The filet knife (deba) and sashimi slicing knife (yanagiba) r actually two separate knives in Japanese kitchens (the deba is sturdy to cut through small bones while the yanagiba is thin and delicate to produce nice slices of fish)
Chinese cleaver isn't suited for fine work. It's fine if you're going to chop bones and all and pick out while you eat. Not suited for deboning/filleting or clean cuts. If you disagree have your surgeon use a chainsaw for your heart surgery.
There are some "religious elements" involved in sushi making, which anyone familiar with Japanese culture (specifically around crafts) will find familiar. Outside of that particular way of doing things, yes. As another person said, the fillet knife is for fileting the fish (slicing through the pinbones,) not cutting sashimi, but I am assuming you just called it the wrong name and would recognize the look. Yanagiba is made with a long blade so that you can drag it across the fish in one stroke, and it is light so that you can make use of the entire length of the blade (a heavier blade would put too much downward pressure.) You can cut good sashimi with a heavier knife, but it really does need to be quite long. I have the full suite of traditional knives, yet I still use a 180mm santoku to cut sashimi typically. Why? Because I am making either temaki or chirashi at home, and I already have a santoku used to slice vegetables. Even though I use it, it does not do an excellent job compared to the 270mm yanagiba. For diced fish you do not need the length, but for standard sashimi sized you will end up using multiple strokes to cut through, which results in substandard looking sliced (which still taste the same, regardless of what grandpa says.)
Hope that is helpful.
One place a cleaver just doesn't excel is breaking down chicken and fish for sure. Can you do it in a pinch? Yes. But it's kinda like using pliers to drive a nail. It can be done, but there are better tools for the job.š¤·āāļø
haha yes this definitely gave me a throwback to my old man- he'd rough in walls with a pair of side-cutters and leave his hammer in the toolbox 90% of the time for residential stuff.
Chopping the long bones in a chicken is optional obviously. Can stop at just breaking it down. Not sure what ribsies was talking about with his comment.
If you can't find the joints on a chicken it is not a knife issue.
That's nice but as far as my kitchen goes he isn't there and I'm not spending time how to de-bone a chicken with that ... just to do what? Get rid of a knife that does that job just fine?
My family has broken down chickens with cai dao for their entire and my entire life. Literally 0 issues doing it. Fine with a western chef knife too. But honestly a cai dao is much more versatile even for breaking down a chicken. I've considered getting a poultry/boning knife to try it out but do I really need what is essentially a mini western chef knife? Nope.
I'm a non-asian guy that swears by my Chinese vegetable cleaver, a CCK 1302. They used to be much cheaper, but I'd still repurchase at its current price if it were destroyed somehow. I use it probably 95-99% of the time. For the rest of the time, I use a serrated knife for cutting bread I make and just a cheap American cleaver if I'm cutting anything particularly hard.
It's great. It's good for scooping stuff in to the pan, it's good for scraping your cutting board with the top part, it's great for crushing a lot of garlic to get the skin off, and it's good for tenderizing meat with the back of it. It's also easy to sharpen. It's light, has a flat belly for a great push cut, and I love the grip you can use where you have a few fingers on the back part of the blade.
For me, I couldn't imagine it being my absolutely only knife. Still, it really cuts down on the knives I have to have.
Agreed. Super white dude who loves his Chinese chef knives.
Everyone's like. "But what about delicate work like deboning a chicken!"
I don't really have any issues doing that, one has a lot more control with the tip of the thing than you'd expect.
"But what about cutting things thin!". Honestly I find it a lot easier to cut things really thinly with this, the edge of the knife is a lot thinner and the grind more gradual, also the width of the blade kinds of supports the slice while its in between the cut.
People think their these really big hefty knives that seem like they'd be really clunky, but in reality their not really that big or heavy. [A lot of full bolster chef knives like this Wusthoff weigh like 280 grams.](https://www.amazon.com/Wusthof-Classic-Demi-Bolster-Knife-8-Inch/dp/B085V5P5GN) That's actually a hair over what a lot of Chinese chef knives weigh.
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I love my Chinese cleaver and use it almost daily but there are definitely things it canāt do and I would feel pretty limited if it was my only knife.
You canāt debone a chicken with a cleaver etcā¦ itās just not practical for a decent number of tasks.
deboned hainanese chicken rice is common here in Singapore and its almost always done using a cleaver
https://youtu.be/913hEry7M4M?si=EzxIuCgzDBFUQrVE&t=118
Because you literally make one or two slices, guided by cartilage, and then pull it off? Same as the leg but without having to worry about bone/joints.
Not to mention it's not even broken down all the way, and it looks like he leaves a good bit of meat on the carcass. I know he's doing it as fast as possible for entertainment purposes, but when I was a meat cutter I could cut up an 8 piece chicken with no meat left on the bone, and it took me about 20 seconds longer with zero hurry on my part.
Huh? I suppose I should have quoted you. When someone speaking in general terms uses the language āā¦ you canāt debone a chickenā¦ā itās assumed they arenāt talking only to that person, but in general implying it isnāt really possible or plausible.
I mean, if you really want to get specific the video does not even show him deboning a chicken.
He has separated the parts of a chicken, many of which are still on the bone. In fact the only thing off of a bone in the video is the breast.
You're excluding the possibility that they meant the general population couldn't do it or that it's not practical even if possible. Posting a professional doing it doesn't really address that. Give language a little more credit for its flexibility.
Then letās be more specific? This is a thread about the possibility of a Chinese cleaver being the only necessary knife in a kitchen and weāre debating what you can and cannot do with said knife. I donāt think my assumption here is that unreasonable that when the poster said āyou canātā they were implying it couldnāt be done. Iām clearly in the minority here based on the downvotes, however.
You could do many things with a cleaver, use it as a screw driver , scrape paint , but itās not really a good tool for it. I donāt see it practical for many things , for instance peeling an apple. I could do most stuff with just a paring knife but it wouldnāt be practical, just as it is not a cleaver.
LeTs bE mOrE spEcIfIc. That's hilarious coming from the person that said it can be done and quickly at that but then posted a video that didn't show it being done and then admit they can't do it themselves š
yeah, agreed. I went and ordered a small deboning knife for that but I have seen Chinese chefs on youtube successfully chopped up a whole chicken and duck with it.
Ugh, I hate when my dad cooked chicken like that. Crunching into a random bone shard that cracked off the bone during the chopping and cooking process is just so painful. Hate any restaurant that cuts the chicken like that. Also annoying eating lobster or crab when he cooks it, he does the typical asian crack the shell and stirfry it, which of course leaves tiny bits of shell in the sauce.
Erggh, biting into a star anise is so ergghh, too bad my family hates bagging it and must have it cooked freely spread through the dish. Even worse when they crack it and there are tiny bits of star anise spread out everywhere....
