertails that have surplanted by Wüsthofs for chopping garlic, herbs, and other small things.

Chef's Knife - this is the workhorse of the kitchen and is the knife that is likely to be in your hand all of the time. This is why I say that it is important to buy good knives... you use them a lot. Why not invest a little? Imagine not buying another knife for 10, 20, maybe 30 years. The price is pretty easy to justify. Anyway, this knife has to be large enough to cut most things and yet small enough to control. I actually recommend having at least an 7 inch and 9 inch on hand since I think that the 9 inch is a little large and cumbersome to use.

Suggestion: 9 inch Wüsthof Classic Cook's Knife

Bread Knife - this one might surprise a few people. I actually do highly recommend having at least one really good serrated knife that is at least 7 inches long. Believe it or not, having a nice sharp bread knife will come in very handy if you have to slice up entire loaves of French Baguette not too mention slicing bagels without loosing a finger. The surprising thing is that these are perfect for slicing some roasts as well as all types of sausage products. In fact, I have a smaller one (about 5 inches) just for slicing salami.

Suggestion: 10 inch Wüsthof Classic Bread Knife

Paring Knife - last but not least is the ever abundant paring knife. This one is less important if you are going to have ten or eleven knives to choose from, but it is an absolute essential if you are just getting the basic three knife set. When I got my first 3-knife Wüsthof set, I used the paring knife religiously for all types of dicing and chopping tasks. However, as my knife collection grew larger and I picked up some smaller Chef's knives, I find myself almost never picking up the paring knife again... go figure.

Suggestion: 4 inch Wüsthof Classic Paring Knife

Other Knives - after you have a large Chef's knife, a Bread knife, and a good paring knife, what should you look for next? This is where I found myself a few years ago. Well, I have a few years behind me and a nice little list of knives that have served me very well over the years. Here is what I would buy in the order that I would buy them and why.

1. Fillet or Carving Knife - this is the next important knife; it is the one that you will use for cutting things like layer cakes, tenderloin roasts, and the like. The important difference between this knife and you Chef's Knife is that the Carving Knife has a narrower blade. The quality that matters here is length. You really want this to be your "long" knife so go for something that is 8 or 9 inches. If you plan on picking this up with your first set of knives then you can get a single 6 or 7 inch Chef's Knife since you will have a long Carving Knife on hand.
2. More Chef's Knives - you really want to have two moderate size Chef's Knives and one large one at the end of the day. I keep two six inch and one nine inch Chef's Knives in my set.
3. Santoku Bōchō knives - I've become continuously more fond of this style of knives over the past year since I picked up my first Füri East/West knife. They make anything from chopping parsley to finely slicing garlic to dicing fresh ginger root very easy. I have the solid variety of these knives as opposed to the "comfort" grip variety. Once you use a well-balanced Santoku knife to chop garlic or ginger, you will know why I recommend them so highly.
4. Sausage Knife - This one is particularly important if you use a lot of salami products or cut a lot of hot sandwiches. For some reason the five and a half inch sausage knives work really great for cutting thick sandwiches on crusty bread. If you don't find yourself in either of these positions, then you can probably skip this one.

Well that about does it for knives. I think that I've mentioned every one that I use daily. You can expect to spend about $350 USD on a basic set of Wüsthofs, another $200 on two extra Chef's knives, and another $120 or so on a pair of the Füri knives. This may seem like a lot of money for knives when you can buy a complete block set of Cuisinart knives for less than $100 if you look hard enough. What is evident is the quality difference. I have gone through a set of Chicago Cutlery and a set of Oneida stainless knives in the past 15 years and I wouldn't give up the ones that I have now. It is an investment, but a worthwhile one. Just make sure to buy a good sharpening stone and steel and learn how to use it.