Knives And Cooking – The Importance Of Using The Right Cutting Tools For Fast Cooking
It can cost you a lot of precious time to battle with blunt knives, besides the fact that it’s frustrating. Did you ever wonder why there are so many different types of knives? There is a valid reason for that: Not all foods are the same. They have different sizes and textures, and therefore some are easier to cut with the one knife and others require another one. What cuts a tomato greatly might fail badly when it comes to cutting meat. Now, how to find the right one?
Experiment with your knives and find out which one cuts which foods best. When choosing the right knife for a task, you should consider the following:
- sharpness of the blade
- knife type
- knife size
- alternate cutting tools
Ensure your knives are sharp at all times. You don’t necessarily have to buy an expensive knife. Some cheap ones do have a good quality blade but a poor grind. Go to a professional to have your knives sharpened, or invest in a grinder and do it yourself regularly.
Knife type
Use knives for the purpose they were designed for. If you want to cut meat with a knife meant to cut fruit, you will battle unnecessarily, and the knife will get blunt much quicker. A heavy knife requires less effort when cutting and chopping.
Some popular knife types are:
- Chef’s knife: all purpose kitchen knife for chopping, dicing, mincing and slicing
- Paring knife: small knife with a straight narrow blade, great for peeling, coring and cutting small foods
- Utility knife: slightly larger than paring knife, for medium-sized foods (too large for the paring but too small for the chef’s knife)
- Carving knife: long thin blade, for slicing hot meats
- Boning knife: long narrow blade, easily cuts the main bones out of a piece of meat
- Tomato knife: serrated edged knife, for slicing foods with tough exterior and soft middle
- Bread knife: for slicing foods with hard outside and softer inside
- Frozen food knife: saw-toothed blade, cuts even hard foods like frozen vegetables easily
- Lettuce knife: plastic knife, prevents the edges of lettuce from turning brown after cutting (as would happen when cutting it with a metal knife)
Choose the right sized knife for the food you want to cut. Large knives are unpractical to cut small things or for peeling, whereas a small knife will make it tricky and require much more effort to cut large things like bread or meat bulks. Ideally, your knife should be slightly longer than the food you want to cut so that you can cut down with one straight cut, without having to “cut around the bread”.
Alternate cutting tools
- Poultry shears: For cutting a whole chicken or turkey, it’s easier to use poultry shears which are specially designed for that purpose. A knife will battle to cut through the joints.
- Peelers: If you battle to peel fruit and vegetables properly with a knife, invest in a peeler. There are many different types available and they are not very expensive. If you don’t get along with one type, try another one. A peeler is a very pleasant tool which can safe you quite some time in peeling jobs.
- Chopping tools: There are lots of small kitchen appliances on the market which do the chopping for you. You get automatic ones, where all you need to do is putting your onions or carrots in and press the start button, or mechanical ones which require you to turn a handle. Both types chop much faster than you could do, saving you some more minutes. You might not want to use them for chopping half an onion only, but if you need to chop large amounts of food, they can be a great help in time saving.
- Cheese cutter: A cheese cutter can cut much more even slices of cheese from a large piece as you would do with a normal knife. It’s principle is similar to a grater.
Helpful links
http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--1075/types-of-kitchen-knives.asp
Whatever you want to know about kitchen knives, you are likely to find it here. The article gives very detailed information about knives, how to choose the right one, and how to maintain and sharpen them properly.
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