talk about kitchen knife

This kitchen knife should be regarded as the most important tool in the kitchen. In fact, it should also be the oldest tool for humans, and may even be older than humans themselves: Some researchers in the United States taught an orangutan how to make stone knives, so it can be roughly inferred that in the The ancestors of human beings may have learned to make stone knives before they evolved into "human beings". There are many interesting sayings about kitchen knives, among which the most widely spread is that Chinese chefs need only one kitchen knife to conquer the world, while western chefs need countless kitchen knives to cook the simplest dishes. In fact, this is not the case. Although there is indeed only one kitchen knife in the kitchen of many Chinese families, for top Chinese chefs, many different types of knives are needed if they want to cook Chinese food well. The simplest one is chopping ribs. You can’t use the same knife as shredded meat (the former is more durable and the angle of the blade should be larger, while the latter should be sharper and the angle of the blade should be smaller), and it’s impossible to carve “Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” on the watermelon rind with a sliced ​​knife. .

If you don’t have an intuitive concept, you can watch Ang Lee’s movie "Food and Drink Man and Woman". The protagonist in it is the chef of the Grand Hotel in Taipei. He needs several shelves to display the different types of kitchen knives in his home kitchen. Of course, like all tools, this kitchen knife also has a "twenty-eight" rule, no matter Chinese food or Western food, 80% of the dishes can be done with one knife, but if you want to do the remaining 20% ​​of the dishes, you need a lot Many different types of knives will do. Another reason for this statement may be that everyone confuses the Chinese kitchen in the era of material shortage in memory with the kitchen of the leisure class in Western movies and TV.

It's no wonder that since the age of written records, cooking skills have been unreliable skills. Of course, there is nothing to pay attention to in the kitchen of the poor, and the rich will not spend money on the kitchen. This point is surprisingly similar between the East and the West. There is no kitchen in the old mansions in the West. The kitchen is just a shed away from the main building.

After the industrial revolution, with the rise of the labor movement, the cost of labor in the West has become increasingly high, and middle-class, even upper-middle-class housewives have to cook by themselves. This has given the western kitchen industry the impetus to move forward. The kitchen knife of the famous Western brand is the product of this trend. For the kitchen at home, first of all, raw and cooked should be separated. From this point of view, Chinese kitchens are actually more demanding, because Westerners seldom cut meat in their own kitchens. The steaks and lamb chops they need to cook are from supermarkets or meat. The store cuts the packaged meat, removes the packaging and throws it directly into the pot. Unlike Chinese cooking, it is often necessary to cut shredded or sliced ​​meat. Furthermore, the knife that has cut onion and ginger will still have a residual smell no matter how you wash it. If you use such a knife to cut fruit or tomatoes, it is easy to carry the smell, so a knife specially used for fruit processing is also very necessary. of.

The knives in our kitchen are arranged according to this principle: one for cutting meat, one for cutting vegetables, and one for cutting fruits. As long as you use a knife, there is a safety issue. This is true for everyone from rookies who are new to the kitchen to those famous chefs: in the food show "Iron Chef", many participating chefs cut their own fingers in a hurry. Regarding this issue, a common saying is "This knife is really good, but it is too sharp, and it is too dangerous to cut in your hands!".

In fact, on the contrary, dull knives are the most dangerous. When using blunt knives, you use more force and are more likely to lose control. If you slip, you will almost certainly hurt yourself. A few days ago, I saw a study that listed the most "dangerous" vegetables in the kitchen, and pumpkin ranked first. The reason is that pumpkin has hard skin and thick flesh, which makes it easy to lose balance when cutting.

Although cooking and reciting poems, painting, playing the piano and playing chess are two different things, they both require a calm attitude. When you are impetuous, you are most likely to hurt your hands, especially when you see famous chefs flying knives and cutting vegetables on TV. When you imitate it, you are only half a step away from "blood splattered on the cutting board". At this time, don't expect a blunt knife to be gentler. LG often said a very philosophical sentence (in fact, he heard it from elsewhere): "The blunt knife is always fast when cutting hands." From another point of view, the wound formed by a blunt knife has larger tearing components microscopically and is more difficult to recover, while the wound formed by a sharp knife is more tidy and recovers faster.

So, no matter what, don't use blunt kitchen knives. Jamie Oliver's program gave good advice on safety issues: first, put a slightly wet rag under the chopping board to avoid accidental sliding of the chopping board during the cutting process, and second, when cutting vegetables, be sure to first To level the dishes, for example, when cutting potatoes, you can first cut a plane out of the potatoes, and then use this plane to fix the potatoes on the cutting board to avoid accidental imbalance during the cutting process. Third, admit your own level, cut honestly and slowly (this one was summed up by LG for him, haha, in many of his programs, he tries to avoid showing off his knife skills, deliberately slowing down to avoid misleading the audience ).

