Mountain Area Communications

L

lisa roberts

BANNED
Joined
Oct 1, 2009
Messages
1
Hi

I am Lisa Roberts. I work for Mountain Area Communications. My co-workers
and I are starting a cooking club. Every weekend we are going to meet and cook a feast. I love eating steaks and chicken. My daughter just spent $600 for kitchen knives and I refuse to spend that. Please give me brand names of
good quality knives for much less money, I cannot afford to spend alot.

Thanks
Lisa
 
Unfortunatly the ones I would recommend will cost you a pretty penny as well but they will last you a lifetime and have one of the best warranties on this rock.

KAI
 
The Swiss knives are a good value: Forschner by Victorinox and Swebo from Wenger. I have some of each.

And if you ever hit the lottery I have one name for you: Murray Carter. My favorite hand-forged, laminated steel, Japanese-style kitchen knives.

DancesWithKnives
 
I would avoid anything made in Europe. They may be well made craftsmanship wise, but the steel is cheap, soft, and won't hold an edge. They are normally only hardened to Rc 52-54.

Better to get one or two decent Japanese Damascus knives. The laminated steel is normally hardened to Rc 60-65.

Take a look at "Japan Woodworker's" site to start with,
www.japanwoodworker.com

or just google Japanese Kitchen Knives."

Ran knives are excellent and moderately priced. :thumbup:
 
I'm surprised to hear that because I've had satisfactory performance out of the Swiss knives. Not as good as Murray Carter's RC 63 edges, but good enough.

DancesWithKnives
 
Perhaps if you limit the number of knives in your kit you can reduce the overall cost of your set.

In terms of "heavy lifting" most cutting duty can be accomplished by an 8" chef's knife. Others prefer a santoku. Chef Martin Yan did most his knife work with a Chinese cleaver. With any of these knives one can split a chicken into quarters, or slice vegetables for kebabs.

While there are larger chef's knives available I find that a shorter knife is easier to control, and it reduces the chance I might end up accidentally slicing something with the longer tip.

For finer detailed work, a paring knife can be used for peeling fruit, etc.

I'm not a professional chef by any means but I've found that just these two knives alone handled almost everything I needed to do in the kitchen when it came to cutting or slicing or chopping. I also like using a Chinese cleaver since the wider blade surface can double as a spatula for picking up the food I just finished slicing.

I recently added a bread knife to the set when I got tired of trying to slice crusty breads with my cleaver.

Figure out what you are willing to spend on your knives, and budget most of the cost on the chef's knife or santoku since these will be doing most of the work. Keep your knife sharp so you can concentrate more on directing the cut it makes for you (safer!) rather than forcing it to cut (not as safe).
 
You can get a nice set from Cold Steel for about $100.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top