Good Source Of Cooking Knives

David Trammel's picture

I'm rendering down a 3 1/2 pound roast that i found in the Manager's Special's bin of my grocery store today (aka its meat that didn't sell and we need to get rid of it, lol). It was at $3.99 a pound, about $2 less than regular. That's the nice thing about having a freezer, you can buy larger cuts, like this roast, cut it down to 1/3 of a pound bags and then pull them out when you need them.

Now cutting down a roast this size to manageable stew meat, is something that takes time.

And takes a very sharp knife...

Here's a hint I'm not sure I've posted. Visit one of the smaller locally owned butcher shops around you for good knives. They often have on sale knives that the butchers have used, but have grown too short for them. What you use on a side of beef is different from what works on a 3 pound roast.

The quality of steel on these is a cut above what you would find at a big box store, and if you keep an eye out, some grocery and hardware stores offer resharpening services very cheap.

There's nothing finer than a sharp knife sliding through good beef.

Magpie's picture

I learned how to sharpen knives about a decade ago, and am moderately proficient at it. I have to say that the quality of the blade accounts for only maybe 1/3 of its usability. Of course, a knife made from mild steel will never work, but many commercial knives are good enough as long as you personally know how to sharpen them. My previous flatmates had a cheapish set of kitchen knives, but they held a good edge as long as you honed them once a week and sharpened them every few months. Certainly, they would not last as long as knives made from tool steel, but they were definitely serviceable.

The area I've found I absolutely need a very high-quality knife is for slaughtering animals (I butcher rabbits and poultry from time to time); a wicked edge is required for a clean kill. If you notice when you cut yourself, it's not sharp enough! You can't get an edge like that on the majority of commercially available knives.