Here’s my setup:
That red holder I just bought might work for you–takes any big knife.
1 Like
How many grabbable knives should a home cook have? Chef Panko thought a Chef Knife and a paring knife are enough–and some pros at Chowhound and Hungry Onion probably agree. I don’t.
Even before I began my hobby, I had utilities for various purposes, and identified a potential batteries of five to ten knives even before I started looking.
For me, that grabbable number is 15. I can keep those 15 properly honed and perfectly sharp, with a few more backup knives for special circumstances.
What do you think?
If your kitchen is organized to suit your cooking style you ought to be able to grab readily any knife you are likely to need to use quickly. I find that an angled block near my work area covers that well. I generally need only steel, chef, bread knife, or parer. However, since the block holds more, I can grab scissors, slicer, and boning knife, and my wife can grab the slightly smaller chef’s knife and petty she likes. I cannot imagine the types of cooking or prep that would occasion the need for fifteen knives. It must be fascinating.
3 Likes
I think given how narrow your counters are, and everything you’ve piled on them, you have left yourself almost no room for utensils, mise, prep, staging, plating and bussing. You have to reach across your PICs, which is unsafe, and the antithesis of “grabbable”.
This all indicates to me that you don’t cook much.
2 Likes
Same here, although I have a couple of small slanted blocks pushed together. They are on the counter next to my stove, my cutting boards/work area is a half turn away. Never found a large block that did what I wanted, or I’d have replaced them with a single block. Block(s) hold all my knives, and also hold my scissors, steel, kitchen fork, and poultry shears. I rarely use more than 2 knives to prep anything. Carving knife not included, but that’s for big jobs. They get sharpened when they need it, not on a schedule. I can’t imagine that I’ll be called upon to grab a knife and do an emergency tracheotomy any time soon. So I don’t obsess on having a fistful of razors ready to go at any instant. I have lots of prep room on my peninsula right near the knives. I don’t really ever have to walk with them, I can just turn.
2 Likes
Your setup is curious. It appears there is a small bit of open counter space on the left with a knife block nearby but another knife rack at the far end of the counter. Although a knife in the holder at the far end might be easy enough to pull out, you have to get there first. I like for everything I need to be within arm’s reach from where I work and to have a good bit of wide open counter space (although I don’t have as much as many). I also like my cutting boards on the counter. Those over the sink setups always unnerve me. As regards being able to grab things, I find the ability to grab spoons, spatulas, tongs, whisks, salt, pepper, oils, etc. and even cutting boards pretty useful. I have a little rack I made for my cutting boards that is within easy reach of where I tend to prep. The selection of the right board can be just as important as the choice of knife. It often takes more room than you think it will. Plus there needs to be a safe space for your drink!
I keep a pack of single edge razor blades in the drawer by my prep area. I do not plan on performing emergency surgery, but they are great for slashing loaves.
1 Like
My boards pretty much stay out on my counters. I’m luckily to have the space. Plus, I can stack them if necessary to improvise a standing desk for my laptop! What’s important to be grabbable to me isn’t a knife, but tongs, spoons, spatulas, whisks - tools you need while you’re in the middle of actually cooking things. By then, my leisurely prep is done and the knives are back in their block(s). And if for some reason I need a knife, they’re close by, beside the stove, but not in the direct line of food cooking.
1 Like
A friend of my parents who was a surgeon actually carried a scalpel with him at all times, in a special case. He could have used it for a lame, just think!
1 Like
Amen. Once it’s in the pot if you need to cut it, use the scissors!
1 Like
Same here. I’ve got a 6x6 no-name block (6 large slots plus 6 shorter across the front for steak knives) in the corner next to the stove. The island is right behind me. I get the one or two knives I’ll need, turn around and start working. The block holds chef’s, santoku, boning, shears, 3 bread knives (I have a reason, but it’s not great) and the 4 unbroken steak knives.
Usually for any regular dinner prep one is a chef’s knife and the other (if there is another) is a 4 inch paring/utility knife. Less commonly instead of the chef’s I’ll use the santoku that’s an inch longer and has a heavier blade.
Add one of the bread knives to the mix if cutting fresh bread and a boning knife if roast turkey (after it’s done, I mean - not for prep).
A different 2-knife set is used when I’m separating muscles in a whole subprimal like a whole round or whole top sirloin, or trying to get the coppa muscle out of a whole pork loin without doing to much damage to it. Most often a little 3-inch Wusthof paring that I stole from my daughter[1] (cropped stock photo just below) and the middle knife pictured in the second photo. I don’t know what to call it. Utility? It’s one I’ve shown here before that my wife’s grandad made ca. 1950. I don’t break down anything big more often than once a week (if that much - and sometimes only once in a month) so these knives along with their cousins all live in a drawer in plastic-lined paperboard sheaths he made for all of them. But these two knives work great to snip along at connective tissue in the seams as I’m pulling the muscles apart.
Then if cutting steaks from the subprimal I’ll use a slicer because it helps me avoid feathery saw marks on the steaks. The slicer gets used for large roasts once cooked, turkey breast, and it’s also good if small amounts of charcuterie are wanted. But it lives in the drawer for the same reason as the others - it sees only a once a week use or less.
[1] Okay stole is maybe exaggeration. We got her the 3-piece Wusthof paring set and I fell in love with the red one for my daily avocado habit at work. She came home from college for Christmas and was dismayed that I’d used and washed it enough to make the stamped blade label indistinct, so we got her a new set and I kept the original.
3 Likes
I do! I thought using scissors was my big secret!
1 Like
Hi Vecchioumo,
That view is to demonstrate my new cylinder block for softer knives. My major blocks are on the other side of the sink–a block on the counter, and a magnetic strip on the refrigerator. I’ve posted all of these quite a few times before.
That’s where I do most of my “octopus” cooking.
Ray, what is ‘octopus’ cooking? Please educate me, I need to know more! I feel like I am missing out on something important… 
1 Like
I think it means he has 8 arms and can wield 2 knives per arm. Seven arms with 2 each, one with a single (thus getting him to his 15 knives) and his drink glass.
Like this but even more knives.
4 Likes
Hi damiano,
Octopus cooking
I have a chair that I can sit on, with refrigerator, pots and pans, and some materials behind–and ovens/induction units in front–tools in containers–all around me. If i were an octopus, I could grab anything instantly I need to cook–assuming I did my prep/setup–without moving around.
1 Like
Hi CCE,
and more arms.
I have several dishes where scissors in the pot are a regular feature, Italian white beans and minestrone. The beans involve tossing in grilled sausage. It’s messy to cut the sausages after grilling, and I want to capture all their juices. As regards minestrone, there are invariably big chunks of tomato despite squishing them in my palms.
1 Like
Pretty sure that would be Squid Cooking.
Unfortunately no one seems to have posted a knives-wielding squid cartoon to the intertoobs.
2 Likes
Great ideas about the sausage. I’ll try that next time I make my bastardized jambalaya. I do the same with tomatoes in the pot, for the same reason …
Best sausage! I still have some hoarded in the freezer. Company had a fire in their smokehouse a couple of years ago, and have been acquired. These are just like the ones my granddaddy had made to order; I’d never found anything like them. Hope the acquiring corp. doesn’t put an end to them. They’re kind of like andouille but without garlic.
3 Likes
