Knives
Opublikowano: 26-08-2009
From now on I will write from time to time about news in the academy or what I do and some interesting items out of the culinary world.
Many people ask me about trade secrets of the kitchen, there are not so many at least not for us cooks which we could share with you, but I will let you know about some how to do this and that.
One of the most important tools in the kitchen are the knives.
Which one should I buy or not in today’s world?
Cooking is now more and more fashionable, cooking courses as well.
In other countries it is really fashionable to go to an evening course for fun and to learn cooking. In Germany or England kind of courses are widespread.
We do offer the same. If you want to have an evening of fun just for you and some friends ask for an offer from one of my great ladies in the office.
Now to build your home kitchen, we will start with knives.
Which ones are great and which ones are not.
Sometimes you see on the tv shops programmes people talking about knives, how good they are.
I am not fan of it, but you can have designer knives like the one which I use – porsche design knives, they fit nice in your hand, it is good to cut with them and I would also use them in my pro kitchen. They are not just looking great they are great.
I learned of course on swiss knives, the one which does the swiss army knives.
Victorinox, I still have some from that time when I learned my trade about 40 years ago.
I also use knives from zest for every day and for a starter knive they are just what you need.
How many knives do I need to have?
Most of the Polish families are using just one knive which is universal but this is not the best idea.
I think you should have:
– a knive for *fish* long and flexible
– a *bread* knife
– a *meat* knive which has a strong blade and shorter
– small and bigger universal knives
– a *peeler* for potatoes, carrots etc.
This is more or less a must; if you have more it’s fine but really not that needed, more are like gadgets.
Which knive companies should I buy?
What kind of money are you willing to spend on a knive 5 or 500 pln per knife?
As I said do not buy too cheap ones since they will become dull in in a very short time, and it will be difficult to get them back to their sharpness even using a sharpener.
There are many great companies in the world.
In my time when I was young as a swiss chef apprentice you bought swiss knife,
the german knives, most knives coming from solingen city.
I think there is one street where you walk down the street and looking left and right, you see famous companies which make knives.
like felix knives
like zwilling knives
like treizack
etc.
Then all these Japanese knives – be carefull using these.
1. they are very sharp
2. they are sharp only on one side
3. they are either for left or right handed people
One importanant thing, please never wash your knife in the dishwasher the blade will lose its sharpness.
So if you have enough money to get a great knife I would buy porsche at least if not so much I buy zeste for your life and middle class victorinox knives as a pro we have some more kind of knives for oysters, the chinese chopper knife, parisienne spoon, zeste for orange and lemon skin and of course a steel to sharpen the knives, but then many of these knives are gadgets and just think before you buy one – for what I need it and how many times I will use it.
Kurt Scheller
