Favorite thing to cook when you want to really test a new knife

[mkohanoff]

Curious about what everyone likes to cook when they get a new knife.

For me, it has to be french onion soup

 

[M1k3]

Potato leek soup or potatoes au gratin.

 

[brimmergj]

Stir fry

 

[btbyrd]

Thanksgiving.

 

[stringer]

Meatballs. 3 parts whatever ground meat with 1 part sauteed brunoise veggies.

Daal with Crispy Onions (reduce 5 pounds of small dice onions to about 5 ounces of black crispy but not quite burnt bits of candy)

 

[daveb]

Couple quarts of mire poix. Maybe some taters to go with it.

 

[McMan]

Potato leek soup or potatoes au gratin.

These two for me too (though w/o the leeks).

 

[sumis]

split a lobster.

.

 

[Nemo]

Ragû

 

[daddy yo yo]

Minestrone or any soup/stock that requires tons of veggies.

 

[Heckel7302]

Pasta Primavera. As many vegetables as you dare in as small a dice as you dare. Just sauté all the veg together, hit it with some cream, add the pasta, a little parmigiano, mix, and done. Easy, delicious and lets you try out the knife on a wide variety of veg.

 

[coxhaus]

Soup.

 

[simona]

Chef Wang's fish head chill oil - good for fish heads and rice. Best test for a new nakiri or santuko

 

[tostadas]

Pumpkins, chocolate, ice cubes.

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

Pumpkins, chocolate, ice cubes.

Ah, so stir fry then? Good call.

 

[rob]

Soup or stir fry.
Maybe big batch of spag bog.

 

[petrel]

Yakisoba… pork, cabbage match stick carrots, onions, garlic. Takes knives through their paces.

 

[MikeF]

Pork & potato stew: get your standard set of potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic cut up to various sizes on the vegetables side plus a tenderloin or something similar that needs to be cleaned up and cubed.
Pizza: not so much in terms of quantity, but I find I tend to use at least 4 different knives preparing the various toppings so definitely got some variety here (assuming you dont subscribe to peperoni or plain cheese). Typically go with some cold cuts of ham/turkey/beef, sizzling hot sausages straight from the stove, red onions, green onions, basil, leek, cherry tomatoes, olives, maybe some mushrooms too.

Honestly Im kind of reading the various comments here as suggestions for what to try myself . For example:

Ragû

Sounds familiar, and looks tasty (after a quick google search); something I havent had a chance of trying yet, but maybe next week!

 

[gentiscid]

Steak man, steak!

 

[Nemo]

Sounds familiar, and looks tasty (after a quick google search); something I havent had a chance of trying yet, but maybe next week!

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/ragu.33676/
For a few ideas.

 

[Rangen]

Hot and sour soup (pork slivered in 1/8" shreds), or Yu Xiang pork (pork in 3/16" shreds), without partially freezing the pork to make it easier.

For the soup, if I haven't driven the 50 minute round trip it takes to get to a Chinese market lately, I also have to cut similar shreds of bamboo shoots. Easy if I still have some whole ones around, not so easy if I am trying to shred the pre-canned slices, stacked on one another. The stacks like to slide around, and the edge has to be just so, for slicing without sliding to happen.

 

[MikeF]

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/ragu.33676/For a few ideas.

Many thanks! Going to give it a try soon. Also since we are testing out knives, do you buy the meat already minced, or mince it yourself (and if so - what cut would you recommend?)

 

[rickbern]

Soup.

Borscht

 

[Cliff]

Depends on the knife, but generally I'll dice a couple of apples or slice potatoes

 

[chefwp]

• jambalaya (lots o' onions/peppers/celery)
• Bolognese sauce (lots o' onion/carrot/celery)
• beef stir fry with variety of veggies (i.e cabbage, onion, pepper, garlic, ginger, carrot, scallion, mushrooms), and slicing the beef thin gives a nice workout to let you know how the knife performs

 

[William Hunt]

Pot-au-feu
Leeks, carrots, parsnips, turnip roots and potatoes to cut up. I think big parsnips really test out a knife.

 

[Nemo]

Many thanks! Going to give it a try soon. Also since we are testing out knives, do you buy the meat already minced, or mince it yourself (and if so - what cut would you recommend?)

No worries.

I buy miced (ground) meat. Beef +/- pork. It should contain a decent amount of fat for ragu. I need to ask the butcher to grind it up especially as they generally only grind lean mince in advance.

 

[DitmasPork]

Curious about what everyone likes to cook when they get a new knife.

For me, it has to be french onion soup

Depends on the type of knife. For a general purpose gyuto, I'll usually do a vegetable soup—preferably after introducing the knife to some meat, giving the carbon a taste of blood, get the patina going.

 

[boomchakabowwow]

Depends on the knife. been a decade since I got a new one but I just dive in and put the thing into rotation. no testing. it is what it is at that point

 

[rickbern]

If you happen to buy a stainless petty, I heartily recommend putting together an orange and olive salad. Dress it with a vinaigrette made with the cutoffs from your oranges, I add a little cumin cayenne and sugar to it and use oil cured Moroccan olives.