Recommendations for good knife set?

[Anonymous]

My sister is buying her first home and I want to get her a good set of knives as a housewarming gift. Any recommendations? I'm only looking to spend about $300 or so. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I love my Henkle (spelling?) knives... not expensive at all, but I'm a moderate cook, and I LOVE them! You can get them on sale occasionally at Macys, too.

[Anonymous]

yes: dont get a set. the 2 main brands are henckels and wusthof, but they both have a number of lines some of which are better than others, and all of which are more expensive because of their 'brand' (I just love my wusthof classics, but they are probably more pricey than some other brands). what you want is a single piece of forged steel that goes all the way through the handle - that's a quality knife. I'd say get an 8" chefs knife, a 6" chef's knife a paring knife, a bread knife, and a boning knife. The sets have a bunch of useless crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes: dont get a set. the 2 main brands are henckels and wusthof, but they both have a number of lines some of which are better than others, and all of which are more expensive because of their 'brand' (I just love my wusthof classics, but they are probably more pricey than some other brands). what you want is a single piece of forged steel that goes all the way through the handle - that's a quality knife. I'd say get an 8" chefs knife, a 6" chef's knife a paring knife, a bread knife, and a boning knife. The sets have a bunch of useless crap.

I agree with this - the sets, complete with the block, are pretty useless. I would even go smaller, a chef's knife and a paring knife. I have been pining over the Global knives for years, but my Wusthofs are still perfectly fine, and I have a hard time spending that kind of money to replace perfectly good blades.

[Anonymous]

i agree with this advice - i have a wustof set and really only use 2 knives out of it, chef's and paring. I do sometimes use the bread knife too btw, What do you use a boning knife for?

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the replies. I realize I should have mentioned in my post that sis is a vegetarian, so no deboning of anything and no need for any knives that would be cutting meat, etc. Does that change your recommendations?

[Anonymous]

Love my classic Wusthof. My mom has them, too, and they are going strong after 30 years of daily use. We recently bought some Cuisinart knives for my parents' weekend place and have been pretty pleased with them. FWIW, my knife knowledge comes from my grandfather (a butcher) and DH, who used to buy them for a department store.

I happen to prefer the "bolster" of the Wusthof and Cuisinart to some other knives. It is where the side my index finger rests and keeps my hand from sliding forward.

The knives we use:
* chef's knife. I generally prefer the 8", DH likes the 10". I think a 6" is useless. I only use the 10" for really large things like opening a spaghetti squash. A 10" also needs a pretty large cutting board. Unless your sister has unusually small or large hands, or cuts a lot of large squash and melons, I'd recommend the 8".

* bread knife. Also great for slicing tomatoes. 8" works well for almost all loaves of bread, including the big round ones.

* bird beak paring knife. Great for hulling strawberries and other detail work.

* utility knife. I think this is sometimes also called a sandwich knife.

* sharpener and/or steel. DH swears by the steel for straightening the blade. I like the little sharpener. Dull knives are dangerous.

If you want to keep it to three knives, I'd get a straight paring knife instead of the bird beak + utility knife.

A nice cutting board and or knife block would make a nice addition to the gift (or future gifts) if funds permit.

[Anonymous]

Wusthof is the best

[Anonymous]

22:12 here. To answer a couple questions about knife choices: I dont actually use my boning knife for boning very often, I just find its shape and size to accomplish the same thing as a utility knife with easier handling - so sandwiches, tomatoes, etc. It's bigger than paring (used for small, detail work) and smaller than 8" chef's (used for chopping). I use the 6" chef's knife much the same way, so maybe you could stick to one or the other. I think you need a midsize knife in addition to paring and big chef's (and agree with PP that 10" chef's is really too big for most people).

The only thing I might add since your sister is veg, and only if there's extra $ around and if she really cooks, is a santouku knife (the rectangular japanese one). I find it works better for really thin slicing (scallions, onions, ginger, garlic) than a chef's knife. A chef's knife is best used to chop with your hand on the blade rotating it up and down, whereas a Santouku is meant to be picked up and sliced down on something. It is lighter and thinner, so it stays sharp well too. But again, I cooked well for 10 years using my chef's knife for this - its just a really fun addition for me.

[Anonymous]

Buy a Global Santoku knife, a sharpener (made for Global knives), and something sweet (it is Asian custom that if you give a potential "weapon" as a gift, you balance the bad karma out with a sweet treat).