Quoted message said:I'm giving real cooking a shot. Most of the recipes I've tried are
vegetarian. I've noticed that the hardest part is chopping and dicing
so I want to invest in a good dicing knife. What shape is best? I think
the blade on the knife I have now is too narrow for dicing. I can't
grab the handle and chop, my knuckles hit the cutting board before the
blade does. I'm assuming a thick blade is best for dicing. What about
the curvature of the blade? Should it be curved or flat? I would think
that a curved blade would cut all the way thru better, if you use a
rocking action, but a flat blade would be easier to move the pile
around, if that makes any sense. What about the composition of the
blade? I sharpen my knife each time I use it, does that mean I should
get a carbon steel instead of stainless?
There are two parts to a knife choice. The first is shape. For
chopping/dicing, four good options options are:
"traditional" chef's knife
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef%27s_knife)
santoku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santoku)
nakiri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakiri_bocho - the Tokyo style,
pictured on the right)
chinese style cleaver
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_knife#Chinese_Cleaver)
All of these are good for chopping and dicing because the handle is a
good distance from the edge of the blade, leaving space for your
knuckles beneath. That said, you should hold the knife with your
thumb and forefinger on the blade just beyond the handle - this
minimizes how much knucke and finger is below the handle, and gives you
far better control of the knife. Of the above shape, I prefer the
nakiri for general vegatable work, put part of that is that my nakiri
is lighter than my chef's knife or cleaver (I don't have a santoku. If
I were limited to one knife, it would be a santoku - unlike the nakiri,
it has a point, which comes in handy, but I have a whole bunch of
pointed knives when the need arises.
The second part is how the knife is constructed - the metal used, how
it is formed, how thick it is, how the handle is shaped, what it is
made out of, etc., etc. A lot of money in this world is spent on
nicely forged knives from Henckels, Wustoff, and the like - I should
know, I have several. I have come to prefer cheaper knives for a
simple reason: most of the high end forged knives have thick blades
and thick bolsters, making them heavy. For a lot of dicing and
chopping of vegetables, I will take a lightweight knife almost every
time - easy to maneuver, and less tiring to use. Good steel can be
found in modest knives - look at a restaurant supply store or an asian
grocery. My favorite knife is a $16 Japanese made nakiri from a Korean
grocery store. The steel is just fine - it came with a sharp edge, and
it is easy to keep sharp. The blade itself is nice and thin, making a
lightweight, easy to maneuver knife.
Quoted message said:Also can anyone recommend a good sharpener?
That is a whole other discussion. I use a small tabletop bandsander
with a very fine belt and a leather stropping belt, but I wouldn't
recommend getting on just to sharpen kitchen knives, and it is easy to
ruin the temper on a knife with it.
Later,
Mark Muller