When the first ancient ape learned to knock flint to make the first "chopper", there was only one genre in the world. Now that millions of years have passed, the pure-minded ancient ape has long since evolved into a human with countless colorful intestines, and the "Cai Knife Sect" has naturally spawned many branches. Among them, there are three most influential ones: Western-style chef's knife, Japanese Santoku knife, and of course our well-known Chinese square kitchen knife.

This Western-style chef's knife is also called a French chef's knife. Although German craftsmen first figured out the style of this knife, German food is lackluster, and it became popular through the spring breeze of French cuisine. Western-style chef's knives have a long, narrow blade with a thick back and a sharply curved edge. This is related to the way of using Western-style kitchen knives. Chefs use the tip of the knife as a fulcrum, and the blade swings up and down on the chopping board like a guillotine to chop food.

A well-crafted chef's knife has a very sharp edge with a small angle near the tip and is suitable for fine cutting, while the edge near the handle has a larger angle and is suitable for cutting fish bones or other slightly harder things. chef's knife: Talk about a kitchen knife (1) The popularity of Japanese Santoku knives is inseparable from the vigorous promotion of major Western kitchen knife manufacturers. Almost every major manufacturer has a full range of Santoku knives for sale. The Santoku Knife is called "Santoku Baoding" in Japanese, and "Baoding" means a kitchen knife. It is said that the source of this word is the "Paoding" in Paoding Jie Niu.

At first glance, the Santoku knife is very similar to a Western-style chef's knife, but in fact there is a big difference. First of all, the blade of the Santoku knife is relatively straight, so the up and down movement is the main way to use it, unlike the "swinging" knife method of the Western-style chef's knife. Secondly, the blade is relatively thin, which is mainly suitable for cutting fish and meat. It does not seem to be as versatile as a chef's knife.

Santoku Knife: Talk about a kitchen knife (1) Everyone is familiar with the traditional Chinese square kitchen knife, so there is no need to talk nonsense. The traditional kitchen knife commonly used in Chinese families is an all-rounder equivalent to a western-style chef’s knife. In addition to completing the basic cutting of ingredients, it can also easily transfer the cut ingredients to the pot. This is beyond the reach of the first two types of kitchen knives. of. Of course, there are still many types of Chinese kitchen knives. For example, some are thicker and suitable for cutting the bones of poultry and livestock, and some are thinner and sharper and more suitable for fine cutting. However, the appearance of these types of knives is not very different, so many People think that there is only one kind of kitchen knife in China, but it is not.

Let's talk about the material of the kitchen knife. The common kitchen knives on the market are nothing more than three materials, carbon steel, stainless steel and ceramics. Of course, there are some more sturdy materials, such as pure titanium or titanium alloy, which are said to have strong corrosion resistance, and are lighter and more flexible than steel knives, but these are not commonly used things, so I won’t talk about them here.

Early kitchen knives were basically made of carbon steel. Although pure iron has good corrosion resistance, its hardness is not high. After adding an appropriate amount of carbon to form a homogeneous iron-carbon alloy, it becomes steel (of course, the actual process is not as simple as it is said. Is the carbon content low? As a result, if the carbon content is too high, it becomes cast iron, and only iron-carbon alloys with a content between 0.2% and 2.1% are called steel). Humans have learned to produce and use iron at least five thousand years ago, but It is only in the last two thousand years that steel tools can be produced stably. Chinese proverbs often say that "steel is made from a hundred refinements", "good steel is used on the blade", etc. It can be seen that high-quality steel should be a very precious resource in ancient times.

There are many mysteries behind these two proverbs. This "smelting into steel" actually refers to the process of forging and forging in ancient China to manufacture high-quality steel: blacksmiths heated the blank and repeatedly forged and folded it, so that the carbon in it was evenly distributed, and the hardness and strength of the material were greatly improved. . And "good steel is used on the blade" said that the blacksmiths had to use composite technology to make knives when the materials were scarce: combining high-quality steel and other relatively inferior materials through forging. At the same time, the part made of high-quality steel is used as the blade, and other materials form the blade.

The lack of high-quality steel in ancient times and the uncertainty in steel production have added a lot of mystery to this industry, and also spawned many myths. In China, there is a well-known legend such as "Moxie", and in the West, there is a "Damascus steel" legend. All kinds of miracles, such as a sword made of Damascus steel can easily cut off the barrel of a rifle, hair falling on the blade will break off by itself, and so on. These legends have influenced the public so far. Although the steel produced by modern technology has long surpassed Damascus steel, people still believe that there is still a magical magic hidden behind those beautiful patterns. In order to match this sentiment of the public, the manufacturers of kitchen knives took pains to reproduce the pattern of Damascus steel with modern industry. Now you don’t have to go to Syria in the Middle East, you can go to the nearby “IKEA” to buy a Damascus kitchen knife and be satisfied. Explore the ancient feelings by yourself.

Below is a photo of an 18th century Damascus steel knife: Talk about a kitchen knife (2) The carbon content has a decisive influence on the properties of the steel. The higher the carbon content, the greater the possibility of obtaining higher hardness, but the toughness of the material will also be reduced. Steel with a carbon content of 0.3-0.59% is called medium-carbon steel, which has a relatively balanced toughness and hardness. It is usually used to make mechanical parts that bear loads. Very high, often used to make springs and its high-strength steel wire and so on. Steel containing more than 1% carbon is called ultra-high carbon steel, which can achieve high hardness through heat treatment, but has poor toughness.

