Vegetable knives (paring and peeling knives) are designed for cleaning and cutting vegetables and fruits, as well as removing potato eyes, decorating and other small tasks. Deservedly small vegetable knife is one of the most popular knife models and is included in the so-called "chef's three" - 3 main knives mandatory for every kitchen. Indeed, almost no housewife or cook can do without a paring knife. According to their purpose, vegetable kitchen knives are divided into Peeling and Paring knives.
Peeling knife usually has a short blade with a concave cutting edge. The shape of the blade is similar to a crescent (sometimes it is called a Tourne knife). The blade is convenient for cleaning round and oval vegetables and fruits. The shape of such a knife is also called Bird's beak. The blade length of peeling knives usually does not exceed 6-8 cm. There are also more rare variants of the blade shape of a vegetable knife, such as for example "sheep foot".
Paring knife is more versatile. In fact, it can be used both for slicing and for peeling vegetables and fruits. Such a knife has a straight or rounded cutting edge. The blade length of the paring knife is from 6 to 10 cm.
Japanese vegetable knives are different from European ones. Analogues of a paring and peeling knives are shotoh and kudamono. Petty knives are slightly longer than ordinary vegetable knives, but they can also be used for slicing and peeling vegetables and fruits. Also, nakiri knives are traditionally used for chopping and slicing vegetables. To choose the right vegetable knife, you need to understand what tasks you will use it for: peeling, slicing, cutting or chopping. If you want to buy a vegetable knife for use in a professional kitchen or you often cook food at home, it is better to purchase different options: paring, peeling and nakiri.
