Our guide to know your knives

You watch a few episodes of My Kitchen Rules and before you know it you’re out buying a new set of knives. The big wooden knife block and a stack of big, small, short, long, serrated and smooth knives. Then you find that after a number of months you’ve likely only really used one or two knives. We mentioned this to Victorinox to get some real tips around what to do with all these beautiful knives.

Use the right knife for the job

Use a shaping knife with a curved blade for decorating and garnishing with fruits and vegetables

Use a kitchen knife with straight edge for cutting smaller fruits and vegetables

Use a kitchen knife with wavy edge for cutting soft fruits and vegetables with skin such as tomatoes.

Use a Steak Knife for cutting cooked or grilled meat. Use one with wavy edge for meat pieces with crust.

Use a Fish Filleting Knife with a super flexible blade for filleting fish

Use a Salmon Knife with a fluted edge for filleting salmon

Use a Santoku knife as an all-rounder for precision cutting

Use a Bread Knife with wavy edge for cutting a variety of baked goods with crusts

Use a Carving Knife with straight edge for slicing cooked or grilled meat

Use a Carving knife with an extra-wide blade for slicing larger foods

Use a Pastry Knife with wavy edge for cutting cakes, pastries and bread.

Edge and blade types

• Straight edge: for smooth and clean cuts
• Fluted edge: stops food sticking to the blade
• Wavy edge: for cutting through crusts and tough skin effortlessly
• Flexible blade: ensures optimum results when filleting and deboning

Taking care of your knives

• Regular care is needed to keep a knife in top condition
• To ensure a long service life, clean knives with a mild detergent under running water immediately after use.
• Sharpen your knives regularly. Use Sharpening steel or one of our knife sharpener tools.
• Highly polished knives should only be used for cutting, not for prying or hacking. For bones or similar materials, please use suitable robust products.
• Clean your sharpening steel with a mild detergent under running water and dry out completely. Store the steel in a knife block if possible.
• Some knives are dishwasher safe, especially the ones with synthetic handles. However, we do recommend washing them always by hand.

We’ve learned a lot writing this article and hope you have also, big thanks to Victorinox for their help/education!