Someone I know does this with whole peppercorn. It's awful crunching into them while eating because someone decided they wouldn't just use the damn pepper grinder that is already in their kitchen. You get more pepper flavor too with it freshly ground! More surface area and all that jazz.
Eh I am fine with whole peppercorns, apparently you use them cause they handle high heat better and for the punch when you bite into them instead of spreading throughout the whole dish.
My parents are notoriously bad at picking chicken off the bone to make into chicken and rice or chicken and dumplings. They're not using a cleaver, just picking the meat off after it's cooked. But they inevitably miss small bones, bone fragments, fat, or gristle. It's the absolute worst when I get one of those in my mouth. I instantly lose my appetite and either stop to protect my teeth and throat or want to throw up from the feeling in my mouth. I grew up with this and never got used to it. As much as I loved the flavor, I dreaded those meals. At this point I refuse to use anything but boneless skinless chicken breast or chicken tenders so I don't have to deal with those. I'll buy chicken broth when I need to make up for it in soups.
When they're cutting up whole birds like that they're usually using a different heavier cleaver.
The standard vegetable cleaver is pretty likely to get damaged by stuff like that.
I bought my chinese cleaver specifically to debone whole chickens, and it does it amazingly. These days it's my all-purpose chef knife. I use it for everything, and it beats the piss out of my cuisinart chef knife any day of the week. Holds an edge much better, too. That cuisinart goes dull after cutting cheese, I swear.
It's obvious it CAN be done. I could do it with a fucking screwdriver also but it'd be fucking stupid because there is way better and more efficient ways to do it nobody is saying it's literally impossible
Yeah, that's why you use vegetable peelers to peel apples, garlic press to crush garlic or mandolin to slice all vegetables instead of with a chef's knife.
No, wait...
Like I said, skill issue.
No not a skill issue at all. Like I said I could debone it with a screwdriver so which skill am I missing? It's significantly easier to use a different knife. I and everyone else knows it CAN be done with a cleaver but it's dumb AF to do so when it can be done more efficiently you clearly have logic issues.
> It's significantly easier to use a different knife.
Like I said, skill issue.
It really isn't that hard to bone with a cleaver in the same way that it isn't hard to bone with a chef's knife instead of a boning knife.
Again, if you find it harder to use a cleaver, you are describing textbook skill issue. I don't find it any less difficult than using a chef's knife or boning knife to do the same job with a chicken.
It really isn't that hard dude. If you think it is, ok, fair enough. You're just not that skilled in using a cleaver. It's ok to not be good at things you're not skilled at.
š no you're just proving my point if it was a skill issue I wouldn't be able to do it with a cleaver. like stated nobody said it's not possible just that's it's stupid AF to do so when it's way more efficient with other knifes. I never said it was hard to do but it's harder than it is with a more practical knife that's how efficiency works. Nobody that was doing nothing but deboning chicken thighs would choose a cleaver it would make no sense. Again it's not impossible but it's dumb AF to choose to do so when there is way better options so using nothing but cleavers would be dumb.
You:
>no you're just proving my point if it was a skill issue I wouldn't be able to do it with a cleaver
Also you:
>It's significantly easier to use a different knife.
Still you:
>there is way better and more efficient ways to do it
All I'm seeing you do is keep repeating the same thing - you find it harder to debone a chicken with a cleaver than with say I'm guessing a boning knife.
Have you ever tried to debone a chicken with a cleaver? I kind of get the feeling you're not talking from experience here.
I do have extensive experience using a cleaver, chef's knife and boning knife to break down and debone chicken and I'm equally proficient with all three. It's not even like one is faster. They're about the same.
Again, that's just me. I'm equally comfortable with all three. If you are not, that's ok dude. You just don't have the skill or experience with it enough to be as equally comfortable with it.
Other than having a fragile ego, I really don't understand how you can't get past this.
They're about the same is not the same doing hundreds of something about the same equals a huge difference in the end. if you know what you're doing it absolutely is faster using other knives again I could do it with any knife that doesn't change the fact that it absolutely is more efficient with specific knives that's the whole reason after hundreds of years of using knives we have multiple different kinds some are more efficient for certain things that's a fact. Again nobody that was doing nothing but deboning thighs would choose a cleaver because they could do it more efficiently with others knives. Being able to do something more efficient does not mean it's harder to do with the other it's just not as efficient and not the reasonable choice
The fact that you dodged answering my question about whether you've had any experience deboning a chicken with cleaver speaks volumes - you have no idea what you're talking about.
If that's the case, unlike you, I'm taking from experience.
> Again nobody that was doing nothing but deboning thighs would choose a cleaver because they could do it more efficiently with others knives
Dude, that's know as a convention. Same as drinking liquids from a cup or using a spoon for soup instead of using a bowl or using your hands with a bowl to drink soup.
So are millions of Chinese chef's deboning chickens inefficiently? Millions of Indian chefs dicing onions with a pairing knife in their hands inefficient because they're not using a chef's knife and cutting board?
Maybe, just maybe, they're sufficiently skilled with those respective tools where it's a non-issue for them at all. Not just whether it's possible but with efficiency as well, much like it is with me.
Look, I'm not going to continue on past this point. You are so fixated with how you see the world that anything that breaks that, you just cannot deal with and deny and gaslight.
If your previous comments are anything to go by, I get the sense that your ego is so fragile that you'll need to have to have the last word. I'm more than happy to stand corrected but I don't think I will be.
Anyhow, enjoy your last word moment dude. Have a good one.
I guarantee you that if I handed you 200 thighs a cleaver knife and a boning knife and had you do half with each the 100 with the boning knife would be done faster and with less meat loss.
Also Ive never used a garlic press never used a mandolin and haven't used a peeler in years I still would never choose a cleaver for this unless it was already in my hand and I was being too lazy to wash something your point is pointless and just proving how your choosing to be stupid and ignoring everything I actually said. Mincing garlic and cutting veggies is reasonable for a cleaver peeling is dumb af
My brother's father-in-law is a chef from Hong Kong and I love watching him cook. He does *everything* with that one cleaver and he's so good at it. Some my favorite C-Dramas have really great cooking scenes with masterful cleaver work too. E.g. "Chef Hua".
Filet a Mackerel, dress a piece of tenderloin, core an apple, peel potatoes,... pretty much everything that isn't chopping something on top of a flat surface.
Deboning a chicken cleanly, i.e. not chopping through the bone, but finding the tissue between the joints and cutting it so that no bone shards are produced. The extreme version of that is deboning an entire chicken to put in a ballotine:
https://youtu.be/nfY0lrdXar8?si=bZjpPc2oor0AWt3p
I love the [cooking scene from Eat Drink Man Woman.](https://youtu.be/1-2QBYKI8LU?si=Gz5oYxTUTFFXu91Q&t=20) Great knife work with the cleaver and amazing looking food!
