Off Topic Kitchen Knives everyone should have

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Skiller1nc

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Just looking for opinions of kitchen knives that everyone should have. I want to go past the chef, bread, paring. What are some more specific types and styles someone who cooks a lot should have or look at?
 
I used to use Nakiri's a lot for veggie prep. I use a long sujihiki for slicing stuff, too.
 
The basic three knife kitchen set is chef's knife (gyuto), bread knife, and paring knife. That being said, my knife rail usually contains the following:

10" bread knife (longer is almost always better)
260mm sujihiki (slicing knife, could be longer)
230mm gyuto (chef's knife)
170mm nakiri (flat edged vegetable knife)
150mm honesuki (thick, rigid poultry boning knife)
150mm petty knife (utility knife)
90mm paring knife

My nakiri sees the most use because I ground a heavy relief on the side of the blade so food release is phenomenal. The next most used is my gyuto which get used for absolutely everything, from bread to meat to pizza to vegetables. The bread knife only comes out when I have a particularly soft loaf with a thick crust that my gyuto can't break through without crushing the inside.
 
CallumRD1 said:
The basic three knife kitchen set is chef's knife (gyuto), bread knife, and paring knife. That being said, my knife rail usually contains the following:

10" bread knife (longer is almost always better)
260mm sujihiki (slicing knife, could be longer)
230mm gyuto (chef's knife)
170mm nakiri (flat edged vegetable knife)
150mm honesuki (thick, rigid poultry boning knife)
150mm petty knife (utility knife)
90mm paring knife

My nakiri sees the most use because I ground a heavy relief on the side of the blade so food release is phenomenal. The next most used is my gyuto which get used for absolutely everything, from bread to meat to pizza to vegetables. The bread knife only comes out when I have a particularly soft loaf with a thick crust that my gyuto can't break through without crushing the inside.
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can you be more specific about the grind on the nakiri? are you saying its s ground?
 
My Nakiri are all Japanese. 2 have some what of a S grind on it (shallow hollow above the blade road, thin, slightly convex blade road, Tanaka Blue #2 Kurouchi and a Makota Kurosaki AS) and one is a slight convex all the way down (Tanaka Sekiso). They have a slightly rounded tip and a very tiny curvature to the edge itself, but other people like a 90 degree tip to have a sharp point. I usually go with a thin grind in 3/32" stock, full flat grind and then convex it on a hard felt platen. I just got a radius platen that I am waiting to try out on a nakiri!
 
Skiller1nc said:
can you be more specific about the grind on the nakiri? are you saying its s ground?
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Yes, it's an asymmetric s-grind. I started with 0.084" stock, ground it to zero somewhat thicker than I usually do so there's plenty of meat in the middle of the knife, then ground a hollow only on the side that I need food release from. I used a 12" wheel and the hollow is about 1-1/4" tall, starting approximately 3/8" above the edge and finishing approximately 3/8" below the full thickness spine. I tried grinding knives much thinner before adding the hollow but ran into two problems. First, the knife would tend to warp towards the hollow really badly, easily 3/4" at the tip of the knife. It's fixable with a carbide straightening hammer but is quite annoying. The second and bigger problem is that food release is worse. The primary bevel above the edge needs to be steep enough to push food away from the hollow. If it's too shallow the food will climb the bevel into the hollow and stick. Here are some photos of the one I use every day, not the prettiest I've made but it's the only one I haven't given away!



 
I use a nakiri and an usuba for 99% of my kitchen tasks. An usuba is basically a small nakiri used like a paring knife. Both have western style handles.
 
Lots of recs for nakiris here. Do y'all think that's based on your cutting style or the food you cook or something else?
 
Skiller1nc said:
Lots of recs for nakiris here. Do y'all think that's based on your cutting style or the food you cook or something else?
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For me it's just because mine has an s-grind for food release (and that's easier to do well on a very flat profile like a nakiri). Broadly speaking I prefer using a 220-240mm gyuto but I haven't made an s-grind one for myself yet.
 
A usuba is actually a single bevel blade with a ura (very slight hollow 95% from spine to edge) on one side and a convexed chisel grind on the other side, similar to the grind found on a yanagiba. That brings the question up if a Nakiri has a s grind on both sides, is it a usuba or nakiri? Something to ponder! Most common size for both nakiri and usuba is 165-180mm blade length.
 
