Kitchen Knives: Tips and Advice

Is your trusty chef's knife looking rusty? Have you been using your serrated knife to open cans? Has chopping vegetables become an epic struggle, requiring Herculean strength just to get through a bell pepper?

If you need an intro to knife care and selection, "Cutting edges: A Quick Course on Kitchen Knives" is a fantastic beginner's guide to one of a chef's most important tools. The article goes into incredible detail on a variety of topics, including choosing knives by style and function, sharpening and honing your knives, and taking care of your knives so they'll last longer. For instance:

"Antoniolli recommends that active home cooks have their knives sharpened professionally a couple of times a year, maintaining the edge in the interim with a stone and steel. Not surprisingly, he disdains the tabletop sharpeners intended for home use. These manual models have abrasive disks with preset angles that the cook simply draws the knife through. 'They tear up the edge,' says Antoniolli, who says he has worked on millions of knives since he began sharpening them at age 13. 'That's why you feel like (the knife is) cutting. If you magnify it, it looks like a saw blade. '"

If you're serious about cooking, you need to be serious about your knives. Even if you don't plan on doing your own sharpening, you still need to be aware of what it takes to keep your tools in shape. After all, a happy knife often means a happy chef:

"For home cooks accustomed to dull knives, a new, factory-sharpened knife can bring on euphoria. The razor-sharp blade glides right through ripe tomatoes, reduces onions to a neat mince and chops parsley instead of shredding it. Tedious kitchen tasks are dispatched swiftly, with less effort and better results."

Chef School Review Home | Privacy Policy | Site Map | Contact Us
Copyright © 2008 - 2012 Chef School Review All rights reserved.