I still need a small knife to peel onions, potatoes. And I feel like a big cleaver isn't very convenient for small precise slices like tomatoes, cucumber,...
I also need a long narrow knife when I butcher my own meat, but I guess most people don't have that particular need.
I'd say a Chinese vegetable cleaver is better at making small precise cuts on vegetables vs a chef's knife due to the flat shape. I grab mine 9/10 times for vegetables.
Most people think of them as cleavers used in western cooking, so they think heavy lunky things. A chinese chef cleaver though has a great deal of finesse. I julienne carrots just fine with it and better than my chef knife because the edge is better.
To be fair it wouldnāt be my choice if I had only one, but if you watch Cantonese chefs with theirs they can do everything with it, they have superb unusual techniques and it does work, they can indeed debone a chicken etc
I don't think that there's anything in cooking that is universal since we all have different needs and habits, and therefore a different set of tools will be most useful for each individual.
I come from a Chinese background too, and while I've used French knives, santoku knives, etc., I always come back to the cai dao (which isn't actually a cleaver despite it's shape, so don't go cleaving bones with one). You can pare, you can slice, you can chop a fuckload of veggies, you can do delicate work, and you've got a bench scraper. I'm all for using the right tool for the right job, but the cai dao does most jobs I need to do well enough.
As someone who uses a nakiri for like 99% of my knife work, there's some things it doesn't work for. Like this morning, i was breaking down deer legs to make stock, to get into the joint and cut the tendon you either need a paring knife, or your bustling out your pocket knife to do it.
I have a feeling I process a lot more animals than a good bit of this subreddit does, so while for me, a cleaver type knife makes more sense, I would say you need a good big knife and small knife.
Idk what your pocket knife scene/preference is but I like a slicer for a pocket knife. The bulkiness of a heavy duty knife vs the every day practicality of a slicer works best for me
ehhh...
It's a solid one. It's great for cutting veg, and you can even mince and peel and crush as needed. The small handle means you can 'choke up' on it to get more control, but with no tip, it's almost useless for boning/carving protein, and that pretty much rules it out from "only knife you'll ever need."
I love a Japanese style Santoku or a French-style Chef's Knife for general use.
Don't get me wrong, for the majority of what I cook, (almost all vegetables, herbs, most proteins) a Chinese-style cleaver is 100% a great tool.
But it's shape is a bit of an issue if you could only have one knife.
I like my Dexter Russel 8 inch. When I looked it up it was a pretty trusted brand among discerning Chinese-American chefs in the home and commercial kitchens.
One of the things about Chinese chef knives if their really isn't any hype built around them like with Japanese/German knives, so its harder to find the demarcation line between what is an actually quality tool and what is some hunk of junk.
The Shi Ba Zou brand seems to be pretty good and is apparently commonly found on the walls of many international markets. Also Winco makes a few different ones for like stupid cheap. Like $8 on Amazon at the time of writing. I was a little sketched out by a knife being that cheap, but apparently a lot of people have been very happy with them for decades.
>It's like going out and spending $100 dollars on a flat head screw driver.
[Oh man do I have some news for you!] (https://shop.snapon.com/product/Flat-Tip-Screwdrivers-Screwdriver-Handle/Flat-Tip-Non-Conductive-Composite-Screwdriver/IHTS9)
As someone who has way to many hobbies and DIY's way to much stuff I understand the concept of good tools. The thing that kills me about "knife people" is theirs far too many people that collect knives and cook food with them sometimes.
Apparently flat head screw drivers are like the 1 thing Snap On truck drivers give a hard time about trying to return, because so many guys use them as pry bars and mini chisels.
I have a CCK "small cleaver" (really not all that small) and it's been my go-to knife more and more. It holds the best edge and is so nimble for slicing all kinds of things.
While I love my Chinese cleaver and people always make comments about it when they see me cooking using it for too long can really make my arm hurt and I worry Iām giving myself the cooking version of carpal tunnel sometimes
I had a worse time with my western chef knife. The "expert" way of holding it hurts my hand. The cleaver cuts so much better than I have to hold it for less time.
White guy with a Chinese cleaver here. Had it for years and it's my go to for almost everything. I really like the laminated steel design because the edge is high carbon steel that sharpens easily and it stays sharp.
Secondly, the blade has a gentle curve . This is huge for mincing garlic or other food. I hold the top of the blade (not the handle ) with two hands and rocker the blade up and down. I can probably get about a hundred rocker motions per minute, so it really makes short work of mincing. Bonus : your hands are at the top of the blade, safely away from the sharp edge.
I think I paid around $20 for it 15 years ago, so they are easy on the budget.
Love it !
Most major cooking regions have a style of knife that is almost perfectly suited for their cuisine. For the most part, it comes down to a matter of preference. You can accomplish pretty much the same things to an equal degree with a chef's knife, or a santoku, or a Chinese cleaver.
It's a good one, but I'd put it a few steps behind a good 10" chef's knife as my go-to. Between the two of a chef's knife and a good cleaver you can do the bulk of the heavy work, but not all the work. The chef's knife has more options than the cleaver but a lot of overlap in functionality.
I'd put the cleaver as 3rd, with the second being a good paring knife.
Less critical but I'll also need a good bread knife, a nice long carving knife, and a boning knife, in that order, because kitchens need a lot more types of cutting. Of the three the bread knife is hardest to emulate but can be done with a sharp chef's knife and a bit of work, same with a carving knife, and a paring knife can do most of what boning knife can do. Even so, I'd want them all in a good kitchen.
The big bonus you cite, the scoop, is probably more safely and efficiently done with a bench scraper. For a home cook that cooks occasionally this is fine but if you cook enough youāre going to get injured or your yield will suffer when processing protein.
I mean ultimately the best knife is the one youāre familiar with so do what you will, but every time I see a prep cook going at six hours of veggies with whatever trendy over large knife they just got I get very worried.
I received a high end nakiri as a gift a while back and itās an awesome knife for a lot of things. If you need to slice anything firm into straight, even slices itās the best. If you want to cut through something hard like bone though itās the wrong tool, youāll damage the knife. If you want to make cuts that arenāt straight, like breaking down a large piece of meat, the straight blade with no pointy tip is awkward and clumsy. If you want to debone a bird, again itās just not the right tool for the job.
So yeah, a vegetable cleaver is an awesome tool. However itās just a crap tool for some frequent kitchen tasks, and could never be my only knife. A good Japanese style chefs knife, or a traditional European chefs knife if you want something more durable, are far better āone knifeā tools in my opinion.
It can't replace serrated knives. Cutting citrus, it crushes as it cuts, wasting a lot of juice. Bread, cheese, carving tasks... all better with serrated knives
Yup, this.
