Live on the Edge: A Hilton's Guide To Your Knives

Louisiana is a state that is world renown for excellent food. Much of our culture revolves around Creole and Cajun cuisine as well as our unique twist on seafood. From gumbo and jambalaya to boiled crawfish and beignets, Louisiana natives hold our own accountable for maintaining our reputable culinary stylings, especially in the areas below I-10.

Why is it that our fair state has climbed to the upper echelons of culinary greatness? It could be attributed to the fact that the majority of Louisiana residents are excellent cooks and chefs in their own right. If you were to walk into a crowded area in Lafayette and throw a stone you would be hard pressed to hit someone who didn’t know how to make a perfect roux or a decent gravy.

With this abundance of aspiring culinarians, Hilton’s has seen its fair share of residential customers looking for the right tools to make them masters of garde manger, saucier savants, or grillardin giants, and what is the most important tool for any chef, their knife!

A few common themes with our customers are “what is the best knife for this particular task?”, “How do I properly maintain and sharpen my knife?”, and “What’s the difference between this knife and this knife?”  So, with these customers in mind, as well as general information for those of you looking to increase your knowledge about what that “funny looking” knife is really used for, we have prepared a guide to all things sharp (and not so sharp, but we’ll fix that).

Let’s start with the different types of knives and their uses.

Paring knives are small knives between 2-4 inches long used for a variety of delicate cuts and garnishing

Paring knife:Paring knife: small knife between 2-4 inches used for peeling fruits at vegetables

Serrated Paring Knife: 2-4 inch paring knife with a wavy edge (like a tiny saw blade) perfect for cutting tough skin or rinds like tomatoes or citrus fruits.

Boning or Fillet Knives are typically 6-8 inches and have blades of various curvatures and thicknesses and often vary in blade flexibility. Their main purpose is removing meat from bones and are specifically designed to move as close to the bone as possible.

Narrow Boning Knife:  Best used for separating ribs or chops, cuts easily through tissue and cartilage.

Boning Knife: Used for butchering chicken or pork, sturdy yet semi-flexible blade is great for working around joints and bones.

Curved Boning Knife: Used when working at an angle such as filleting fish.

Utility Knife: This knife is nestled between the paring and chef’s knife, ranging from 4-7 inches. It is used for multiple miscellaneous purposes that are too large for a paring knife but too small for a chef’s knife.

Chef’s Knife: The veritable “ace in the hole” for practiced chefs. With experience and training this knife can be used for virtually any task one might come across in a kitchen. Ranging from 8-12 inches the chef’s knife is designed for slicing and chopping meats, fruits, and vegetables. The pointed tip and curved blade is designed to accent the “rocking” motion for fine dicing and mincing and the thick spine offers weight and strength for muscling through tough cuts or cracking open those stubborn coconuts. This is one of the “big three” knives (referring to experienced chefs saying you really only need three knives in any kitchen: Chef’s, bread, and paring knife).

Santoku: The Japanese version of the chef’s knife. This blade offers all of the flexibility of the chef’s knife on a smaller 7 inch frame. The curved edge aids the “rocking” motion for mincing and the thin blade is optimal for thin slices. The flat of the blade is wide, which is great for scooping ingredients into a pot or crushing a clove of garlic. While available with a straight side, the santoku is most commonly seen with a granton or “kullenschiff” edge (small indentations in the side of the blade)

Add caption

Bread Knife: Ranging from 8-12 inches, the bread knife sports large serrations for easily slicing through thick, hard crusts on the most stubborn bread loaves. The serrations are generally too deep for delicate products like fruits and vegetables.

Cleaver: A heavy, wide-bladed, thick-spine knife used for chopping through meat and bone.

Chinese cleaver: Not to be confused with a typical cleaver, the Chinese cleaver is not as heavy and has a thinner blade than a standard cleaver. It is ideal for chopping meats and vegetables but not sturdy enough to go through bone.

