[Industrialblog,
May 7, 2004]
Knife Snob*
Upgraded the knives in my kitchen fairly recently. Man, does good stuff make a difference. I learned in this book here (which I read in the book store) that you should start off with three knives: a cook's knife, a paring knife and a bread knife. I picked Wusthof as a brand on a friend's recommendation.
So here's what I got (in the past few weeks): a 10-inch cook's knife & a 7-inch Santoku knife, a 3-inch paring knife, a deli slicer / bread knife & a 10-inch slicing knife and a sharpening steel. With the steel, I was able to get the edge back on a 6-inch utility knife I had from the Pampered Chef; I already had a pretty cool bread knife that was a gift. So there, all set on the cutting side of things, except maybe some specialty stuff like a cleaver.
Then to protect these things in a drawer (knife blocks have always grossed me out a bit, plus, where do you put the damned thing if you don't have a lot of counter space?), I got some of these cool plastic sleeves called KnifeSafes. The sleeves snap open and shut and you can put them the dishwasher if they get dirty.
So now I'm all set on the knife side of things. One recommendation I'd add to all this: Get some crappy knifes, the $4 kind you see in the stores. These are for cutting open things you don't want to risk / bother your good knifes for. Like cutting open a package of meat, things of this nature. I use some of the garbage knives as much as the good ones.
First couple of cooking jobs went amazing. I was able to slice celery and onions thinner than potato chips — not that I had any reason to, but I did it anyway. I used to over-work that utility knife like crazy and consequently the cutting used to take a lot of time. Now it takes about a zillionth the time. And the Santoku knife is so cool it defies description. It's really best all-around knife I got. If I were to get just one, that would be it.
Next up: A butcher's block.
* Frequent commenter and honored guest MarcV gave me a hard time the last time I wrote about kitchen stuff, calling me a pot snob. So I thought I'd preempt the accusation :)
So here's what I got (in the past few weeks): a 10-inch cook's knife & a 7-inch Santoku knife, a 3-inch paring knife, a deli slicer / bread knife & a 10-inch slicing knife and a sharpening steel. With the steel, I was able to get the edge back on a 6-inch utility knife I had from the Pampered Chef; I already had a pretty cool bread knife that was a gift. So there, all set on the cutting side of things, except maybe some specialty stuff like a cleaver.
Then to protect these things in a drawer (knife blocks have always grossed me out a bit, plus, where do you put the damned thing if you don't have a lot of counter space?), I got some of these cool plastic sleeves called KnifeSafes. The sleeves snap open and shut and you can put them the dishwasher if they get dirty.
So now I'm all set on the knife side of things. One recommendation I'd add to all this: Get some crappy knifes, the $4 kind you see in the stores. These are for cutting open things you don't want to risk / bother your good knifes for. Like cutting open a package of meat, things of this nature. I use some of the garbage knives as much as the good ones.
First couple of cooking jobs went amazing. I was able to slice celery and onions thinner than potato chips — not that I had any reason to, but I did it anyway. I used to over-work that utility knife like crazy and consequently the cutting used to take a lot of time. Now it takes about a zillionth the time. And the Santoku knife is so cool it defies description. It's really best all-around knife I got. If I were to get just one, that would be it.
Next up: A butcher's block.
* Frequent commenter and honored guest MarcV gave me a hard time the last time I wrote about kitchen stuff, calling me a pot snob. So I thought I'd preempt the accusation :)
*I'm not quite sure how long almost forever is — like ∞ -3, it's somewhat poorly defined — but I would guess at least a month or two of use, which would be fabulous.
By the way, for not-super-fabulous knives, I find that the Chef's II 2-stage Diamond knive sharpener works wonders. It's very easy to use (since it's a slotted sharpener) and gets the knives very sharp. Unfortunately, made-in-china-$3/knife stainless steel doesn't hold an edge worth anything, but then again for $3 for a chef's knife, it's more palatable to have to sharpen it frequently. A crappy knife and a sharpening before every use is the poor man's good knife. :-)
I was using the same old utility knife for the past four years, and it was getting dull. I didn't even have a steel for it. Fortunately, a couple of brushes with the new steel and the thing's at least usable now.
For $3, I'd be happy if the thing made it through one meal without needing a resharpen. I hadn't thought of getting a really good sharpener and then just getting cheap knives. That works, too.
Do you a link to that sharpener? I'd like to check that out, at some point. Probably couldn't get one for another month of so, but I probably won't need it for a month of so.
One recommendation: keep a wet paper towell on hand. After every pass, do a pass on the paper towel (blade directly into the paper, keep the paper towel wrinkled, not folded), which cleans it from the metal which was scraped off. I think that it sharpens a little better when you do that, though it doesn't need to be moist to sharpen well.
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