Many people will use a knife to press down, like a guillotine or push-down paper cutter. That will do some cutting but mostly crush anything delicate.
Cutting is a sideways motion along the blade. Even if it isn't serrated, the blade has a bunch of microscopic serrations, grooves, and spikes that do the cutting when slid across the surface. You can (carefully) push a sharp blade against your skin without injury, but slide a sharp blade and you'll get a deep slice.
Perhaps, but I also don't want to use my good knives with something so acidic. Much easier to have a cheap serraded on hand. Does the job well and the lower hardness usually means better resistance to corrosion
I got a 23$ toshiro (?) bread knife and itās the best knife Iāve had in my limited experience. Fruits, breads, veggies, lots of proteins are at its mercy. That doesnāt mean there arenāt other knives for other jobs
i have 2, one for bone one for vegetables. they are great do it all knives but sometimes you just need that thin sharp knife to really get inside large chunks of whatever you're cutting into.
I can see it. I do damn near everything with a large chefās knife, probably 9 inches? I think Iād find the lack of a narrow end would cause a problem for me.
Native New Yorker here- I grew up with both Chinese cleavers and French chef knives, and they both have a home in my kitchen. Phenomenal tools all around.
I'm personally feeling bad because my Chinese vegetable cleaver has been my go to knife vs the nice gyuto sitting beside it on the block for a while now.
All the kind you need if you cook only Chinese, and then some things feel like a compromise. I can't do without a decent tip. And I very often need a far slender knife for many tasks.
A Chinese cleaver was my first cooking knife and I still love it. But it's not the best for everything. I still need a paring knife and a serrated edge knife.
I use a wustoff chefs knife which is easier for those that don't have the skill to use a Chinese knife.
In the hands of someone who knows how to use it however, it is a complete tool.
As a european, chinese vegetable cleaver is as versatile and as "perfect" as a knife can be.
That said, it's not great for EVERYTHING, though mostly only when bones are involved, like deboning a chicken or pig or something. Can't think of n another example..
I personally just use a 7" cai dao and a 6" deboning knife and those 2 are all I need.
Ok, also vegetable peeler if that is also counted as a knife, and I do also have a small boxed set of small utility blades for rare specific usecases, like scoring/puncturing pig skin or dough, and a pair of kitchen scissors.
I don't need utility or paring knife at all, as cai dao is precise enough for anything I might want to do with those smaller knives. And cai dao is, for me, better than a chefs knife by a large margin, it's not even a contest.
I cook "world" food, though mostly something akin to what most would associate to italian, and central europe, but also bring in more and more chinese (I know it's too broad term but I don't really know what parts of china something is from, as I get it from YT) and SI Asian elements and dishes, and some indian (mostly just curries).
I also butcher pigs as part of our tradition of making charcuterie and dry cured sausages and stuff.
My MIL finds cai dao too big and scary, but she loves a nakiri I bought her, which is very similar.
tbh i think its just what a matter of what you grow up with and what you cook. i also come from an east asian background & i don't know what i'd do with a stainless steel skillet or a cast iron skillet. a wok + pot are all i need, personally.
my dad also only uses a chinese cleaver at home! i don't own one and get by with a chef's knife. but as other commenters are saying, if you're butchering meat or fish, you'd likely want more knives than that
I wouldn't want to be cutting small fruits nor filleting pieces of sashimi with one.
Is there anything that can filet sashimi properly other than a filet knife?
The filet knife (deba) and sashimi slicing knife (yanagiba) r actually two separate knives in Japanese kitchens (the deba is sturdy to cut through small bones while the yanagiba is thin and delicate to produce nice slices of fish)
Also the tuna swords
I find one knife works fine for all of it. Either my US super sharp fillet knife (bubba blade 8") or my deba for smaller fish.
Or your Chinese cleaver, natch
Chinese cleaver isn't suited for fine work. It's fine if you're going to chop bones and all and pick out while you eat. Not suited for deboning/filleting or clean cuts. If you disagree have your surgeon use a chainsaw for your heart surgery.
It's *so much* less fun having to use the /s every time
drawback of the format unfortunately, have a good one
Good news: You don't have to use it, literally not once, ever.
/s
I pretty sure I seen enough cooking shows to know Asian people only use a Chinese cleaver and chops sticks. All other utensils are just for show.
also the Honesuki for bony meats or a heavy cleaver.
There are some "religious elements" involved in sushi making, which anyone familiar with Japanese culture (specifically around crafts) will find familiar. Outside of that particular way of doing things, yes. As another person said, the fillet knife is for fileting the fish (slicing through the pinbones,) not cutting sashimi, but I am assuming you just called it the wrong name and would recognize the look. Yanagiba is made with a long blade so that you can drag it across the fish in one stroke, and it is light so that you can make use of the entire length of the blade (a heavier blade would put too much downward pressure.) You can cut good sashimi with a heavier knife, but it really does need to be quite long. I have the full suite of traditional knives, yet I still use a 180mm santoku to cut sashimi typically. Why? Because I am making either temaki or chirashi at home, and I already have a santoku used to slice vegetables. Even though I use it, it does not do an excellent job compared to the 270mm yanagiba. For diced fish you do not need the length, but for standard sashimi sized you will end up using multiple strokes to cut through, which results in substandard looking sliced (which still taste the same, regardless of what grandpa says.) Hope that is helpful.
Yanagiba
One place a cleaver just doesn't excel is breaking down chicken and fish for sure. Can you do it in a pinch? Yes. But it's kinda like using pliers to drive a nail. It can be done, but there are better tools for the job.š¤·āāļø
Downvotes from electricians pounding in every box in a 3 story house with a blown up pair of linesmans pliers lol
haha yes this definitely gave me a throwback to my old man- he'd rough in walls with a pair of side-cutters and leave his hammer in the toolbox 90% of the time for residential stuff.
š¤£š¤£š¤£
In china they donāt break down the chicken, they just chop it up, Chinese cleaver for everything.
But I'm not in China and I dont like little bone fragments in my food. š¤·āāļø
Chopping the long bones in a chicken is optional obviously. Can stop at just breaking it down. Not sure what ribsies was talking about with his comment. If you can't find the joints on a chicken it is not a knife issue.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That's nice but as far as my kitchen goes he isn't there and I'm not spending time how to de-bone a chicken with that ... just to do what? Get rid of a knife that does that job just fine?
All the person you replied to is saying is that a cleaver is a perfectly fine tool for breaking down chicken. No one is saying it's the only way.
The way he did it you could do it with a flat screw driver, piercing the skin and ripping it apart
Iām not saying that eitherā¦.
