Knives

Knife and Knife Uses Glossary

The Language of knives and Knife Usage Explained

Bias Slice

Employed when slicing food, often vegetables, across the item at 45 degrees, often used in oriental cooking.

Boning

The operation used to debone meat, for example chicken, usually performed on raw meat.

Boning Knife

A boning knife is usually one with a thin and flexible blade with an upward curving shape which aids cutting around bones to remove meat

Bread Knife

Often serrated or scalloped, used on bakery products and foods that are hard on the outside but soft on the inside, for example tomatoes

Butterfly

When meat is split (most often refers to chicken and prawns) almost in half using a knife but not cutting right through, then spreading apart so it resembles a butterfly

Carving Knife

Also called a slicing knife. This is thinner in cross section than a cooks or chefs’ knife to allow the accurate slicing or carving of cooked foods such as meat joints, poultry, fish and game

Chefs’ Knife

Also called a Cooks Knife. This is the jack of all trades knife, and is the one you are most likely to use most often. The blade is often curved to allow a rocking motion when chopping, the wide cross section helps prevent chopping fingers

Chop

Cutting food into small pieces

Cleaver

A large and hefty square blade with handle for chopping larger cuts of meat and reasonably sized bones

Coring

The removal of the core from vegetables and fruit. Usually this operation uses a paring or small utility knife

Cube

Chopping food into cube-shaped pieces, various sizes may be producesd depending on the recipe

Dice

Similar to cube but usually smaller – 1/8 to ¼ inch on all sides

Fillet

To de-bone meat or fish

Filleting Knife

Usually flexible and slim which aids the process of filleting fish and allowing removal of skin and bones. Some Japanese knives called Deba knives take a different approach in that they are not flexible and are sharpened on only one side to allow the flat of the knife to remain in close contact with the food being filleted.

Flute

To decorate with a pattern on food, an example would be a pie crust

Julienne

To cut food into regular long thin strips about the same size and shape as a match. Sometimes these shapes are called batons

Mince

Chopping food into very small and not necessarily evenly sized pieces

Palette Knife

May be plain edged or serrated, the thin evenly broad blade is good for spreading things such as icing on a cake

Pare

To remove the outer peel or skin from a fruit or vegetable

Paring knife

Small knife used to prepare vegetables and fruit. A small, firm blade with a sharply pointed tip for removing eyes and pips

Peel

A similar operation to paring, with larger items it may be easier to use a small utility knife

Santoku Knife

A knife that is Japanese style for chopping, cutting and slicing. It is aJapanese Cooks Knife. Santoku means “Three Good Things” in Japanese

Score

Shallow even cuts in the surface of food, for example scoring the skin on pork to produce good crackling, often seasonings or marinades are pressed into the scores to really get into the food in depth

Section

Removing peel and membranes from citrus fruits

Slice

Cutting foods into flat pieces of a similar size

Trim

To cut away fat on meat and poultry especially excess amounts

Utility Knife

A knife that can perform a number of different tasks – in essence a small version of a chefs knife