Knife testing - which fruit and veg?

[Choppingnovice1]

Hi Guys,

Malcolm here. My wife bought me a kitchen knife set for my birthday and I have to admit, I'm a bit of a novice. I'm just beginning to get to the feel of them and was wondering if anyone can recommend any fruit or veg to practice my skills with? And to test the sharpness with? I've heard cucumber is practical, any others?

Thanks.

Malc

 

[XooMG]

Cucumber is pretty easy to cut for the most part...I can do it with a dull Opinel parer.

I think the best foods to cut are those you're most likely to eat. A lot of chefs seem to use onions and potatoes, tomatoes and mushrooms. I like large carrots, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and bell peppers to test different characteristics of blade performance and hopefully salvage something edible from the process.

Stuff with tough skin like tomatoes and peppers can be good to test the very edge and thereby your sharpening. Potatoes and carrots can, if done appropriately, can test how much food sticks. Large carrots and cabbage heads can be good to test wedging.

All of them can test your cutting skills.

 

[mhpr262]

Sharpness is usally tested with the paper test. If it can easily and cleanly cut normal white office paper, it is sharp enough for normal kitchen use. If it can cut telephone book paper, even better. Hardest is toilet paper. If you want to practice your knife skills, I recommend homemade Sauce Bolognese - lots of cutting until you have fine-diced all your onions, carrots and celery and tomatoes.

 

[TurdMuffin]

Peppers are good too, if its not sharp it wont cut through the skin well

 

[StuNY]

Sharpness is usally tested with the paper test. If it can easily and cleanly cut normal white office paper, it is sharp enough for normal kitchen use. If it can cut telephone book paper, even better. Hardest is toilet paper. If you want to practice your knife skills, I recommend homemade Sauce Bolognese - lots of cutting until you have fine-diced all your onions, carrots and celery and tomatoes.

Thank you soooo much for that!!!!
After making a few knives with not a whole lot of experience actually using them, I took your advice and told my wife I will be making dinner tonight! A quick google search found a pretty simple recipe for Bolognese and I learned so much cutting up onions, carrots, celery, parsley, basil and garlic. Well, dinner was a huge hit "this tastes like what we had in Italy" and I learned a ton about the kind of grinds and edges I prefer actually using the knives. I may be hooked on cooking in addition to metalworking, but of course my wife wants to know what i am planning to make tomorrow night haha!

 

[King_Matt]

I think onions aswell are a good test also. If you have to push to cut through something basically it means its not sharp :tease:

 

[Pensacola Tiger]

I think onions aswell are a good test also. If you have to push to cut through something basically it means its not sharp :tease:

That may be the case, but it is more likely that the blade needs to be thinned.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

Peppers are good too, if its not sharp it wont cut through the skin well

That's true need a sharp blade to cut pepper skin, when cutting them like to go from inside out with skin against the cutting board