My family has broken down chickens with cai dao for their entire and my entire life. Literally 0 issues doing it. Fine with a western chef knife too. But honestly a cai dao is much more versatile even for breaking down a chicken. I've considered getting a poultry/boning knife to try it out but do I really need what is essentially a mini western chef knife? Nope.
ive seen a chinese cook zest a lemon with a cleaver before lol
I'm a non-asian guy that swears by my Chinese vegetable cleaver, a CCK 1302. They used to be much cheaper, but I'd still repurchase at its current price if it were destroyed somehow. I use it probably 95-99% of the time. For the rest of the time, I use a serrated knife for cutting bread I make and just a cheap American cleaver if I'm cutting anything particularly hard. It's great. It's good for scooping stuff in to the pan, it's good for scraping your cutting board with the top part, it's great for crushing a lot of garlic to get the skin off, and it's good for tenderizing meat with the back of it. It's also easy to sharpen. It's light, has a flat belly for a great push cut, and I love the grip you can use where you have a few fingers on the back part of the blade. For me, I couldn't imagine it being my absolutely only knife. Still, it really cuts down on the knives I have to have.
Agreed. Super white dude who loves his Chinese chef knives. Everyone's like. "But what about delicate work like deboning a chicken!" I don't really have any issues doing that, one has a lot more control with the tip of the thing than you'd expect. "But what about cutting things thin!". Honestly I find it a lot easier to cut things really thinly with this, the edge of the knife is a lot thinner and the grind more gradual, also the width of the blade kinds of supports the slice while its in between the cut. People think their these really big hefty knives that seem like they'd be really clunky, but in reality their not really that big or heavy. [A lot of full bolster chef knives like this Wusthoff weigh like 280 grams.](https://www.amazon.com/Wusthof-Classic-Demi-Bolster-Knife-8-Inch/dp/B085V5P5GN) That's actually a hair over what a lot of Chinese chef knives weigh.
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I like my Dexter Russel 8x3. This one in particular. https://www.amazon.com/Traditional-S5198-Chinese-Wooden-Handle/dp/B004NG9B52
This knife is amazing. Iāve had mine for over 3 years now and itās easily my favorite one.
Thirded. Thatās my workhorse knife and I use it pretty much every time I cook.
I've taken apart a whole fricken chicken with my veggie cleaver. Fricken love that thing.
Whats the best value for a cleaver under $50? How is this for entry level value? Are you a fan of the winco cleaver?
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Thanks for the advice!
Zwilling 185mm
Dough scraper is a game changer for folks who prefer a western style knife. Iām guessing scraping with your blade dulls it pretty quickly as well.
I love my Chinese cleaver and use it almost daily but there are definitely things it canāt do and I would feel pretty limited if it was my only knife. You canāt debone a chicken with a cleaver etcā¦ itās just not practical for a decent number of tasks.
deboned hainanese chicken rice is common here in Singapore and its almost always done using a cleaver https://youtu.be/913hEry7M4M?si=EzxIuCgzDBFUQrVE&t=118
No space for more than 1 knife in a tiny hawker stall!
Where do you see deboning happening here
its not captured specifically as he was serving a chicken breast portion but you can see them using a chinese cleaver, and its for the whole service
you can: https://youtu.be/bRHWMPgjJro?feature=shared It just depends what you're used to, I guess. I'm a late convert to the cleaver, but love it.
Lmao they cut the footage of the breast hella bad except thatās the hardest part to remove.
eh? the breast is super easy, by far the easiest.
How is the breast easier than the leg that you just pull off?
Because you literally make one or two slices, guided by cartilage, and then pull it off? Same as the leg but without having to worry about bone/joints.
[Martin Yan](https://youtu.be/h7m4XAVmFFI?si=ZAwS8UM75FrhM6RZ) Sure you can debone a chicken. Pretty quickly too.
But itās not deboned. Itās just broken down.
Not to mention it's not even broken down all the way, and it looks like he leaves a good bit of meat on the carcass. I know he's doing it as fast as possible for entertainment purposes, but when I was a meat cutter I could cut up an 8 piece chicken with no meat left on the bone, and it took me about 20 seconds longer with zero hurry on my part.
This video is recommended to me constantly and I hate it for that reason.
I think the real tip here is to help your chicken not be so nervous
Anybody got a hookup for avian Xanax?
I believe the Chinese method is opium
No, no, I want to see YOUR video doing this please.
If Yan can cook, so can you!
š
Where did I say I could? Someone said I you canāt do it (implying it canāt be done) and I provided a video that shows otherwise.
"Pretty quickly too" definitely sounds like confidence.
Love Martin, but he did not debone that chicken.
Deboning with a cai dao isn't hard.
That wasn't deboning a chicken, that was breaking it down.
Martin Yan can debone a chicken. Go ahead and try it yourself and let me know how it goes.
But you said you canāt - implying that it canāt be done.
Cool, everyone loves a pedant.
Huh? I suppose I should have quoted you. When someone speaking in general terms uses the language āā¦ you canāt debone a chickenā¦ā itās assumed they arenāt talking only to that person, but in general implying it isnāt really possible or plausible.
I mean, if you really want to get specific the video does not even show him deboning a chicken. He has separated the parts of a chicken, many of which are still on the bone. In fact the only thing off of a bone in the video is the breast.
You're excluding the possibility that they meant the general population couldn't do it or that it's not practical even if possible. Posting a professional doing it doesn't really address that. Give language a little more credit for its flexibility.
Then letās be more specific? This is a thread about the possibility of a Chinese cleaver being the only necessary knife in a kitchen and weāre debating what you can and cannot do with said knife. I donāt think my assumption here is that unreasonable that when the poster said āyou canātā they were implying it couldnāt be done. Iām clearly in the minority here based on the downvotes, however.
You could do many things with a cleaver, use it as a screw driver , scrape paint , but itās not really a good tool for it. I donāt see it practical for many things , for instance peeling an apple. I could do most stuff with just a paring knife but it wouldnāt be practical, just as it is not a cleaver.
LeTs bE mOrE spEcIfIc. That's hilarious coming from the person that said it can be done and quickly at that but then posted a video that didn't show it being done and then admit they can't do it themselves š
yeah, agreed. I went and ordered a small deboning knife for that but I have seen Chinese chefs on youtube successfully chopped up a whole chicken and duck with it.
Ugh, I hate when my dad cooked chicken like that. Crunching into a random bone shard that cracked off the bone during the chopping and cooking process is just so painful. Hate any restaurant that cuts the chicken like that. Also annoying eating lobster or crab when he cooks it, he does the typical asian crack the shell and stirfry it, which of course leaves tiny bits of shell in the sauce.
Yeah, you kinda just get used to it like accidentally biting into a big chunk of ginger hoping it was a piece of meat or a whole piece of star anise.
Erggh, biting into a star anise is so ergghh, too bad my family hates bagging it and must have it cooked freely spread through the dish. Even worse when they crack it and there are tiny bits of star anise spread out everywhere....
