Knife styles

Western

• Chef’s knife – Usually 200mm long (8″) and used for everything
• Paring – Small detail knife
• Pointed paring– Longer detail knife
• Utility – Between the Chef’s knife and a paring  knife
• Bread knife – Scalloped edge
• Sausage knife – Smaller version of a bread  knife – Used for dried meats
• Carving knife – For slicing cooked meats
• Boning knife – For cutting meat from bones
• Cleaver – for cutting between joints in bones
• Butter – For spreading butter
• Salmon or ham slicing – Long and narrow
• Ham slicer – thinner version of the slicing knife
• Fillet – Boning knife for fish – flexible
• Cheese – Soft, Hard and Parmesan versions
• Peeling or tourné knife
• Decorating, Trimming or Fluting – For decorative work
• Tomato – Serrated blade
• Oyster – Shucking (Opening) knife
• Deveining – Used to remove the colon (“vein”) from the back of shrimp
• Grapefruit – Used to separate the flesh from the peel and inner membranes
• Chestnut – For scoring a chestnut with an “X” cut prior to roasting
• Mincing or Mezzaluna (Italian: “half moon”)
• Peeler – Many variations for vegetables
• Steak – For cutting meat at the table
• Santoku – Cook’s knife in Japanese style
• Spatula – Flipping and smoothing icing or cream
• Carving fork.

Japanese