Ultimate Kitchen knife duo, what's your choice?

[MarvinTMartian]

8” to 10” Chef’s knife, preferably a Japanese style although I have a German Henkel I love. Then probably a fight between a decent carbon steel Nakiri and third choice a 3” to 4” paring knife. I can live without a parer, I have an Opinel Garden Knife that is the best paring knife I own.

 

[Garvan]

I think the majority of replies include a pairing knife in the combination, but do people actually use pairing knives for pairing? A no brand vegetable peeler costs 30 cents and is safer and faster. My most used kitchen knife is an 8 cm serrated Victorinox Swiss Classic Paring Knife but I hold and use it as I would a small utility knife with the item being cut on a cutting board.

I match this with a larger slicing knife. The one I am using now has a 16 cm blade, 4.5 cm wide at the base and with a profile like Kiku’s Kiritsuke above. It is light and nimble, suitable for the small workspace in my kitchen. I normally do not use a pinch grip, but the blade thickness must be enough so I can switch to this grip and bring my left hand onto the spine when needed.

I like to keep my eyes on the blade at all times and I find a pinch grip favored by Chef knife users forces me into a left foot forward stance hunched over the workspace. The slicing knife is more comfortable in my hand, allowing me to move around more.

 

[MarvinTMartian]

I think the majority of replies include a pairing knife in the combination, but do people actually use pairing knives for pairing? A no brand vegetable peeler costs 30 cents and is safer and faster. My most used kitchen knife is an 8 cm serrated Victorinox Swiss Classic Paring Knife but I hold and use it as I would a small utility knife with the item being cut on a cutting board.

I match this with a larger slicing knife. The one I am using now has a 16 cm blade, 4.5 cm wide at the base and with a profile like Kiku’s Kiritsuke above. It is light and nimble, suitable for the small workspace in my kitchen. I normally do not use a pinch grip, but the blade thickness must be enough so I can switch to this grip and bring my left hand onto the spine when needed.

I like to keep my eyes on the blade at all times and I find a pinch grip favored by Chef knife users forces me into a left foot forward stance hunched over the workspace. The slicing knife is more comfortable in my hand, allowing me to move around more.

Garvan,
That is a pretty small “slicing” knife at 160 mm. That is what I would consider a utility knife. I would actually maybe prefer that to a smaller paring knife. But I need a good chef’s knife (or similar Japanese equivalent) to do things easily in my kitchen. Hard to cut a basketball size cabbage with a 6” knife. I want somewhere between 8” and 10” for the large knife.

And no, I don’t use a paring knife very often to remove skins on carrots or similar, I use a peeler for that. But a peeler doesn’t do fancy cuts on carrots or radishes very well, lol!

Bottom line: every kitchen and every cook has different favorites, and they may change from task to task. The home cook and a professional chef will probably have different preferences. And even the professional will likely choose two different knives depending on the station they are working in the kitchen. Meats and vegetables require totally different approaches,

Marvin

 

[Garvan]

... That is a pretty small “slicing” knife at 160 mm. That is what I would consider a utility knife. ...

Marvin

Agreed, "slicing knife" is the wrong name, but utility knife is not correct either. I don't know the correct English names for the typical SE Asian knives, so I translated the name used by locals into English.

https://www.zebra-head.com/NTH/Product/images/product/KT/K-Chef-L.jpg

The knife I am using now is 5th from the right. 1.75mm thick stock, balance point a half inch back back from the front of the handle. Weight 106g. Steel SUS420J2. Stamped construction, modern design, convex grind, Japanese steel, but not a Japanese knife. What should I call it?

 

[Spideyjg]

Petty knife is what most call that style of blade

An example https://www.amazon.com/Misono-UX10-Petty-5-9-15cm/dp/B000XSX8MQ?th=1

 

[RokJok]

Garvan, Being as high spine to edge at the blade tip & of very similar blade shape as the santoku to its immediate left, I'd be inclined to call that 5th knife a santoku with a K-tip (kiritsuke tip).

My usual duo du jour for kitchen knives is an 8" Japanese gyuto style knife and a paring knife, either Victorinox or Murray Carter or 4" Henckles, at which length I think of it as a petty.

But the job at hand has a majority influence on what is the tool of choice to accomplish the job. Gouging out cores from halved apples/pears and splitting a watermelon/butternut squash lengthwise, or breaking down large cryovac'ed animal parts, obviously call for very different tools. I feel very lucky to live in a place & time where we have such a plethora of choices for those tools, both commercial and custom made.

 

[Spideyjg]

Garvan, Being as high spine to edge at the blade tip & of very similar blade shape as the santoku to its immediate left, I'd be inclined to call that 5th knife a santoku with a K-tip (kiritsuke tip).

My usual duo du jour for kitchen knives is an 8" Japanese gyuto style knife and a paring knife, either Victorinox or Murray Carter or 4" Henckles, at which length I think of it as a petty.

But the job at hand has a majority influence on what is the tool of choice to accomplish the job. Gouging out cores from halved apples/pears and splitting a watermelon/butternut squash lengthwise, or breaking down large cryovac'ed animal parts, obviously call for very different tools. I feel very lucky to live in a place & time where we have such a plethora of choices for those tools, both commercial and custom made.

Wait the other right. Doh! Fully agree with RokJok. Do not post before finishing coffee
.

 

[Londinium Armoury]

Petty knife is what most call that style of blade

An example https://www.amazon.com/Misono-UX10-Petty-5-9-15cm/dp/B000XSX8MQ?th=1

This is the exact length I make my petty 160mm, I think that is the industry standard for regular sized petty. I also actually make my Honesuki at 160mm. It seems to be a popular size for petty and honesuki. I literally call my petty knives "160 Petty's" I think it has become normalized to add the length of the cutting edge in mm in the title and branding of the kitchen knife. You see it everywhere "210 Gyuto" or "Petty 160mm" etc etc.