Chef's knife
1. traditional Chinese chopping knife,
2. replica of a Chinese knife designed more for cutting and weighing vegetables from a Solingen manufacturer,
3. modern Japanese santoku ,
4. modern German chef's knife
A chef's knife is a larger, all-purpose kitchen knife that is used for cutting, weighing, and chopping vegetables, meat, and fish.
variants
Internationally and traditionally, there are different forms with different handling advantages. What knives in this category have in common is that they mostly have relatively long blades of 16 to 25 centimeters, a heavier, blade-balancing handle and a wide blade - wider and more rigid than the blade of similar length filleting knives .
The differences in shape are partly based on regional traditions, which in turn are partly adapted to the different kinds of culinary culture; they result from preferred cutting movements with respect to the cutting base. In the East Asian region, food is shredded much more before it is cooked; In the western area, meat, fish and vegetables are chopped up by those who eat them on the plate. European traditional chef's knives (Figure 4 above) are therefore relatively heavy and, at 20 to 25 centimeters, relatively long, the blade becomes more massive towards the handle. A handle that is adapted to the hand makes it possible to keep the knife stable even with greater force. The back of the knife is almost straight, the cutting edge at the tip pulled up towards it, which makes these knives suitable for, among other things, piercing objects with them and making rough cutting movements in them.
The counter-option is offered by Chinese chopping knives 跺 刀, Duo Dao, which consist of an almost rectangular blade (Figure 1 above), which is usually about twice as long as it is high and can measure 20 × 10 centimeters. The cutting edge is barely curved here along the lower long side. They are similar in shape to European chopping knives , but with sharply ground, relatively thin blades, they are not designed to chop through coarse bones.
Variants are also flat Chinese knives, however, shaped more like flat hatchets or beards with more rounded blades (Figure 2 above), which are designed for cutting and weighing movements and are also available in China as 切刀, Qie Dao, cutting knife, von Chopping knives are delimited.
Between them and the Japanese Gyūtō , which resembles European chef's knives, the shape of the Japanese Santoku (Figure 3 above), German "Knife of the Three Virtues", stands. Santoku knives have found worldwide distribution in the last few decades and are now being produced by many western knife manufacturers as an extension of their product range. Often the blade (the Santoku knife in the picture above measures about 18 centimeters blade length) is slightly shorter than the European chef's knife, whose standard is 20 centimeters or 8 inches. The blade is more flat. The back slopes down towards the cutting edge, but is still suitable for punctures. The edge of the Santoku is less curved and designed for more board contact.
handling
Chef's knives are relatively heavy and long in order to relieve the arm and hand during longer work phases. The knife exerts pressure on the material to be cut with its own weight; the base is usually a heavier board. Well sharpened, a chef's knife can cut vegetables and meat without any additional pressure.
To guide the blade safely, hold the blade in front of the handle between your thumb and forefinger. If the knife is well balanced, the point of equilibrium is at the transition between the handle and the blade. In this way, balanced, the knife does not tip forwards ("top-heavy") during work, nor does it weigh on the handle, but keeps a horizontal position that is practical for cutting. The wide blade allows you to make cuts in a more controlled manner than with a narrow one.
The different blades allow different movements compared to the cutting board. When chopping, rapid, almost vertical movements are made; in order to take a cutting effect with it, each cut is pushed or pulled forward slightly. The blades, which are relatively high in many chef's knives, allow contact to be made with the hand that is holding the cut material; this continues to recede and specifies the respective interface with the back of the index or middle finger.
Curved blades are particularly suitable for weighing, cutting into small pieces, of cut material such as chives, where a moving part of the blade is in constant contact with the board.
In the case of other cutting movements, the front part of the knife, which is curved for this purpose, maintains board contact, while the cut material is processed within reach with the almost straight bell part. This is the so-called "cradle cut" that is maintained by professional chefs.
In the work process, wide blade blades, as they are popular in Asian cuisine, have the advantage that they can be used to conveniently pick up and transport small-cut cuttings from the board. You save yourself having to bring the filled board to the pot, use the blade instead of both hands to pick up the cut. Many Asian blades are unsuitable for the rock cut. The pulling / pushing cut is preferred in Asian cuisine.
