Everyone should have a good chef’s knife and know how to use it. Victorinox sells polymer handle stainless steel knives that are as good as some $200 knives I’ve owned for $50, probably other companies too, go to amazon. A single good Chef’s knife is good for cutting almost everything you would need to cut on any cullinary adventure. Keep it clean and extremely sharp by using a sharpening steel, or, if you’re not up to learning how, a knife sharpening tool, though those will slowly degrade the blade.
Buy the knife, learn the knife, it’s amazingly easy to prepare your food with a single excellent knife rather than a slapchop or a bunch of specialized weird tools for cutting various things. There’s a reason the professionals do it this way. Have a great time preparing your meals with much less difficulty, and thank me later.
Knives are tools. Tools that are excellent at a wide variety of tasks are rare. Yes, you can make do with a single chef’s knife, but I don’t see why would you want to. Even for basic kitchen activities, ignoring specialized tasks, I would want to have on hand at least three knives—one big (e.g. a chef’s knife), one medium (usually called a utility knife), and one small (a peeling knife).
Oh, and a steel is not used to sharpen knives, it’s used to straighten out the knife’s edge. To actually sharpen you will need a sharpening tool—there is a large variety of those, differing in capability and the required skill.
Everyone should have a good chef’s knife and know how to use it. Victorinox sells polymer handle stainless steel knives that are as good as some $200 knives I’ve owned for $50, probably other companies too, go to amazon. A single good Chef’s knife is good for cutting almost everything you would need to cut on any cullinary adventure. Keep it clean and extremely sharp by using a sharpening steel, or, if you’re not up to learning how, a knife sharpening tool, though those will slowly degrade the blade.
Buy the knife, learn the knife, it’s amazingly easy to prepare your food with a single excellent knife rather than a slapchop or a bunch of specialized weird tools for cutting various things. There’s a reason the professionals do it this way. Have a great time preparing your meals with much less difficulty, and thank me later.
Knives are tools. Tools that are excellent at a wide variety of tasks are rare. Yes, you can make do with a single chef’s knife, but I don’t see why would you want to. Even for basic kitchen activities, ignoring specialized tasks, I would want to have on hand at least three knives—one big (e.g. a chef’s knife), one medium (usually called a utility knife), and one small (a peeling knife).
Oh, and a steel is not used to sharpen knives, it’s used to straighten out the knife’s edge. To actually sharpen you will need a sharpening tool—there is a large variety of those, differing in capability and the required skill.