Cooking For Engineers

[beamer]

Forgive me if i have intruded on a profesionally oriented site but i would value some expert advice.
As a very keen home cook i am extremely displeased at the quality of knives available in homeware shops. After a fair bit of research on the many advice forums for chefs i decided to order a few Victorinox knives (chefs, paring and boning).
Considering that i am not using them in a professional capacity would this be enough to cover most of the cutting i would encounter? Otherwise would their be a minimum number and type of knives anyone would recomend to this end?
Also i have just found a huge article on another forum about maintenance of knives, does anyone have advice on best type of sharpener to use bearing in mind how little use (compared to professional chefs) they would have.
Thanks in advance for your replies

[Dilbert]

Hi Beamer -

as to assortment, I personally find the boning knife indispensable - that because I am fond of buying meat "bone in" - if you seldom go there, it might not be as useful in your routines. That said, for years I attempted to convince a acquaintance they should have a boning knife. finally they got one with the reaction "wow, and where has this boning knife been all my life?" - for it's purpose, it is 'the tool'

an 8" chef and 8" slicer are two good starting points.

paring knives / sizes as you see fit - I'd start with a 4" paring

a serrated blade - ala bread knife or tomato or 'utility' is also a handy one

as to brand, gosh everyone has their favorite. frankly I think any of the top brands will perform very well - what I always tell people is to make sure the handle(s) fit your hand. if you have a small hand with short fingers, those "neo-modern" big fat round handles may look cool, but may not be 'comfortable' in your hand to work.

for sharpening, take a deep breath and don't believe all the hype you read. sharpening a knife ain't rocket science. two smidgens of practice and you'll have it down pat.

_do not_ go for anything "electric" to sharpen your knives.

I use a tri-sided woodworking stone - altho I never use the coarse stone.
2-3 swipes on medium, 3-4 on the fine stone, couple swipes on the steel (you need a steel for everyday edge maintenance) and it's done. the whole trick is to know / learn what a 15 degree angle is - after that, it's really easy.

I sharpen my batch on the stone twice a year - pre-4th of July and pre-Christmas turkey. I use the steel in-between and it seems to work for me.

[beamer]

Thanks for that quick reply. im in the right ballpark by the sounds of it

Sizes are a little different though, Ive ordered a 10" Chef knife and a 3" paring knife. As for the boning knife there are so many different styles, is there one which is a general purpose? (boning/sticking,5/6/7",curved/straight,narrow/wide,flexible/rigid)
Whew! thats a lot of options for a novice lol

[SirShazar]

For home use, I'd say the basic boning knife is 6 inches, straight, narrow, and rigid. Sticking knives have a dagger-like edge (sharp on both sides) and are used to bleed animals, probably not what you're looking for. The longer flexible knives are often meant for filleting fish. I'm not sure about the curved knives, but I think they're specifically designed to cut the membrane between the muscles on large cuts of beef.

I have yet to need a boning knife since the only thing I bone is whole chicken, and I use a Chinese cleaver to do that. I think that for now you should be fine with what you have.

For sharpening, I would get a King 1k/6k waterstone, and learn to free-hand sharpen. It takes time to learn, but it's well worth it.

[beamer]

Ive read in several places what your saying about the waterstone being the thing to go with but it seems to be a tool for serious one off sharpening. It seems that everyday sharpening is better done using a diamond steel. Would this be the correct way to go?

[Dilbert]

I have a 10, an 8 and a 6 inch chef.

the 6 is my fav, but if you going to chop say 3-4 stalks of celery or 3 carrots, the 6" is too short and the 8" works better. a 10" knife is a big item - I find it's use limited to stuff like cutting acorn / winter squash, watermelons, . . . really big stuff where you need a long but very rigid blade to avoid slips / bends / oops'ings off a finger.

I personally would not recommend a 10" chef for "general all around"

boning - six inch is good - straight is my preference - a boning knife must be stiff but flexible.

sharpening:

there is a difference between steeling and sharpening
..."diamond steel" - did you mean a diamond rod type sharpener?

[SirShazar]

[beamer]

Ok i take your point with the chef knife being a bit big but will have to go with it for now bearing in mind i wont be using it for hours on end .. if i find it clumsy i will just have to order a smaller one. I will take the advice on the boning knife.
As for the diamond steel, having never done any sharpening im not exactly sure what types are available but when i read about them i imagined the rod type. I found a very good looking article on another forum on knife maintenance but not sure whether i could post a link here to share it with you good people.
On this theme of knife types, i just had a wee thought that it might be nice if some clever/kind soul would put together a chart detailing knife types, subtypes and applications. Just for us thick amatuers who are starting out
Thanks for all your help up to now.

[DrBiggles]

[Dilbert]

...link...

don't know that we're so "hung up" here that good info is suppressed, so if you found something feel free to share it.

there is a link somewhere - thought I had it saved - to a site with excellent sharpening info / theory / techniques. I'll have to go looking.....

but here's the bottom line:

to sharpen a knife one rubs the steel against an abrasive that is harder than steel, removing minute quantities of metal resulting in a pointy edge.

two major divisions of "rubbing"
(1) perpendicular to the edge (stones)
(2) lengthwise "with" the edge - rods, V-gadgets, etc

I prefer (1) because it creates micro-serrations which I think makes the knife "more sharper" - but there is debate on which is better and the wherefores and whyases thereto.

once one has a properly shaped 'edge' it will stand up to a lot of cutting. one can spout Rockwell hardness and diamond impression numbers until one is purple faced, raw beef/chicken/shrimp/liver/ect does not have a lot of abrasion effect on cold hard steel.

what does happen is the knife hits bone, cutting board, wandering fingers, blood-soaked band aides . . . . and that really fine pointy edge "rolls over"

now folks, we're talking geometry on the micron scale.

a steel - often cited as "does not remove metal" - basically bends the _really_ pointy part of the knife back to "straight"

I've seen posting that only a smooth glass "steel" should be used. There's debate over grooved vs. granular (diamond/ceramic) steels are "better"

I have a traditional longitudinally grooved steel. the thought that it removes no metal is el bunko - I steel a knife, wipe the knife edge with a clean white cloth, there's a veddy veddy fine deposit of swarf/metal particles there.

works great. the basic cutting geometry is established by sharpening on a stone, the steel tweaks the edge back to "really sharp"

I have pulled out a knife, started cross-grain slicing down a steak for stir fry - not happy, steeled it, works without effort / works cleanly.

so steeling a knife is imho essential to daily use/function.
but a "steel" is not a diamond studded rod sharpener.

[DrBiggles]

[SirShazar]

[Dilbert]

....... For most kitchen tasks I rarely use anything smaller than a 12".

holy cow!

[DrBiggles]

[buzzard767]