/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>10787509
I read about those on Watanabe Blade's website. The hollow handle socket is a neat idea, though I wonder how often hunters encounter bears?

I do carry a "combat" sort of knife when I go hunting, but it's really more of a general purpose tool than anything else. I don't cut meat with it, I use it for general tasks. The only reason why it's a "combat" knife is that military knives are reasonably priced and extremely durable since they have to pass all the army's testing. If you want a reasonably priced knife that you know you can abuse without much risk buying a mil spec one is a good move.

I usually don't have to do much butchery in the field; when I do I usually bring a skinning knife (folding), a victorinox flexible boning knife, and pic related.

>>10713400
CCK makes great knives, as long as you don't care much about the finish. I use this bad boy quite often.

I had a no. 3; ended up selling it to one of my cooks; I replaced it with a Sugimoto. There's no question the Sugimoto is better steel and fit & finish, but better enough to justify the massive jump in price? I'm not so sure about that.

>>9209992
Another excellent product from Chan Chi Kee is pic related. Some people would call this a "cleaver" because it's big and wide but I would argue that it's really more of a knife than a cleaver. The spine tapers quite a bit towards the point so while it is a heavy knife the weight isn't biased towards the tip like it would be for most meat cleavers. These are actually knives used by Chinese pork butchers and are made in sizes from "palm of the hand" up through really big.

Sugimoto makes these too but only in one size. Theirs are much higher quality steel and are also thinner/lighter.

>>8808610
>Though anything larger (lamb, beef, etc) you'd probably want German/French

If I have to deal with bones larger than those in a rabbit, chicken, or small fish then I go the Chinese route. Not the thin slicing cleaver, but the big heavy type. I own and use several other knives that I didn't mention above; I was talking about the ones that get the most use.

Pic related & a victorinox flexible boning knife is my go-to for butchery.

>>8222003
...continued

Then there's a 3rd type, which isn't all that well known (in the West, anyway). This is a Chinese pork butcher's knife. I suppose you'd have to call these a "knife" rather than a cleaver because they do taper along the spine, but they are heavy.

The shape is interesting. The weight is not very far "forward" so they aren't as effective for chopping the heavy stuff as a proper cleaver. But, they do have that interesting point which makes them a lot more useful for meat butchery than a squared-off cleaver. They're pretty much a compromise between a cleaver and a chef's knife.

I happen to have two of these. One is a CCK, the other a Sugimoto. The CCK is quite heavy. It's my go-to when I have to process a hunting kill (deer, hog). The Sugimoto leans a bit more towards the "knife" rather than the "cleaver" and has a thinner blade. If I could only have one knife in the kitchen then that's what I'd use. But honestly, it is a bit heavy for sustained work.

>>7990113
Breh that's a nakiri, not a Chinese cleaver.

Also "Chinese cleaver" is a misnomer, as the knife Chinese butchers use for cleaving is considerably different.

>>6413833
>weight concentrated toward the very end of the cleaver.
chinese butchers apparently reject that shit and use a knife like this