Kitchen knives made of high carbon steel or ultra-high carbon steel can reach very high hardness, and it is easy to sharpen the blade. Many Japanese knives are made of similar materials, which is related to the fine cutting that is often required in Japanese cuisine. Of course, carbon steel itself also has a fatal weakness. In a humid environment, the surface is easily rusted and corroded.

Therefore, knives made of this material must be washed and dried after use. Knives made of carbon steel are actually a mixed group. Many cheap kitchen knives are made of low-carbon steel. Low-carbon steel itself is cheap and easy to process. However, knives made of low carbon steel are not easy to sharpen the blade, and the blade is difficult to maintain, and it will quickly become dull with use.

Scientists have long been working on improving the formulation of steel to increase its corrosion resistance. In the 19th century, people discovered that it would be a good idea to add chromium to steel. The mechanism is that metal chromium forms a transparent dense and hard oxide film soon after it contacts with the air, which can protect the steel substrate from being corroded by oxygen and moisture in the air.

If this layer of film is destroyed, fresh metal chromium will form the same protective film again soon after being exposed to the air, which prevents the whole piece of steel from getting rusty. The corrosion resistance of stainless steel is directly related to the chromium content, so only the chromium content exceeds 11% is called stainless steel. Due to the high price of metal chromium, profiteers from all walks of life try to cut corners and materials, and the magical concept of "stainless iron" was once born in our land.

Even those stainless steels that are justifiable in the name have considerable differences in corrosion resistance, so when purchasing stainless steel kitchen knives and tableware, pay special attention to the composition of the material. The words 18/10, 18/8 or 18/0 are often marked on stainless steel tableware, which refers to the percentage of chromium and nickel content in the material (this is actually an outdated stainless steel grade system, and the three materials roughly correspond to the current 316 , 304 and 2 series stainless steel). Nickel in stainless steel is conducive to improving the mechanical properties, and at the same time has an auxiliary effect on corrosion resistance.

However, nickel metal is not cheap, so some manufacturers use manganese metal instead. This is the root cause of the "poisonous stainless steel" incident caused by a certain domestic manufacturer some time ago. Generally speaking, it is all caused by money. 18/10 (that is, 316 stainless steel) is a good material for making tableware, knives, forks and pots, but it is difficult to use it for kitchen knives, because the carbon content in it is only 0.08%, and it cannot be obtained through heat treatment. High hardness. Regular manufacturers of kitchen knives use some stainless steel models with high carbon content. For example, the stainless steel used in WüSTHOF products contains 0.5% carbon, which is close to the content of high carbon steel.

Of course, some other manufacturers use 440 series stainless steel, the carbon content of which is as high as 0.6% to 1.20%, which belongs to the ranks of high carbon steel and ultra-high carbon steel. sharp. However, there are no benefits at both ends. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. The carbon in the steel has an offsetting effect on the corrosion resistance of chromium. When the chromium content remains unchanged, the higher the carbon content, the worse the corrosion resistance. For tools like kitchen knives that need to deal with salt and acid-base every day, sharpness and corrosion resistance are precisely the things that cannot be neglected. Different manufacturers may have different understandings, but consumers must make choices according to their own needs and preferences.

Let's talk about ceramic materials. Zirconium dioxide, a white powder, is now used to make ceramic kitchen knives. The manufacturer puts these powders into the grinding tool of the kitchen knife blank, applies a high pressure of 120 atmospheres and bakes them in an environment of 1500 degrees, and these powders are sintered into dense solid ceramics.

The Mohs hardness of zirconia ceramics is as high as 8.5, which is much higher than the level of 6-6.5 of hardened steel, so it can only be polished with a diamond grinding wheel. After grinding, the ceramic kitchen knife has a sharp and hard blade. Because of its extremely high hardness, ceramic kitchen knives hardly wear out under normal use, and their chemical properties are very stable, so they are not afraid of the attack of acid, alkali and salt that are common in the kitchen. You may think that the martial arts leader who dominates the kitchen knife world has finally been born, but this is not the case.

Compared with steel kitchen knives, ceramic knives are very poor in toughness. They are easy to break when subjected to external force, and they are also prone to cracking when the blade cuts hard objects. What's worse is that because the hardness is too high, there is no way to polish it by conventional methods. Once a hole appears, a knife is almost useless. As mentioned earlier, there is a "28 rule" when using kitchen knives. Whether it is used at home or by a professional chef, there is always one kind of knife that is used frequently (there are many kinds of knives that are not frequently used). Suitable for Western cooking.

For ceramic knives, because of its hard and brittle texture, it is obviously incompetent to play the role of the main kitchen knife commonly used, but if it is specially used for fine cutting of fruits and vegetables, it still has obvious advantages..