A Budget Starter Set of Kitchen Knives

You don't need any special equipment for your plant-based kitchen, but there are definitely things that will make life worth living...

• One of my favorites is a high-end rice cooker. That will forever be my first recommendation. In my book, a top-notch rice cooker will save you more time than anything else, and possibly it is the difference between success or failure, for cooking whole grains definitely takes time. I use mine every day.
• My next favorite implement is a Börner V-Slicer, which is a mandolin. I wrote about it some time ago, and it is my next time saver.
• There are the Nutribullet and the MagicBullet, which I consider also to be major time savers.
• Then there is the immersion blender, which I have referred to, but I have not devoted a full blog post to it.

All of the above is good advice that will stand the test of time. However, before and after everything there are your kitchen knives, and there most people fall down, because they are the most neglected kitchen equipment in most kitchens, and we pay the price, for without good knives, cooking is no fun.

The difference can be summed up as follows: if your knife is sharp, cutting up an onion won't make you cry. If your knife is sharp, you will easily slice a ripe tomato - ripe, but firm, but not overripe and soupy. Those are the simple, unavoidable daily tests. Here is an excellent source for some serious advice for vegetable carving.

Your basic needs are really just a few things (two really, the rest is luxury):

• a paring knife, though I'd prefer a set of paring knives and 
• an 8" chef knife. In my experience the 10" chef knife is not much use, for us vegans don't carve a lot of turkeys. 
• A bread knife is a basic need in some people's eyes, but I find I hardly ever use mine. 
• After the basics, I would personally best like a Japanese nakiri knife for vegetable cutting, the more I use it, the better I like it. I'll write about nakiri knives and other vegetable knives some other time. 
• A santoku is nice to have, but I would not miss it if I did not have it.
• a slicer, such as a yanagiba, has not much use in the plant-based kitchen.

The upshot is, knife blocks are a waste of money. I prefer a magnetic strip on the wall, so that my knives stay sharp and are always at my finger tips. By the way, one of the side benefits of running a #WFPB kitchen is it stays much cleaner if you're not cooking with oil! Plus, I am sure that the Dept. of environmental protection will appreciate it as cooking oil in the sewers is one of their biggest headaches.

The Paring Knife

The paring knife is for everything off the board, i.e. in your hand. The site I cited above, www.knifeplanet.com, has some great advice. I would agree with their choice of paring knives, as at least reasonable, though my personal favorite is probably the MAC knife Professional paring knife at the high end, and the Rada Cutlery paring knives at the low end. Take your pick, but for a budget choice Rada Cutlery is superb. And, while you are at it, get their sharpener too. The knives will set you back about $15-$20 and the sharpener about $7.50. So assume you spend $25 on the paring knives.

Rada Cutlery Set of Paring Knives

The Chef Knife

The Chef Knife is for is for everything on the board. It's the only other knife you REALLY need and for all practical purposes, you really only need an 8" chef knife. With a little bit of looking around you will find plenty of choices even in the budget category of $20-$40. Ryky Tran (Burrfection on YouTube), considers the Mercer Culinary Renaissance ($40) the winner in this category for 2017 and he also likes the Mercer Millennia 8" (x30cr13 steel, HRC 56, at $30). Others say the Victorinox Fibrox ($40) HRC 55-56.

Meanwhile, I have found some other interesting entries in the budget category.

• Culinary Obsession offers a nice knife that is made of German 4116 Stainless Steel, for about $30. Notice it has a half bolster, which makes sharpening easier.
• Imarku offers a very nice 8" Chef Knife made of high carbon stainless steel, 7CR17MOV stainless steel contains 0.7% carbon, at $29.99 with a hardness of 58-60 on HRC (Rockwell Hardness Scale), let's call it 59. This is another knife with a half-bolster.
• Imarku offers an interesting single bevel chef knife made of German 4116 Steel, and because it is single bevel, it is extremely sharp. About 57 HRC, listed as 56-58. This is another knife with a half-bolster.
• Lastly, there is the Kuma knife, which is quite solid, at about $25, it is made of 3Cr13 Steel. The same company also offers a decent honing rod for about $15. Don't get too course of a honing rod, you want a medium to fine. The Kuma knife showed surprising edge retention in a video by Burrfection. However, this is a full-bolster knife, and you'll have to file down the bolster over time.

