Chefs Kitchen Knives

Kitchen knives vary in design and the range is very wide. Below are a selection of the most common knives found in the kitchen and their use…

Gustav Emil Ern Riveted French Cooks Knife

Cook’s knife – The basic kitchen knife for doing a wide range of cutting and chopping jobs. It has a pointed blade and comes in a wide range of blade sizes.

Serrated edge knives - The feature of serrated blades is that they tear as well as cut. Narrow serrated blades are suitable for soft foods such as tomatoes or cucumbers. Wide serrated blades are used for cutting hot meats (carvery) and bread.

Turning knife – A short-bladed knife with a downward-pointed hooked end which makes for easy turning of vegetables in the classic French style.

Fish filleting knife – This needs to be a thin slender and slightly flexible blade to allow for filleting of flatfish such as turbot and working around the skeletal frame of round fish such as cod.

Scalloped edge - A long thin knife with a scalloped edge. The scallops allows air to pass around the blade as it cuts very thin slices making this blade style suitable for cutting cold meats or smoked salmon.

Global Knives

Hachoirs or Mezzalunas – These are curved blades, usually double bladed, but can be treble bladed, with a handle at either end. They are the traditional way of finely chopping herbs, vegetables and meat. They can come with a specially curved wood bowl to fit the cutter or just rocked under pressure on a chopping board. The quality of the steel has to be very good to maintain the edge for chopping herbs such as parsley. However, their use is not so widespread among caterers now since food processors have become popular. Some chefs will argue that a hachoir properly cuts herbs and meats while a food processor pulverises them. Sharpening them is not easy due to the closeness of the blades, another reason to buy quality steel.

Chefs kitchen knives – buy online