KNIVES IN MY BAG

Doing cooking videos here on Maui, I get asked sometimes "Hey Ron what kind of knives to you carry in your bag?" Well, I tell you what kind of knives I do carry at the moment, as well as the knives I'm looking at on purchasing. Knives to a cook is like drumsticks to a drummer, or a hammer for a carpenter you know?

So here we go, and I'll just Google the pics because it's late in the early morning and don't want to wake the people in the house. 

My first knife I got is actually a 7" Henckels

Santoku knife that has a hollowed edge, when a manufacturer labels a blade hollowed edge it means just that, the knife's blade is not totally flat but comes with some indentations, this is to prevent foods from sticking to the blade, like anything moist. We've all been there and done that…slice tomatoes and the slices sticks to the blade. Well by giving the blade a hollowed edge foods tend to stick less or never at all.

I love this knife because it is a thin blade and razor sharp, it slices, dices, and chops very nicely. Fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, seafood, all good with this baby. I'd say for slicing thin cuts of meats, this knife works well. The blade is wide enough to take chopped garlic and scoop it up. Love this blade.

Next is my 8" Henckels Chef Knife, it's just a standard model that works great with slicing, chopping, dicing and mincing. It cuts snapper in quarters right through the bone really well. One thing though…that I've noticed, the edge for some reason does get dull pretty quickly, so keep a honing steel near by, and a whet stone too to give it a real edge and sharpness. Other than that I love it, just got to really hone in on the blade.

The handles on these knives are comfortable, and cleans easy with soapy hot water and wiped down, much better than having a wooden handle the can store bacteria.

My next weapon is an Ad Craft CLC 8 Chinese Cleaver, all stainless steel from the handle to the very front edge of the blade. Easy to use, my favorite for slicing thin meats, chicken, fish and veggies for wok cooking, the wide blade makes it a nice shovel to scoop minced onions, ginger, garlic and scallions to transfer to the hot wok sizzling with oil. The dimensions are 7-3/4" x 3-1/2" Tapered Blade, it's very inexpensive and rivals many expensive Chinese Cleavers, this cost me about 12 bucks online. Note: This blade is not made for hacking thick bones, for breaking chicken bones like thighs or other somewhat thick bones I'll use my other cleaver you'll see after this one.

My next cleaver is the one used for hacking bones more so than slicing meats or veggies, it can act as a weapon too. Just kidding. So this is the cleaver I use for cutting through some meat as well as hacking at bones. It's a 6" Messermeister Meat Cleaver, it cost me over a 100.00 I had it for a while.

For filleting small fish and deboning chicken or removing silver skin from large sub cuts of beef, I use this 7" Victorinox Boning Knife, very inexpensive and does the job.

I also have a few other small paring knives, and other small cutting gadgets that does not need any mention, but these are the knives I currently have in my bag and does fits most jobs I do. I will get a 10 or 9" cimeter, a Japanese filet knife, and a thiner 8" Japanese chef's knife too, just to have it.

Knives are important to cooks, it's a special tool, oh yeah I was going to pick up a 7" Chai Dao knife too, it sort of looks like a santoku but a little wider like a cleaver, again just to have it.

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