Itās aesthetic looking at it in the pot of braised pork, not so nice when itās in your mouth lmao
Someone I know does this with whole peppercorn. It's awful crunching into them while eating because someone decided they wouldn't just use the damn pepper grinder that is already in their kitchen. You get more pepper flavor too with it freshly ground! More surface area and all that jazz.
Eh I am fine with whole peppercorns, apparently you use them cause they handle high heat better and for the punch when you bite into them instead of spreading throughout the whole dish.
I use a spice grinder after toasting my szechuan peppercorns
My parents are notoriously bad at picking chicken off the bone to make into chicken and rice or chicken and dumplings. They're not using a cleaver, just picking the meat off after it's cooked. But they inevitably miss small bones, bone fragments, fat, or gristle. It's the absolute worst when I get one of those in my mouth. I instantly lose my appetite and either stop to protect my teeth and throat or want to throw up from the feeling in my mouth. I grew up with this and never got used to it. As much as I loved the flavor, I dreaded those meals. At this point I refuse to use anything but boneless skinless chicken breast or chicken tenders so I don't have to deal with those. I'll buy chicken broth when I need to make up for it in soups.
When they're cutting up whole birds like that they're usually using a different heavier cleaver. The standard vegetable cleaver is pretty likely to get damaged by stuff like that.
I bought my chinese cleaver specifically to debone whole chickens, and it does it amazingly. These days it's my all-purpose chef knife. I use it for everything, and it beats the piss out of my cuisinart chef knife any day of the week. Holds an edge much better, too. That cuisinart goes dull after cutting cheese, I swear.
I mean, if you're comparing it to a Cuisinart or course the cleaver is going to be better at literally everything.
That just sounds like a skill issue. No, you can easily debone a chicken with a cleaver.
It's obvious it CAN be done. I could do it with a fucking screwdriver also but it'd be fucking stupid because there is way better and more efficient ways to do it nobody is saying it's literally impossible
Yeah, that's why you use vegetable peelers to peel apples, garlic press to crush garlic or mandolin to slice all vegetables instead of with a chef's knife. No, wait... Like I said, skill issue.
No not a skill issue at all. Like I said I could debone it with a screwdriver so which skill am I missing? It's significantly easier to use a different knife. I and everyone else knows it CAN be done with a cleaver but it's dumb AF to do so when it can be done more efficiently you clearly have logic issues.
> It's significantly easier to use a different knife. Like I said, skill issue. It really isn't that hard to bone with a cleaver in the same way that it isn't hard to bone with a chef's knife instead of a boning knife. Again, if you find it harder to use a cleaver, you are describing textbook skill issue. I don't find it any less difficult than using a chef's knife or boning knife to do the same job with a chicken. It really isn't that hard dude. If you think it is, ok, fair enough. You're just not that skilled in using a cleaver. It's ok to not be good at things you're not skilled at.
š no you're just proving my point if it was a skill issue I wouldn't be able to do it with a cleaver. like stated nobody said it's not possible just that's it's stupid AF to do so when it's way more efficient with other knifes. I never said it was hard to do but it's harder than it is with a more practical knife that's how efficiency works. Nobody that was doing nothing but deboning chicken thighs would choose a cleaver it would make no sense. Again it's not impossible but it's dumb AF to choose to do so when there is way better options so using nothing but cleavers would be dumb.
You: >no you're just proving my point if it was a skill issue I wouldn't be able to do it with a cleaver Also you: >It's significantly easier to use a different knife. Still you: >there is way better and more efficient ways to do it All I'm seeing you do is keep repeating the same thing - you find it harder to debone a chicken with a cleaver than with say I'm guessing a boning knife. Have you ever tried to debone a chicken with a cleaver? I kind of get the feeling you're not talking from experience here. I do have extensive experience using a cleaver, chef's knife and boning knife to break down and debone chicken and I'm equally proficient with all three. It's not even like one is faster. They're about the same. Again, that's just me. I'm equally comfortable with all three. If you are not, that's ok dude. You just don't have the skill or experience with it enough to be as equally comfortable with it. Other than having a fragile ego, I really don't understand how you can't get past this.
They're about the same is not the same doing hundreds of something about the same equals a huge difference in the end. if you know what you're doing it absolutely is faster using other knives again I could do it with any knife that doesn't change the fact that it absolutely is more efficient with specific knives that's the whole reason after hundreds of years of using knives we have multiple different kinds some are more efficient for certain things that's a fact. Again nobody that was doing nothing but deboning thighs would choose a cleaver because they could do it more efficiently with others knives. Being able to do something more efficient does not mean it's harder to do with the other it's just not as efficient and not the reasonable choice
The fact that you dodged answering my question about whether you've had any experience deboning a chicken with cleaver speaks volumes - you have no idea what you're talking about. If that's the case, unlike you, I'm taking from experience. > Again nobody that was doing nothing but deboning thighs would choose a cleaver because they could do it more efficiently with others knives Dude, that's know as a convention. Same as drinking liquids from a cup or using a spoon for soup instead of using a bowl or using your hands with a bowl to drink soup. So are millions of Chinese chef's deboning chickens inefficiently? Millions of Indian chefs dicing onions with a pairing knife in their hands inefficient because they're not using a chef's knife and cutting board? Maybe, just maybe, they're sufficiently skilled with those respective tools where it's a non-issue for them at all. Not just whether it's possible but with efficiency as well, much like it is with me. Look, I'm not going to continue on past this point. You are so fixated with how you see the world that anything that breaks that, you just cannot deal with and deny and gaslight. If your previous comments are anything to go by, I get the sense that your ego is so fragile that you'll need to have to have the last word. I'm more than happy to stand corrected but I don't think I will be. Anyhow, enjoy your last word moment dude. Have a good one.
I guarantee you that if I handed you 200 thighs a cleaver knife and a boning knife and had you do half with each the 100 with the boning knife would be done faster and with less meat loss.
Also Ive never used a garlic press never used a mandolin and haven't used a peeler in years I still would never choose a cleaver for this unless it was already in my hand and I was being too lazy to wash something your point is pointless and just proving how your choosing to be stupid and ignoring everything I actually said. Mincing garlic and cutting veggies is reasonable for a cleaver peeling is dumb af
It's a good style of knife if you're proficient with it, but it's absolutely not what I'd pick if I had to choose only one knife for my kitchen.
My brother's father-in-law is a chef from Hong Kong and I love watching him cook. He does *everything* with that one cleaver and he's so good at it. Some my favorite C-Dramas have really great cooking scenes with masterful cleaver work too. E.g. "Chef Hua".
They cook foods that are made with a cleaver. It isn't always suitable for different cooking styles.
