Get sharp when you pick knife

It seems that every 10 years I cut a finger on my left hand badly enough to need an emergency room visit, stitches —- and worse —- a tetanus shot.

When my daughter, now 11, was a baby, I cut my left index finger with the French knife I was cleaning, slicing a 3/4-inch-long cut on the top of my finger all the way to the bone. I needed seven stitches (and that dreaded shot). A week ago I was cutting onions for a stir-fry, and sliced the top of my thumb. It was deep enough to question at least a butterfly stitch (which it didn’t end up needing, just Dermabond) and yes, that dang shot.

The knives in my kitchen are very sharp.

There’s a reason for this. Choosing and keeping knives is one of the most important parts of taking cooking seriously. Knives can be one of the most expensive items with which you stock your kitchen, and there’s no need to invest in something you won’t get good use from. There’s also much debate as to which school of thought should be adhered to: Western or Eastern or, put more precisely, should you use classic French knives or Japanese?

When I attended culinary school in the late ’80s and early ’90s, only the Asian chefs used Asian knives. Now most chefs have adopted at least one or two Japanese knives for use in their kitchens. The most commonly seen is the santoku knife, which performs many of the same functions that a French, or chef’s knife would —- slicing, dicing and mincing.

Santoku knives differ from their French counterparts in that they are usually made of harder stainless steel and are shorter than the average French blade, most often around 5 to 7 inches long. The blade is flat, whereas the French knife’s blade is curved, and the top of the handle is in line with the blade for lots of finger room. Modern, Westernized versions of santoku knives often have blades cut with scallops, called kullens, that allow air pockets to come between the blade and the food, which in turn makes the food not stick as much to the knife.

Yada, yada, yada: What does all this mean? I’ll break it down for you:

> If you like to use the rocking technique when you cut, a French knife’s curved blade is for you.

> If you have small hands, the space that a lined-up tang (the top of the handle) and blade on the santoku knife provides is the knife for you.

> If you want foods not to stick as easily to the surface of the knife (say, when chopping onions or peppers, which have a high water content), the santoku is the knife for you.

> If you are looking for an all-around, general-purpose, do-anything knife —- perhaps the only one you’ll invest in —- then the French knife is the blade for you.

I actually prefer to use both, interchanging them readily depending on the task and my mood. When I’m cross-hatching onions to be minced, I’d rather use my santoku. When I’m cutting carrots, I like to rock with my French knife.

Of course all this is moot if you don’t take care of your knives and keep them sharp. High carbon knives are considered the best, but stainless steel will do for most non-commercial kitchens. Both alloys need to be sharpened often. Don’t trust a “super” stainless steel knife that lays claim to never needing sharpening. (Forged knives are considered the best, but stamped knives are much more affordable and will perform just fine if you’re on a budget.)

To sharpen a knife you need a sharpening stone; that long pointy thingie you see chefs running across the blade of their knife as if they are getting ready to slice and dice an 18-wheeler is called a steel. It merely cleans and helps maintain a sharp blade —- it does not create one.

Sharpening stones can be found at most kitchen supply stores, and these days they can come in many sizes, making them advantageous for storage. Many stones —- the best kind —- will be called “tri-stones” because they offer three sides of carborundum material: a surface grit of coarse, medium and fine. If your knife is very dull, you’ll need to start with the coarser side of the stone and move to medium, then fine, holding the knife at a 20- to 25-degree angle and moving the blade in a cross-direction with a slightly circular motion.

You should sharpen your knives every time you use them, then run the blade over a steel to remove any burrs that may have been caused during sharpening.

But watch it —- once you’re in the habit of keeping sharp knives, you may end up in the emergency room. And trust me, that tetanus shot hurts.

mford@ajc.com