Now that we are familiar with the different styles of knives and they’re uses, we can move on to the different types of edges, as well as how to properly maintain the edge and knife. We have touched on the different edge types in the descriptions of the knives above but for the sake of being thorough, there are 3 types of edges.

Serrated (wavy) edge is a series of sharpened peaks and valleys of various depth and length depending on the knife. Just picture tiny teeth on the edge or a miniature saw blade, what we typically see on steak knives is a serrated edge

Straight edge is what we most commonly see. It is a straight, single edge running the length of the blade.

Granton (kullenschiff) edge is misleading as it doesn’t directly refer to the cutting surface, it is actually a description of the side of the blade. Granton edge is a blade with small indentations along the side of the blade that allow for the fat and juice of the product being sliced to pool in the indentions to insure a smooth slice. The indentions also help prevent product from sticking to the surface of the blade while slicing and dicing.

With all these different types of knives and edges and sizes, how will you ever know how to properly sharpen and maintain your knife? Well, in theory, it is fairly simple… that is, however, only in theory. There is an art to sharpening and maintaining a blade for razor sharpness but do not be discouraged, you don’t have to seek out a professional sharpener to keep your knife performing excellently (although if you know of a professional, you will never feel a finer edge on your blade).

For the purpose of this guide, we will not be going into the varying degrees and angles of the vertex of your knife’s edge or proper sharpening technique. Instead, we will work on basic knowledge of knife maintenance, first step being the difference between sharpening and honing your blade.

We've all seen the slasher films where the bad guy is raking his butcher knife back and forth over the metal rod keening his edge to hair-splitting sharpness, well, while he is actually maintaining a good practice he is not actually “sharpening” his edge, he is “honing” it. What’s the difference? Well, let’s start by saying every time you cut something with your knife it causes microscopic waves and burrs to develop on your edge. While that doesn’t sound like much, the extra drag and friction caused by these waves and burrs give the impression that your knife is dulling when in actuality your edge is still intact, just not aligned. The purpose of the “metal rod” or Steel as it is properly named, is to eliminate all of those burrs and waves and “realign” your edge, which will make it feel sharp again. So, every time you use your knife it is good practice to give it 5 or 6 passes over a steel beforehand.

“Well when do I actually sharpen it?” you might ask. If at any time you do not see a noticeable difference in the performance of the knife after using the steel then it is time to re-set your edge. The reason you want to use the steel over the stone is simply to extend the longevity of your blade. The steel is just realigning the edge whereas the stone actually grinds away a portion of your knife. For this purpose you want to avoid over sharpening your knife.

“Well, what’s the best thing to use for sharpening my knife?” The absolute best method for sharpening is the tried and true wet stone. It may seem a bit archaic but it is still the best tool for the job. Stones vary in shapes, sizes, coarseness, and even origin, and yes the origin actually does make a difference. The best sharpening stones in the world are Japanese water stones and Arkansas wet stones and you can expect to pay more for these stones than you would for some top brand knives.While stones are definitely the best tool, there are other options such as electric grinders and pull-through sharpeners. These are both very simple to use and take all of the “guesswork” out of the equation by crossing two stones or grinders to pre-set the proper angle for the vertex.

A few other notes on proper knife care are simple things like never leave your knife soaking in water. Two reasons for this: 1. You do not want to stick your hand in a pool of water and pull out one fewer finger, and 2. You don’t want your knife to pit or rust. Also, never put a quality knife in the dishwasher. Good knives should be hand washed with luke-warm water with a non-abrasive soap. Extremely hot water can actually affect the metal and abrasive soaps can cause pitting and spotting on the blade.

While there are several more things we could go into in this guide, as well as several other types of “specialty knives,” such as mincing or tomato knives, this should be a pretty good base to start with as far as knowing and maintaining your knives go. So the next time you’re putting your culinary prowess to the test, your knives won’t be the only thing in the kitchen that are a bit sharper.  

For an illustrated guide see our Infographics page.