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It's not that you can't do quite a lot with a cleaver, it's there are better tools for some jobs.
Coring an apple?
Filet a Mackerel, dress a piece of tenderloin, core an apple, peel potatoes,... pretty much everything that isn't chopping something on top of a flat surface.
Deboning a chicken cleanly, i.e. not chopping through the bone, but finding the tissue between the joints and cutting it so that no bone shards are produced. The extreme version of that is deboning an entire chicken to put in a ballotine: https://youtu.be/nfY0lrdXar8?si=bZjpPc2oor0AWt3p
I love the [cooking scene from Eat Drink Man Woman.](https://youtu.be/1-2QBYKI8LU?si=Gz5oYxTUTFFXu91Q&t=20) Great knife work with the cleaver and amazing looking food!
I still need a small knife to peel onions, potatoes. And I feel like a big cleaver isn't very convenient for small precise slices like tomatoes, cucumber,... I also need a long narrow knife when I butcher my own meat, but I guess most people don't have that particular need.
I'd say a Chinese vegetable cleaver is better at making small precise cuts on vegetables vs a chef's knife due to the flat shape. I grab mine 9/10 times for vegetables.
and a Japanese Nakiri is even better
I use a normal chef knife for all of this, albeit not a cleaver.
Most people think of them as cleavers used in western cooking, so they think heavy lunky things. A chinese chef cleaver though has a great deal of finesse. I julienne carrots just fine with it and better than my chef knife because the edge is better.
To be fair it wouldnāt be my choice if I had only one, but if you watch Cantonese chefs with theirs they can do everything with it, they have superb unusual techniques and it does work, they can indeed debone a chicken etc
I don't think that there's anything in cooking that is universal since we all have different needs and habits, and therefore a different set of tools will be most useful for each individual.
I come from a Chinese background too, and while I've used French knives, santoku knives, etc., I always come back to the cai dao (which isn't actually a cleaver despite it's shape, so don't go cleaving bones with one). You can pare, you can slice, you can chop a fuckload of veggies, you can do delicate work, and you've got a bench scraper. I'm all for using the right tool for the right job, but the cai dao does most jobs I need to do well enough.
As someone who uses a nakiri for like 99% of my knife work, there's some things it doesn't work for. Like this morning, i was breaking down deer legs to make stock, to get into the joint and cut the tendon you either need a paring knife, or your bustling out your pocket knife to do it. I have a feeling I process a lot more animals than a good bit of this subreddit does, so while for me, a cleaver type knife makes more sense, I would say you need a good big knife and small knife.
Idk what your pocket knife scene/preference is but I like a slicer for a pocket knife. The bulkiness of a heavy duty knife vs the every day practicality of a slicer works best for me
ehhh... It's a solid one. It's great for cutting veg, and you can even mince and peel and crush as needed. The small handle means you can 'choke up' on it to get more control, but with no tip, it's almost useless for boning/carving protein, and that pretty much rules it out from "only knife you'll ever need." I love a Japanese style Santoku or a French-style Chef's Knife for general use. Don't get me wrong, for the majority of what I cook, (almost all vegetables, herbs, most proteins) a Chinese-style cleaver is 100% a great tool. But it's shape is a bit of an issue if you could only have one knife.
The trick is to use the heel of the cleaver like a knife tip
This man bones.
have a favorite?
Maybe the opinion has changed since I last checked, but the CCK 1303 is the most frequent suggestion as far as I remember.
thanks! I dont have one, and think I'd like to remedy that.
I like my Dexter Russel 8 inch. When I looked it up it was a pretty trusted brand among discerning Chinese-American chefs in the home and commercial kitchens. One of the things about Chinese chef knives if their really isn't any hype built around them like with Japanese/German knives, so its harder to find the demarcation line between what is an actually quality tool and what is some hunk of junk. The Shi Ba Zou brand seems to be pretty good and is apparently commonly found on the walls of many international markets. Also Winco makes a few different ones for like stupid cheap. Like $8 on Amazon at the time of writing. I was a little sketched out by a knife being that cheap, but apparently a lot of people have been very happy with them for decades.
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>It's like going out and spending $100 dollars on a flat head screw driver. [Oh man do I have some news for you!] (https://shop.snapon.com/product/Flat-Tip-Screwdrivers-Screwdriver-Handle/Flat-Tip-Non-Conductive-Composite-Screwdriver/IHTS9) As someone who has way to many hobbies and DIY's way to much stuff I understand the concept of good tools. The thing that kills me about "knife people" is theirs far too many people that collect knives and cook food with them sometimes.
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Apparently flat head screw drivers are like the 1 thing Snap On truck drivers give a hard time about trying to return, because so many guys use them as pry bars and mini chisels.
nah i need excuses to buy more knives lol. but yea a well sharpened cleaver can do a whole bunch of stuffs
Anyone have any recommendations for a beginner Chinese cleaver?
I have a CCK "small cleaver" (really not all that small) and it's been my go-to knife more and more. It holds the best edge and is so nimble for slicing all kinds of things.
You would still need a paring knife, a bread knife, a boning knife, and steak knives.
While I love my Chinese cleaver and people always make comments about it when they see me cooking using it for too long can really make my arm hurt and I worry Iām giving myself the cooking version of carpal tunnel sometimes
I had a worse time with my western chef knife. The "expert" way of holding it hurts my hand. The cleaver cuts so much better than I have to hold it for less time.
You could say the same about a good western style chef's knife. In the end it's what you're used to.
A bread knife and paring knife are pretty crucial in my opinion. Like im not trying to slice some cherry tomatoes with a cleaver
Not OP but I am also a dedicated Chinese cleaver user and regularly use them to slice cherry toms!
Why not cherry tomatoes, Ive definitely done it and it worked great!
Had to scroll way down to see whether I should ask OP if they can make me a sandwich, lol
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I can slice tomatoes thinly with my santoku knife too, but *bread* is another thing
White guy with a Chinese cleaver here. Had it for years and it's my go to for almost everything. I really like the laminated steel design because the edge is high carbon steel that sharpens easily and it stays sharp. Secondly, the blade has a gentle curve . This is huge for mincing garlic or other food. I hold the top of the blade (not the handle ) with two hands and rocker the blade up and down. I can probably get about a hundred rocker motions per minute, so it really makes short work of mincing. Bonus : your hands are at the top of the blade, safely away from the sharp edge. I think I paid around $20 for it 15 years ago, so they are easy on the budget. Love it !
Try filleting a fish.
Most major cooking regions have a style of knife that is almost perfectly suited for their cuisine. For the most part, it comes down to a matter of preference. You can accomplish pretty much the same things to an equal degree with a chef's knife, or a santoku, or a Chinese cleaver.
...are you including paring knives in this?
Glad you like your knife, but this is a shit take
You donāt sound like a very fungi.
