I generally tend to use a paring knife for most of my cutting, but I'm sure I should be using a different knife. Recently I also made the mistake of trying to cut a watermelon with a big, straight-edge knife, which didn't go over too well.
When I look at knives, I see a lot of different weird-looking implements and don't really understand what they're for or when I would use them vs. some other knife.
Can someone give me a quick overview of the different types of knives that one would find a typical kitchen store, and what types of food or cutting techniques they are meant for?
Best Answer
Okay, I'm going to partially answer the initial question / title, as the pairing really isn't what knife for what food, but what knife for what type of cutting. And I say partially answer, as there are a lot of types of knives ... I'm only going to list the more common knives, as the japanese have a whole lot of specialty knives.
This is only the tip of the iceburg. I'm making this answer community wiki, if people want to add knives, or details of anything I listed. (although, if you want to organize it by use (eg, chopping/slicing/paring/etc, it might be better to move that to a separate answer, or this is going to get way too long)
Chef's knife -- has a large-ish blade (generally 8" or longer, ~2" high near the bolster), with a convex curve that's more dramatic near the tip. Its characteristic use is to keep the tip on the cutting board, and rock the handle down (preferably using the weight of the blade) to slice through things.
Paring knife -- a smaller knife (~3-4" long), used for paring. (cutting in the hand; peeling, stuff that doesn't require a cutting board). The blade may be concave (bird's beak), straight (sheep's foot) or convex (spear point).
Slicer -- a long (~10" or longer), straight, thin knife, used for slicing large items (eg, meats)
Bread knife -- a long (~8"+) serrated knife, used for slicing bread.
Boning / Fillet knife -- a thin, flexible blade, used for cutting between joints and stripping meat from carcasses.
Meat cleaver -- a thick, wide (often 4"+ tall) knife, used for hacking through bones or frozen items.
Vegetable cleaver / Chinese cleaver : a sharp, thin, smaller cleaver, used for delicate work that should never be used for cutting through bones.
Santoku -- cleaver-like in a design, but has a slight convex blade and closer in scale to a small chef's knife (5 to 7" long, about 1.5" tall). Good for general use.
Utility knife / tomato knife -- mid-sized (~5-6" long), serated knife. Good for when you need a small serated knife, such as um ... tomatoes. And works pretty well for cutting medium firm cheeses.
Cheese knives -- um ... see this answer on cheese cutting
Steak knives -- mid-sized knives to be used at the dinner table, that are either very, very sharp, or serated.
Table / dinner knife -- the basic sort of knife as part of a table setting
Butter knife -- a short, dull knife, possibly offset, used for spreading butter or things of a similar consistency.
And not knives, but related:
Kitchen shears -- look like your general run-of-the-mill scissors, although the good ones come apart so they can be cleaned easily.
Poultry shears -- heavier duty, often spring loaded ... look more like pruning sheers (that you'd just for trimming down a rose bush). They have a notch in one of the blades near the pivot point so that you can cut through a bone without it slipping. Ideal for cutting the backbone out of a chicken.
Bench knife / scraper -- a wide, dull piece of metal with a handle along one edge. It's used for dividing dough, scraping down your work surface (bench), but can also be used to scoop up stuff to transfer to another location (eg, dump in a pot)
Pizza cutter -- a circular blade attached to some sort of a handle (which might be more like a shroud). Can be used for lots more than just pizza, though. Great for cutting thin, but large objects. (eg, cutting breadsticks, trimming filo, puff pastry or other rolled out dough, etc.)
Vegetable peeler -- a handle with a swiveling sort of blade on it, but where the cutting edge is along a slit in the middle. You have standard peelers, and 'Y' peelers. Normally smooth blades, but may be serrated. Good for peeling the skin off items, cutting vegetables into ribbons, or shaving chocolate.
Mandoline -- a blade fixed on a planar surface. Used to make thin slices of a consistent thickness by moving the food against the blade.