"The truth is, the only three knives you really need are..."

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Michi said:
Touché! :)

I take it that you don't deal with breads with very hard crusts, or very soft and spongy texture then? 😈

Jokes aside, I do think that one of the three knives should be serrated, preferably with a really long (270+ mm) blade. Such a knife won't just cut bread, it'll also skin pineapple, cut up a watermelon, cleanly split a cake base into layers, double up to serve cake slices in lieu of an offset spatula, slice croissants without squishing them, and take clean slices off a white sandwich loaf.

To me, the three knives are a big one (gyuto) that works for almost everything, a petty, which works for everything that the gyuto is too big for, and a serrated knife that kicks in when neither the gyuto nor the petty will do the job.
Click to expand...

Things like fresh challah can be a bit of a problem, but it comes down to technique - light and gentle to get through the top crust is key. Hard and crusty breads have never been a problem as I keep my knives toothy.
 
That goddamn number... why does it always have to be three?

It should be three groups of three:

Utilitarians
1.
2.
3.

Main:
1.
2.
3.

Substitutes (to both above):
1.
2.
3.

Now that would be an interesting discussion around here.

And by the way... who is that fabled "home cook" around here that will really keep it down to three knives... huh? HMMMMM?

:p
 
At the moment: 155 Deba (Stainless) 210 Gyoto and a 150 Petty (Singel Bewel)

(My wife cuts the bread! Serrated knifes are scary) :)

So many knives so little time...
 
Just contemplating this makes my head hurt.
but when I travel to a rental where there is a kitchen, well I take slightly more than three knives, but if I only took three, 210 gyuto, 235mm bread, and a 150mm petty, but it still feels inadequate. I use Japanese knives for 95% of stuff, but i still regularly grab my trusty old Wusthof to bang through a big pile of garlic or ginger, rock chopping all the way, or anything else I don't want to subject my more brittle edges to.
 
I second the sentiment that if you can cut your bread without a bread knife, you need to start eating better bread. :p
Never felt like it was particularly needed for anything else though, no problem doing pineapple with a regular edge.
 
"The truth is, the only three knives you really need are..."

..., ..., ...; and there are other lies that we are telling ourselves.

That being said, for me it's gyuto I can lend to someone (victorinox) Gyouto I love to use (tf nashiji) and a Gyouto that is so beautiful that I'm scared of using (Toyama)
 
I do just general European-style cooking, so for me:

Gyuto, preferably a 240 but I like 210s too.
Something mid-length for butchery like breaking down chickens, or cutting cherry tomatoes, so I chose a TF 150
Short paring for peeling and opening boxes (tough steel like VG10)
Big-ass beater knife for anything that's hard and for crusty bread (my weapon of choice is an old Henkels 270)

Other notes:
Gotta have a big cutting board. 18" x 24" is about right. To me, mise-en-place means a series of piles on the back of the cutting board. The general population seems to like short knives because they have tiny cutting boards. I always wonder if they make the connection.
 
I used to prefer shorter knives when I was still an uninformed clueless idiot, living in a student house with a messy shared kitchen, cutting stuff on a small cutting board that was resting on my lap while sitting on the couch. Took me like an hour to cut 3 bell peppers back then. :D
I might still be the idiot, but at least my cutting has improved.
 
I use shorter 210 because I hate big boards when actually cutting N cooking. One handers are my favorite. Do piles right to left in order of need and scrape into the pan/container as I go. Perfect for home cooking.

For the serious cutting I do have a few options 12x18 and I have a 15x20 poly for trimming PSMo and other big pieces of meat, and a bit smaller one for carving with a juice groove. I love bigger boards when cutting is the primary focus but to me they don’t come as handy for standard day to day ops.

I hate anything smaller than some 9-10 x 12-14.
 
SeattleB said:
I do just general European-style cooking, so for me:

Gyuto, preferably a 240 but I like 210s too.
Something mid-length for butchery like breaking down chickens, or cutting cherry tomatoes, so I chose a TF 150
Short paring for peeling and opening boxes (tough steel like VG10)
Big-ass beater knife for anything that's hard and for crusty bread (my weapon of choice is an old Henkels 270)

Other notes:
Gotta have a big cutting board. 18" x 24" is about right. To me, mise-en-place means a series of piles on the back of the cutting board. The general population seems to like short knives because they have tiny cutting boards. I always wonder if they make the connection.
Click to expand...
Tiny cutting boards are a danger!
 
The three I bought before the three that I got after the three before the three that came after the first three I bought before the first three.
 
270 suji
240 gyuto
150 petty

They'll do everything—bread, butchering chicken and fish, etc.
 
And *** in this deprived world, do people de bone chicken thighs with & break up duck and rabbit into little pieces with? Their $500 gyuto?

if 3 and only 3 then
210 Denka
150 Y Tanaka or mazaki petty
Mac bread knife

This covers 80% of days.

but in reality need

Blazen honesuki for bones
Wat Yanagi for otoro
Beastly cleaver to sail through duck or rabbit
 
I agree with the original “gyuto, serrated, petty” but I would swap the petty for a honesuki. It’ll do the same stuff just as easy and be more effective at butchery.
 
Hey, I recognize all those makers/series!

Except Beastly 🤔 must be american.

WaTFTanaki said:
And *** in this deprived world, do people de bone chicken thighs with & break up duck and rabbit into little pieces with? Their $500 gyuto?

if 3 and only 3 then
210 Denka
150 Y Tanaka or mazaki petty
Mac bread knife

This covers 80% of days.

but in reality need

Blazen honesuki for bones
Wat Yanagi for otoro
Beastly cleaver to sail through duck or rabbit
Click to expand...
 
WaTFTanaki said:
And *** in this deprived world, do people de bone chicken thighs with & break up duck and rabbit into little pieces with? Their $500 gyuto?
Click to expand...
Not a professional here, but I'm assuming that answer would be yes. If I understand correctly, a chef's-knife is a do-all knife in a western kitchen. So if it isn't suited for all such cutting tasks short of cleaving, it ceases to be a chef's-knife. But if you wield a $500 knife, you probably aren't "deprived".
 
ModRQC said:
Hey, I recognize all those makers/series!

Except Beastly 🤔 must be american.
Click to expand...

Actually the beastly cleaver is a global and the steel is super soft, but actually pretty easy to sharpen. I have two globals- the other a deboning knife which I despise and is impossible to sharpen. I actually like the cleaver. It’s not really a knife, more of an axe to hack. Maybe a winkler breaching axe would work just as well.
 
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