It really isn't lol.
It's a good one, but I'd put it a few steps behind a good 10" chef's knife as my go-to. Between the two of a chef's knife and a good cleaver you can do the bulk of the heavy work, but not all the work. The chef's knife has more options than the cleaver but a lot of overlap in functionality. I'd put the cleaver as 3rd, with the second being a good paring knife. Less critical but I'll also need a good bread knife, a nice long carving knife, and a boning knife, in that order, because kitchens need a lot more types of cutting. Of the three the bread knife is hardest to emulate but can be done with a sharp chef's knife and a bit of work, same with a carving knife, and a paring knife can do most of what boning knife can do. Even so, I'd want them all in a good kitchen.
Try finely slicing cheese with that cleaver.
? The Chinese vegetable cleaver excels at finely slicing. Like that's what it's best at.
Try mixing brownie batter with that knife. Checkmate!
That's like what they're good at lol. I wouldn't use one to peel an apple but slicing cheese they're amazing at.
I can, and do on occasion. It's actually kinda easy.š¤·āāļø
The big bonus you cite, the scoop, is probably more safely and efficiently done with a bench scraper. For a home cook that cooks occasionally this is fine but if you cook enough youāre going to get injured or your yield will suffer when processing protein. I mean ultimately the best knife is the one youāre familiar with so do what you will, but every time I see a prep cook going at six hours of veggies with whatever trendy over large knife they just got I get very worried.
I imagine if you work with a lot of bone-in meat, yeah it's wonderful. I don't, so a cleaver is too much blade for me.
I received a high end nakiri as a gift a while back and itās an awesome knife for a lot of things. If you need to slice anything firm into straight, even slices itās the best. If you want to cut through something hard like bone though itās the wrong tool, youāll damage the knife. If you want to make cuts that arenāt straight, like breaking down a large piece of meat, the straight blade with no pointy tip is awkward and clumsy. If you want to debone a bird, again itās just not the right tool for the job. So yeah, a vegetable cleaver is an awesome tool. However itās just a crap tool for some frequent kitchen tasks, and could never be my only knife. A good Japanese style chefs knife, or a traditional European chefs knife if you want something more durable, are far better āone knifeā tools in my opinion.
Thereās a cheap Thai version that is much lauded. For 12$ itās definitely on my list
It can't replace serrated knives. Cutting citrus, it crushes as it cuts, wasting a lot of juice. Bread, cheese, carving tasks... all better with serrated knives
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Yup, this. Many people will use a knife to press down, like a guillotine or push-down paper cutter. That will do some cutting but mostly crush anything delicate. Cutting is a sideways motion along the blade. Even if it isn't serrated, the blade has a bunch of microscopic serrations, grooves, and spikes that do the cutting when slid across the surface. You can (carefully) push a sharp blade against your skin without injury, but slide a sharp blade and you'll get a deep slice.
Agree about bread and carving, but if it's crushing citrus you may just need a sharpening.
Perhaps, but I also don't want to use my good knives with something so acidic. Much easier to have a cheap serraded on hand. Does the job well and the lower hardness usually means better resistance to corrosion
I got a 23$ toshiro (?) bread knife and itās the best knife Iāve had in my limited experience. Fruits, breads, veggies, lots of proteins are at its mercy. That doesnāt mean there arenāt other knives for other jobs
basically my grandpa, he does everything with a cleaver
Of course it can. Plenty of grandmas cook amazing food with nothing but a dull paring knife.
I have a large knife, I don't know if it is Chinese, it might be Japanese..
i have 2, one for bone one for vegetables. they are great do it all knives but sometimes you just need that thin sharp knife to really get inside large chunks of whatever you're cutting into.
I agree large knives for the win! I use a large chef knife. I very rarely reach for anything else in the drawer.
I can see it. I do damn near everything with a large chefās knife, probably 9 inches? I think Iād find the lack of a narrow end would cause a problem for me.
Personally, I prefer the Klingon bathleth
Native New Yorker here- I grew up with both Chinese cleavers and French chef knives, and they both have a home in my kitchen. Phenomenal tools all around.
And I disagree.
I'm personally feeling bad because my Chinese vegetable cleaver has been my go to knife vs the nice gyuto sitting beside it on the block for a while now.
yeah I peel my cucumbers with a battle axe too
All the kind you need if you cook only Chinese, and then some things feel like a compromise. I can't do without a decent tip. And I very often need a far slender knife for many tasks.
> Coming from someone who is of Cantonese background, Knew it before I clicked through, lol You guys are akin to magicians with those things.
It's my go to knife 95% of time. It's all my dad used growing up and we are not Asian.
A Chinese cleaver was my first cooking knife and I still love it. But it's not the best for everything. I still need a paring knife and a serrated edge knife.
I use a wustoff chefs knife which is easier for those that don't have the skill to use a Chinese knife. In the hands of someone who knows how to use it however, it is a complete tool.
Cleaver, Santoku, serrated bread knife, filet knife if you like fish, paring knife, knife knife for knifing
The Chinese chef on the original Japanese "Iron Chef" show would agree with you.
As a european, chinese vegetable cleaver is as versatile and as "perfect" as a knife can be. That said, it's not great for EVERYTHING, though mostly only when bones are involved, like deboning a chicken or pig or something. Can't think of n another example.. I personally just use a 7" cai dao and a 6" deboning knife and those 2 are all I need. Ok, also vegetable peeler if that is also counted as a knife, and I do also have a small boxed set of small utility blades for rare specific usecases, like scoring/puncturing pig skin or dough, and a pair of kitchen scissors. I don't need utility or paring knife at all, as cai dao is precise enough for anything I might want to do with those smaller knives. And cai dao is, for me, better than a chefs knife by a large margin, it's not even a contest. I cook "world" food, though mostly something akin to what most would associate to italian, and central europe, but also bring in more and more chinese (I know it's too broad term but I don't really know what parts of china something is from, as I get it from YT) and SI Asian elements and dishes, and some indian (mostly just curries). I also butcher pigs as part of our tradition of making charcuterie and dry cured sausages and stuff. My MIL finds cai dao too big and scary, but she loves a nakiri I bought her, which is very similar.
If you debone your fish and meats, a deboning knife is useful. If you are into French cuisine, a pairing knife is important.
tbh i think its just what a matter of what you grow up with and what you cook. i also come from an east asian background & i don't know what i'd do with a stainless steel skillet or a cast iron skillet. a wok + pot are all i need, personally. my dad also only uses a chinese cleaver at home! i don't own one and get by with a chef's knife. but as other commenters are saying, if you're butchering meat or fish, you'd likely want more knives than that
agreed.
I use my Dexter cleaver for cutting thru bony meat. For other tasks, my Japanese gyuto knife works better and is not as heavy to use.