Petty Knife Uses

[strumke]

I'm a little confused on exactly what a petty knife is and when it is useful vs a shorter gyuto or chef's knife. It looks like they are shaped like an average of a slicer and a gyuto as far as blade height goes, but somewhere less than the 6" mark.

The ones I've seen look too short to be chopping on a board with due to the heel height, but a little big to be used in the air supreme-ing citrus or the like.

What would be the typical dimensions of a petty and the corresponding uses?

 

[eto]

They usually run 5.9" in length with a 1" & 1/8th at the widest part of the belly of blade. Iv'e used this type knife for fine shallot cutting, great for small fruits and veggies. But I've used this before to break down chickens and Turkeys as well. Petty's are such versatile knives and is one I gravitate towards a lot.

 

[brianh]

Also awesome for cutting the crust off my 3 year old's peanut butter sandwiches. Only half joking...

 

[panda]

Supreming citrus is exactly what i use one for.

 

[chinacats]

Supreming citrus is exactly what i use one for.

+1

It's the perfect knife for this task. I've used one for chickens as well when a boning knife is not in reach and it works great.

BTW, they come in a wide variety of profiles, geometries and lengths.

 

[strumke]

They usually run 5.9" in length with a 1" & 1/8th at the widest part of the belly of blade. Iv'e used this type knife for fine shallot cutting, great for small fruits and veggies. But I've used this before to break down chickens and Turkeys as well. Petty's are such versatile knives and is one I gravitate towards a lot.

So the existence of 3.5" petty knifes are really parers?

 

[eto]

@strumke - pretty much. That's probably the smallest they go and like you said it's now a paring knife.

 

[brainsausage]

+1

It's the perfect knife for this task. I've used one for chickens as well when a boning knife is not in reach and it works great.

BTW, they come in a wide variety of profiles, geometries and lengths.

Agreed. They're the only knives I use for fine tuning proteins. I'm not a fan of the flex, or round tip of western style boning knives. And, they excel at supremes. Also make really useful garde manger knives.

 

[strumke]

Brainsausage, what would be the ideal geometry for that (specifically for supremes, but not only for supremes)

 

[Geo87]

I use mine for trimming small fruits, supremes, trimming meat, brunoise shallots. IMO you want a thin knife that's not too flexible with a thin tip for getting under sinew.

I like this profile , although this is a longer petty (180) I used to use a 150 but wanted to try longer & I like it

 

[ShadowyFox]

I've used mine for the chickens and had to learn fast that they will take one from chicken breast to chicken scallopini real fast.

 

[Geo87]

Edit: I meant pointy tip for getting under sinew sorry

 

[TheDispossessed]

as a lefty, most of the shelf japanese boning knives are essentially out of the question. i like a 150 petty for meat fabrication, i used a gesshin ginga which are super light and thin (it was like 32g) and broke down cases and cases of ducks without any chipping. but like an idiot, i sold that knife and for some reason never can hang onto a 150 petty, i may try a 180 at some point. and i'd probably say stainless is the way togo for a petty if you anticipate heavy citrus tasking.

 

[eto]

I call this one my shallot killer! I have no idea what maker, steal or handle material this is.

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[brainsausage]

I use mine for trimming small fruits, supremes, trimming meat, brunoise shallots. IMO you want a thin knife that's not too flexible with a thin tip for getting under sinew.

I like this profile , although this is a longer petty (180) I used to use a 150 but wanted to try longer & I like it

Yep, that's what I prefer as well, but in the 150-160 range. A lot of petty's are too tall at the heel in my opinion. It should be more akin to a short suji, than a mini gyuto. Just my two cents...

 

[cheflivengood]

my pettys mostly did fine garnishing work. perfect scallion curls or diamonds, micro mirepoix brunios, etc...but most of all any task that would use a horizontal stroke, such as removing all white pith from citrus skin, or filleting tomato flesh in half for say a 1/16th tomato brunios. better than gyuto because you can see your thickness and cutting progress behind the spine, if you use gyuto you are already through the product before you can see what you did ( this is hard to explain)(i can't spell french!)