Choosing Kitchen Cutlery - Some Tips
Kitchen cutlery comes in all sizes and shapes. Each small variation results in a different use. There are long ones, short ones, wide ones, narrow ones, curved ones, angled ones and the list goes on and on. They are made from carbon steel, stainless steel, stamped steel, ceramic or even plastic. choosing the correct one can make your kitchen experience enjoyable or an arduous chore.
Opinions, of course, vary all over the map. Here are a few things that will provide you with some orderly direction in choosing kitchen cutlery.
Tips On Choosing Kitchen Cutlery
Purposeful Design
Most quality kitchen cutlery comes in sets because no one knife can do it all. You’re not going to use the same blade to slice bread as you are to slice prime rib, even though they’re both designed for slicing. And you don’t need a cleaver to be as flexible as a filet knife, because they don’t do the same job. Most kitchen cutlery is named after the job they are designed to perform, which will make things easier for you to choose. Make sure the knife fits your hand well and has great balance. The top brands have exceptional balance, which will minimize fatigue and turn a chore into a treat.
Helpful Knowledge
If you know a chef or someone who cooks like one, don’t be afraid to ask them their opinion on their favorite kitchen cutlery. My experiences with German and Japanese blades are extremely favorable. I’ve found their level of quality in both workmanship and materials to be stellar.
Find out how the edge is made on the knife you’re interested in and learn how it works. See what kind of edge works best for the task at hand. Learn about the steel that it’s made from. Cheap steel makes for cheap kitchen cutlery. Some knives are forged and are generally regarded as of a higher quality than those that are stamped from sheets of steel. But today, a high quality stamped blade may be better than a low quality forged one. Put your trust in a company with a great reputation for quality materials and workmanship.
On The Edge
Hollow-ground, serrated, chisel-ground or convex edge, how do you choose your kitchen cutlery? That all depends on what you’re using it for. Most top chefs will tell you that the chisel-ground single-sided edge will cut absolutely the best slices of anything.
Since they are much more economical to mass produce, most kitchen cutlery is either hollow ground or serrated. For most home chefs those two types of edges will do anything and everything they will ever need. To further add to the confusion, many companies now offer kitchen cutlery with super sharp ceramic blades that supposedly never need sharpening. The downside of ceramic is that they are so hard that they can’t easily be sharpened. On the plus side though, they are amazingly sharp, lightweight and they even come in colors. The pluses far outweigh the minuses.
Yes, we’ve all seen TV commercials where some wonderful piece of kitchen cutlery cuts through an aluminum can, but that’s only useful if you eat aluminum cans. You can make cooking into a joy by choosing the proper kitchen cutlery.
Neece, like everyone else, enjoys the finer things in life. She researches and discovers the best things available so you can find the luxuries you deserve as well as gifts for those you love all in one convenient place. http://www.authenticindulgences.com/
Tags: blades, chef's knife, Cutlery, forged steel, kitchen cutlery, serrated knifeRelated posts
July 02 2008 01:49 pm | Cutlery