Mark Puckey’s guide to kitchen knives part 1

Ever wondered what you need to look for when shopping for a good kitchen knife? Our head chef lecturer at Padstow Seafood School, Mark Puckey, has compiled some tips to help you.

General purpose knives:

This knife should have about a 4 – 8 inch blade. Make sure the handle sits nicely in the palm of your hand and is well balanced.  A slight curve to the blade will enable comfortable slicing.

Filleting knives

Generally, this blade will be between 4 -6 inches. A slight flex to the blade will make filleting easy, but be careful, as too much flex can make a knife difficult to control.

Chunky knives:

Perfect for shellfish lovers at cracking crab shells.

There are some great tips from Mark about what to look for in blades, but what type of handle is the best to use?

“I prefer wooden to metal handles, and most chefs I know tend to prefer wooden as we find them more comfortable for long periods of time” says Mark.