The Ultimate Guide to Buying a Culinary Knife Set

Finding your knife is like choosing your own magic wand. You need to find the right one depending on your personal preferences and ease of use. There isn’t one ultimate knife that’s right for everyone. It might take some time to find your ideal knife, but you’ll feel like you have grown a third hand once you find one.

Whether you’re an aspiring chef, a professional cook, or an awesome home cook, you definitely need your own personalized knife set. Cutting and dicing meat and vegetables can be a time-consuming and daunting task if you’re not equipped with proper knives.

Where to Begin Your Knife Shopping

The first step toward choosing your own chef’s knife is to find a good cookware or cutlery store. Make sure it has a wide selection of knives where you can try holding them or, even better, try using them on a cutting surface. Don’t always go for online knife shopping, you need to personally feel the knife in your hands to figure out if it’s best for you. You can also check out reviews at MyFilletKnife.com before going out for knife shopping or check out these best kitchen knives.

The Anatomy of a Chef’s Knife

The handle – You need a handle that’s very comfortable to hold and doesn’t easily leave your grip. It shouldn’t be a strain to hold onto and should have enough clearance underneath it. This will keep your knuckles away from the cutting board and makes handling easy.

The shank – It’s the thick metal portion that’s fixed in the place where the handle and the blade meet. A shank is essential to add extra strength and stability to the knife. Make sure that the shank extends up to the end of the handle to ensure the stability of the knife.

The heel – The heel is the thickest and broadest part of the blade and it usually built heavy. It’s meant for some specific tasks that would require force, like chopping some chicken tendons and the hard rinds of vegetables and meat.

The spine – It’s the square edges top portion of the blade. The spine should be blunt and taper towards the edge of the blade. A thicker tip will be hard to work with.

The edge – It’s the sharp edge of the blade that’s used for dicing and slicing. A really sharp-edged blade will give you a clean, effortless cut. MyFilletKnife.com suggests that you always maintain sharp edges to make precise cuts.

Things to Look For in a Knife

Whether you’re mincing garlic, dicing onions, or julienning ginger, the way you cut those vegetables and meats will directly affect your cooking. Uniform cuts make the dish easier to be consumed and also allows even cooking. A couple of things you need to consider while shopping for knives are:

1. Steel Quality – When it comes to chefs knives German or Japanese steel is preferred. The Japanese steel is a more idle choice because they are agiler, gives unmatched precision for cutting, and are capable of holding on to their edges longer.
2. Comfort – You can’t dice vegetables or fillet meat unless you are comfortably holding the knife in your hand. You’ll definitely spend a lot of time using the knives, so you can’t afford to sacrifice your comfort and make cutting a tedious job. You wouldn’t want to end your day with a wrist pain or a cut in your fingers. Remember, a knife can make cutting easy, so choose the right one that’s easy to hold and gives you comfort.
3. Blade length – The blade length varies for different types of knives, depending on their uses. An 8-inch blade will be good for cutting vegetables and dicing other food products. If you use your knife for special purposes like boning fish and filleting meat than a 7.5-inch blade will be a better option. However, blade lengths generally range from 4-9 inches and you can decide on your desired model.
4. Balance – It’s very important that the knife’s balance point is at the place where the blade meets its handle. This gives a good grip and with an evenly distributed weight you can easily slice and chop. In case if you go for shorter blades, you’ll need heavier handles to gain a comfortable grip.

Benefits of Having a Knife Set

Ideally, you should have your own knife set to make your food cutting part easier. Once you get used to your new knife you’ll ace in chopping and dicing food. Some benefits of buying your own personalized knife set as described by MyFilletKnife.com are:

• Ease of use – Make your mincing, slicing, dicing, and chopping at a breeze. Forget about struggling with your meat and vegetables to get them diced, with a good knife set you can dice them easily.
• Lasts longer – A good quality knife set can last longer and saves a lot of your time. A mediocre knife set will make your prep-work a more torturous and time-consuming activity. But with a good one, you can enjoy your dicing and slicing, and accomplish it without much effort.
• Highly accurate – It will give you more precise and accurate cuts. When it comes to pleasing your customers, you can’t dice the vegetables or meat as you like it. It needs to be precisely cut to make tastier dishes.
• Keep all the equipment at ready – Cooking isn’t a simple task and you’ll need different tools for different activities. Dicing vegetables, boning fish, filleting meat, and fish, slicing bread, and many other culinary works will have to be done using different knives. A perfect knife set will be a one stop shop for all your culinary needs.

If you’re an avid cook, the best thing you can gift yourselves is a knife set. Always have a boning and fillet knife on hand because you’ll never know when your customers will ask for some authentic fish fillets. Get a good knife and elevate your cooking to the next level!