What Knives Are Essential For a Serious Home Kitchen?

Some chefs possess an extensive collection of cutlery, while others keep just a few knives in the drawer. If you could only keep three knives, which would they be? The chefs at Stack Exchange give their picks.

I consider myself a serious home cook. What knives are essential?

See the original question.

There are three core essentials:

Chef's knife: 8" or 10" depending on your preferencesParing knife: 3" or 4" depending on your preferencesBread knife: As long as possible, 12"+. Feel free to go cheap here; it's serrated and thus largely unsharpenable. You may want to check out Alton Brown's book, Alton Brown's Gear For Your Kitchen. He spends a chapter on knives and where to go past the essentials. He also suggests which knives are worth spending money on and which should be throwaways.

Everyone's stressing the chef's knife, but I'd be even more generic. When starting out, you can do almost every task with:

A large knife: 8" Chef, 7" Santoko, or Chinese CleaverA small knife: paring or similar)A bread knife: serrated, 10" or longerAs you add to your collection, consider the following:

A boning / filet knife Kitchen shears (for snipping herbs without a cutting board or cutting the back out of a chicken)A carving knife (for slicing meats and large melons or splitting a cake into layers)A heavy cleaver (so you don't mess up your main-line knives when hacking up bonesheavy enough to use the back of the knife for cracking a coconut) A utility / tomato knife (mid-sized, serrated)A few people have mentioned a larger chef's knife, but it's going to be harder to control. Develop good knife skills first, then move to something larger. I know a few people who do everything but bread with a paring knife (and no cutting board, in their hand, cutting against their thumb), and I'd consider them "serious chefs."

After the three that most of us agree on (chefs, paring, bread), my next choice would be a "tomato knife," which is a little longer than a paring knife, but serrated like a bread knife. Very handy for anything with tough skin.

Disagree? Find more answers or leave your own at the original post. See more questions like this at Seasoned Advice, the cooking site at Stack Exchange. And of course, feel free to ask a question yourself.

View the original article here