# Favorite cooking knife



## kitchenheist (Nov 17, 2015)

Hi guys,

I am interested to find out about everyone's favorite knives. Do you prefer German or Japanese, length, type, brand etc.

Just asking out of curiosity. I have a Wusthof Ikon 20cm Chef's knife, but my favorite at the moment is Yu Kurosaki Megumi 21cm Gyuto


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## galley swiller (May 29, 2013)

At least among many of the regulars on this site, Japanese knives vastly predominate over European knives.  The reason is that Japanese cutlery manufacturers choose to emphasize cutting performance (at the expense of the risk of knife edge chipping) over the European priority of edge durability (at the expense of knife edge quality).

For myself, my main style of use is a 240 mm gyuto for most tasks.  In that category, I have waaay too many knives and it's a case of almost "what do I want to play with today?"

Galley Swiller


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## ones (Jul 22, 2015)

As boring as it may be, I keep gravitating back to a gyuto as my fave knife shape, preferring it to nakiris, cleavers, petties etc. I used to say the 240 length was the length for me but having gone out on a limb (so to speak) and ordering up a Mizuno Tanrenjo 270 gyuto, I am finding that this is my favourite knife for all but the fidgetty cutting tasks.


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## chefjonbailey (Nov 17, 2015)

Glestain offset 8 1/4. Best knife I've ever bought.


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## rick alan (Nov 15, 2012)

My prep needs are different than most here. The bulk of my prep is in mostly vegetables to be eaten raw, I do a lot of fine-slicing in-hand, and a lot of very acidic stuff, and for this I have found nothing works better than a very thin and stainless 240 suji. As someone here once put it, "Rick is unusual in his elevation of the suji."

But since options here are very limited, and I wish to experience R2 steel, I am seriously considering the Takamura Migaki 210 gyuto. It's fairly short at the heel for a gyuto, and ridiculously thin, so I believe it will easily outdo the 240 slicer I have now. Though I oh so do wish someone would make a similar 240 suji in R2. Such is available in AEB-L, and I am giving that some consideration.

For the mounds of miripo and cooking-sized chunks of root veggies I only occasionally prepare I have found the 10" Vic Rosewood chefs I bought just to review [and originally intended to give away] does just fine enough, though I did thin it some, especially at the tip, and reshaped and epoxy coated/filled the ill shaped and fitting handle scales.

I am endlessly amused that the Geshin Kagero petty I bought as a dedicated steak knife now also serves for all fine slicing of small stuff like celery, garlic, shallots and some herbs, and I even prefer it for carving split chicken breasts. I use a modified pinch grip for knuckle clearance. Boy does it hold an edge.

So I guess I have 3 styles of kitchen knives that are my favorite. But if I could only have one then it would actually be the big gyuto/chefs, cause it can perform all tasks.

Rick


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## grande (May 14, 2014)

I use an 8" victorinox and a 10" geisser or whustof trident. My primary need is a multifunctional knife i can use for a lot of different things without a lot of maintanance. At home i use a 10" carbon sabatier.


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## kokopuffs (Aug 4, 2000)

I always use a ten inch Sabatier for most tasks along with a six-inch curved and flexible Victorinox boning knife with rosewood handle that's been thinned a bit.  Imho the shape of the rosewood handle fits my hand a thousand times better than the handle made of man-made materials.


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## chefjonbailey (Nov 17, 2015)

Everyone should have a 12inch Dick.


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## lagom (Sep 5, 2012)

Standard issue here. [emoji]128526[/emoji]


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## the engr (Nov 23, 2015)

This is such a widely debated topic and a lot of it comes down to personal choice.  I learned to cook in Japan when I lived there many moons ago.  My teacher was a fantastic chef who ran an Okonomiyaki shop in the first level of my apartment building.  I learned to wield and sharpen knives from him.  (I would sharpen and clean the kitchen's knives in exchange for free meal and got pretty good at it.)  There were basically only three knives the chefs / cooks would use and a Santoku was NOT one of them.  There were three shapes they used:

1:  Nikiri - Nakiri are double bevel knives designed specifically for working with vegetables. Nakiris are characterized by their flat profiles and squared off tips. This profile makes these knives ideal for push cutting and chopping but awkward for rock cutting. Nakiris are often ground thin to optimize performance and they benefit from a refined cutting edge.

2:  Bannou - General purpose chef's knife double bevel edge shaped just like a western chefs knife, but with a little more upturn in the tip.  This shape will tackle just about anything you slice through. I use this blade every time I cook.

3:  Yanagi - Long thin single bevel blade designed for slicing in one drawing stroke.  Perfect for making thin slices in fish, but works just as well in other meats.

From this experience I went to make my own knife set that I use to this day.  As far as materials go, I could have spent a bundle on damascus, stainless, high carbon, titanium anodized blah blah...  You know what I ended up with? (Because I'm poor) Plain Jane, run of the mill, no frills iron.  My knives are cheap Bishoku Iron knives that run about $20 each.  Why do I like them?  They are the sharpest freaking knives I've EVER seen.  (I've even compared them to Shun and Wusthof.) Out of the box, they are pretty sharp.  A couple of strokes down the ceramic rod and they are dangerously sharp.  A couple passes on the razor strop?  OMG!  The Nikiri split a huge Idaho russet end to end like it was going through butter.

There are some drawbacks to Iron knives though.  Keep them dry, keep them clean.  Even after your best efforts, the acids and natural chemicals in the foods create a patina on the blade that I find kinda cool looking.  A quick pass with some fine grit wet sand paper will clean it right up.  Then hit it with some cooking spray to keep it from oxidizing.

Other than that, my iron knives remain extremely sharp and keep their edge for about a week of everyday use.


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