Knife Sharpening

Culinary Obsession offers a pretty decent 1000/6000 grit whetstone for about $33 or so. That grit level is about all you need for regular sharpening. Only if your knife is damaged will you need to start below 1000 grit. I have just started using it, so I don't have long experience, but this stone works very well. You might want to add a nagura stone for less than $10, to get your stone started up and clean during sharpening.

Here is a fun video by Ryky Tran on the trade off decisions between a budget knife (Kuma) with some high end whetstones (Chosera 800/3000) versus a high end knife (Wusthof) with a budget combo whetstone (800/3000). It's just fun to watch. Meanwhile, if you can afford one stone, I think the 1000/6000 is a better choice. Then, if you ever need to restore damaged knives, you can get a lower grit stone. Meanwhile, the overall conclusion from the video is obviously that if you can afford it, better quality stones are worth it.

One of the best tutorials on sharpening is by Korin, the premier Japanese knife shop in NY. Here is the complete Korin Learn How to Sharpen tutorial, it is a very systematic approach.

Beyond the Basics

With the small collection that is suggested here, 3 paring knives, 2 8" chef knives, and some basic sharpening gear, you have a better kitchen than most, as long as you keep up with some basic maintenance. Again, the paring knife is for off the board and the chef knife is for on the board. There is nothing else.

For a plant-based kitchen, I think there are two more knives you may want to add at some time... a Japanese nakiri and eventually maybe also an usuba knife. I will do a longer post about those some other time.

Conclusion

For about $100-$125 you could have your starter set, 3 paring knives for about $15-20, one or two 8" chef knives at about $30 each and sharpening supplies ($40 for the Rada sharpener plus the 1000/3000 Whetstone). At some point, you will need some kind of a lapping plate to keep your whetstone flat and a nagura stone is a good idea, both to get the sharpening slurry started and to keep the stone clean during sharpening. But that's it. 

The bottom line is the cheaper blades will not keep their edges as long as the real high end steels, but a little loving care and maintenance will do wonders. See the notes below if you have need to know more about steel.

Some Notes:

From a site called Swords of Might, some insight on steel qualities - the conclusion is that you can find some very decent quality knives even in this budget category:

4116 German Krupp Stainless Steel

4116 German Krupp Stainless steel is fine-grained, stainless steel made by Thyssen-Krupp in Germany is used for hygienic applications and food processing.The balance of carbon and chromium content give it a high degree of corrosion resistance and impressive physical characteristics of strength and edge holding. Retention in actual cutting tests exceed blades made of the 420 and 440 series of stainless steels.

7Cr17MoV Steel

7Cr17MoV Steel is A Chinese Stainless steel that is similar in quality to AUS6 stainless steel. The following formula is a break down in the steel: 7CR part means it is 7% chromium and the 17MoV means .17% molybdenum and .17% Vanadium.

AUS 6 Steel

AUS-6 steel is a entry level Japanese cutlery steel in the same class as 440A. AUS-6 was used a lot in entry level knives, but has been seen less and less in current knives. AUS-6 steel is one grade higher than AUS-4 and one grade lower then AUS-8. AUS-6 is typically hardened to RC 55-58 or so, and take a very fine edge, though edge retention is not as good as steel such as 440C. AUS-6 is part of the family of steels that consists of AUS-4, AUS-6, AUS-8 and AUS-10.

3CR13 Steel

3CR13 steel is a Chinese Stainless steel that is similar in quality to 420J2 (AUS 4) stainless steel.

Or, if you want to get really technical (see www.zknives.com):

• 4116 analysis
• 7Cr17MoV analysis
• 3Cr13 analysis