About a year and a half ago, I told my husband that it was time to buy myself a good, high-quality “chef’s knife”. At the time, all I had in my kitchen, knife-wise, was a pretty lousy set of knives that we received as a wedding gift a few years earlier. I started cooking almost daily, which of course required a lot of chopping, mincing, dicing, slicing and whatnot. Needless to say, my “low gauge” kitchen knives just weren’t “cutting,” no pun intended; Which brings me back to telling my husband that he needed a better knife set or at least a good quality utility knife. Being a connoisseur of all things gourmet, he told me that he should make sure I choose a kullenschliff knife. “Kullensch-what?” I said. It sounded like something Alton Brown would say.
Needless to say, I had no idea what a kullenschliff knife was, but I was determined to find out on my own. There isn’t much on the history of kullenschliff knives, but I found enough information to at least know what it means and what its purpose is. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far:
- Kullenschliff is not the type of knife but a specific design of the blade. It is a series of alternating oval scallops ground on both sides of the blade. These small grooves reduce drag on the knife, resulting in an incredibly smooth, paper-thin cut. The small grooves also allow food to slide off the knife without sticking.
- kullenschliff (kulle is swedish for hill; Schliff half sharp in German oval scallops (kullar) .
- Sometimes referred to as Granton edges which have semicircular scallops ground into the cutting edge that alternate on either side of the knife and extend from the cutting edge to the middle of the blade. This border was designed and patented in 1928 by Granton Ragg Ltd.
- Virtually any high quality knife maker has Kullenschliff knives.
- Make sure the grooves go all the way to the cutting edge. Apparently, if they run along the center of the sheet, they’re not doing their thing.
Armed with my newly acquired knowledge of kullenschliff knives, I set out to find the best one for me. During my search, I also learned a lot about chef’s knives in general and the Santoku knife in particular, but that’s another story. Anyway, as I was looking for a good all-purpose chef’s knife, I came to the conclusion that a top-notch Kullenschliff chef’s knife was what I needed. I bought one from my favorite online kitchen supply store and what a difference! I was so happy with my chef’s knife that my husband decided to buy me a 10″ Kullenschliff Grilling Knife for Thanksgiving. It works great! chop, dice, slice, and carve as smoothly and beautifully as can be come.