The advantage of pointed and less high blades, on the other hand, lies in cutting and stabbing, for example when cutting poultry. Santoku knives are designed here as a compromise.
With the various types of chef's knives, if they are well designed and the intended handling is practiced, almost the entire final processing of food can be carried out during cooking (only for peeling vegetables and cutting out damaged areas is an office , paring or peeling knife that really necessary complement). When choosing a chef's knife, you should therefore have a feel for the movements that you carry out yourself on the board and try out whether the knife is suitable for preferred rolling movements, or whether it has more straight board contact where you are looking for it. The handle and weight should be in your hand.
processing
Inexpensive knives that are punched, sharpened and hardened from strip steel do not have a bolster between the blade and the tang , and the tang often does not go through the entire handle. They are therefore mostly light and poorly balanced because of the excess weight between the blade compared to the handle.
Good chef's knives are heavier and mostly free-form (by hand) or drop-forged. With high-quality European knives, pieces of shell made of hard plastic or wood are riveted to the handle, with Asian knives, which traditionally have no bolster, the tang is traditionally framed by a cylindrical wooden handle that is fixed by a clamp. All-metal knives have been added, such as the Santoku shown above. European knives are usually ground with a wedge angle of 20 to 25 degrees, Asian chef's knives are often sharper with a more acute cutting angle of 15 to 20 degrees, but they are also more sensitive. European chef's knives also usually have a spherically ground cutting edge that is intended to prevent the cut material from sticking to the blade.
In order to solve problems with the contradicting demands on hardness and elasticity of steel, multi-layer steel is sometimes used, in which a cutting layer made of hard and therefore more stable but also more fragile steel is laminated with outer layers made of softer, but more elastic materials. The grain of Damascus blades results from the fact that many layers lie on top of one another and appear truncated when viewed from above.
maintenance
Blades become dull in the course of work. With a sharpening steel , only a burr that forms as a result of the cutting can be straightened up again. Wet stones with increasing fineness are usually used one after the other for grinding .
Knives keep their sharpness longer if they are not immersed in water and not exposed to corrosive acids. Dishwashers leave them dull and their hard plastic handles dull and brittle. Wooden handles dry out when washed in the dishwasher. With more careful handling, knives are washed and dried immediately after use and not placed in a compartment together with other metal goods. Knife blocks , magnetic strips or individually combined shelves are used for convenient storage.
When working, it is important to ensure that suitable documents are used. Wooden boards are easy to cut and safe for use with food. Cutting on hard surfaces such as glass, porcelain or steel causes the cutting edge to become blunt very quickly and can cause massive damage, for example through chipping.
See also
- Hōchō to Japanese kitchen knives
literature
- Arnold Zabert: Cooking. The New Big School. Zabert Sandmann, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-924678-75-8 .
Web link
Individual evidence
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↑ From left to right:
- Traditional Chinese chef's knife without company information, imported goods from an Asian shop in Amsterdam (锋 (Feng) stands for sharp. The four characters below each other mean Chinese (中华) fast (快) knife (刀).)
- Chai Dao, 1742/16, by the Güde company , Solingen (the Chinese characters stand for dishes (菜) knife (刀) and form the common word for kitchen knives)
- Global G46, Santoku knife from Yoshikin (archive version )
- TWIN-Profection 20cm chef's knife, Zwilling JA Henckels , Solingen [1]
- WMF top class plus paring knife
- ↑ The following page offers a range of Chinese chef's knives sorted by type with names: (archive version) . There is no differentiation of terms in German. Sometimes you can find them set between chop knives and chopping knives, whereby the English loan word means chopping knife and thus ultimately does not make any conceptual difference. See about the page http://www.kochmesser-shop.com/ with the makeshift differentiation.
- ↑ Video on YouTube
- ↑ Hermann Grüner, Reinhold Metz (ed.): The young cook. 25th edition. Pfanneberg, Gießen / Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-8057-0386-4 , p. 220.