Local AM radio talk show every Monday has a local professional chief on every Monday that has two Restaurants in the state. He comes on to answer questions about the food industry, catering, food prep and restaurant industry. They invite listeners to text questions. So of course I texted questions of what he used for cutlery? Favorite steel, favorite styles shapes etc and if he had them professionally sharpened or did in house. His answer amazed me. He said he like a lot of other professional chiefs he knows including his wife uses four basic knives. A bread knife, a small chief knife, a paring knife and a boning knife. That's it! He uses the wart hog spring loaded sharpener in house. When it no longer works he replaces knives and replaces stones for his wart hog. This dude has a long portfolio of being personal chiefs for some famous folks.

He added he has used a lot of knives in his line of work over the many years he's been a chief and has a ton of knives. BUT if you give him these four knives sharp that's all he needs to cook you a gourmet meal with of course appropriate food supplies.
 
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Skiller1nc said:
Lots of recs for nakiris here. Do y'all think that's based on your cutting style or the food you cook or something else?
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i'm guessing cutting style, that our knives are more likely to be biased towards slicing. i'm liking the little nakiri i made, and i bet i eat different food to a lot here, since i only cook vegetarian food.
 
Nakiri and usuba can be made in any grind you wish. I agree many usuba are single grind.
My usuba is thin, single convex beveled, and sharpened on one side only. It has no urasuki. The secondary angle (edge sharpening bevel) is very low angle, somewhere around 10°. Blade is about 3.5" long and 1" wide.
The Nakiri is double full convex beveled, thin, and sharpened on both sides at a low angle. The blade is about 6" long and 1.5" wide.

I use the nakiri for cutting everything from vegetables to meat. The flat and moderately wide blade easily scoops up the items to put in a bowl or pan. I keep a Japanese "stone-on-a-stick" by the knife block to refresh the edge as needed. Mine has a square end, which also comes in handy from time to time as a spreading tool.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Nakiri and usuba can be made in any grind you wish. I agree many usuba are single grind.
My usuba is thin, single convex beveled, and sharpened on one side only. It has no urasuki. The secondary angle (edge sharpening bevel) is very low angle, somewhere around 10°. Blade is about 3.5" long and 1" wide.
The Nakiri is double full convex beveled, thin, and sharpened on both sides at a low angle. The blade is about 6" long and 1.5" wide.

I use the nakiri for cutting everything from vegetables to meat. The flat and moderately wide blade easily scoops up the items to put in a bowl or pan. I keep a Japanese "stone-on-a-stick" by the knife block to refresh the edge as needed. Mine has a square end, which also comes in handy from time to time as a spreading tool.
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I may be wrong but I thought a Usuba was basically a more traditional Japanese knife prior to the nakiri and are pretty much always single bevel while the nakiri is a more modern knife that is almost always double bevel. The two styles tend to be almost identical and are for identical cutting tasks, the difference other than grind is Usuba tend to have more of a square rectangle point while nakiri often have a rounded point atleast from what I’ve seen.
 
According to the book "Sharp", both the nakiri and usuba are traditional japanese knives, with the nakiri being the older and more widely used styles. Both are designed for vegetables, with the usuba being better for "katsuramuki" peeling of vegetables. I have never touched a usuba ... butin my mind a real difference between the two is that the usuba has a more delicate edge, which would make the nakiri more general purpose, and the usuba really more focused on very thinly sliced (as opposed to more roughly chopped) vegetables.

I think this is a really good example of how japanese philosophy of knives has many of them as single purpose, as opposed to the western philosophy of "general purpose" knives. In this case the usuba would be really good at producing very thin slices of vegetables, but if you tried to chop a big chunk off of a carrot or potato, the wide steep bevel would just hang up on the chunk of food and not cut cleanly through...

Curiously, the Santoku is NOT a historically traditional knife, but came about as a result of western influences. I have both a santoku and a nakiri. I have recommended the santoku to several friends and family, and they have all loved it. Myself these days reach much more often for the nakiri ... but i am with alex in that i prep mostly vegetables and tofu.
 
I think everyone needs a replica renaissance butcher/cleaver thing :p
(inspired by the Opera Di Scappi)
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Skiller1nc said:
Just looking for opinions of kitchen knives that everyone should have. I want to go past the chef, bread, paring. What are some more specific types and styles someone who cooks a lot should have or look at?
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The vegetarians already wisely suggested the nakiri, so I feel obliged to recommend a good long carving knife too!
 
Michael Black said:
The vegetarians already wisely suggested the nakiri, so I feel obliged to recommend a good long carving knife too!
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Oh definitely ... i especially use my boning knife for poultry ... for digging into and prying apart joints, and for deboning legs and breasts. A "boning knife" can mean different things - thin and flexible, or thicker spine, less flexible, and more robust edge. I favor the latter ... again to dig in and torque to separate joints, and an edge of something like 25 degrees per side so it does not get damaged by contact with bones.
 
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