Great thread guys! As a professional chef, it's great to see "regular" folk talk about gear with the same zeal as us sleep-deprived crazy souls.
However, you really don't need a zillion knives to work effectively in the kitchen. Let me dispel a few myths...
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Originally Posted by Demented
In my opinion, the minimum knives needed;
Chef's
Bread
Paring
Utility
Carving
Slicing
Boning
Butcher
Fillet
A Utility knife is the best tool for task like slicing mushrooms, garlic, radishes or shallots for a salad when only a little is needed, and cutting tomato for a sandwich or a sandwich for that matter, when a paring knife is to small and a chef's knife to large.
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I've never actually seen anyone in a professional kitchen use a utility knife (i.e. a mid-sized knife in limbo between a large chef knife and a small pairing knife), and that's because you can do 99% of jobs with a chef's knife. Anything more intricate (e.g. cutting patterns into vegetables and other fancy stuff) needs a pairing knife, or if you're into barrelling veggies (very rare other than in super-fancy restaruants) you'll need a turning knife.
Also in an ideal world you would use a serrated tomato knife to cut tomatoes, but in practice a really, really sharp chef's knife does the job just as well.
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For getting really thin cuts of roast meat for sandwiches a slicing knife is hard to beat.
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All those beautifully-cut, paper thin slices of meat in your deli sandwich and at restaurants?
Gravity slicer, baby!
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The last 3 are task oriented knives that may not get allot of use (depending on how you prep/shop), if you buy whole poultry, fish, primal cuts of beef or pork, rabbits etc. they are hard to get by without.
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True (especially with regards to the boning knife), but the vast majority of professional food suppliers and retail stores will supply major cuts of meat already de-boned, as there is huge competition between suppliers. The largest cuts of meat I have to prep are pork bellies (i.e. the whole underside of the pig plus ribs) and a chef's knife is perfect.
A fillet knife for fish is indispensable if you prep a lot of fish. You need that long, flexible blade to slide in between the bones and for neatly taking the skin off. I've tried to fillet bream with a rigid chef's knife, and failed miserably.
So to sum up, the absolute minimum you'll need is:
A quality chef's knife... yup, that's it. And depending on your kitchen, you'll certainly need a bread knife (if you prep a lot of bread, I personally don't), a fillet knife (if you prep a lot of fish, I do), a cleaver (if you have to split a lot of bones, I do) and
maybe a pairing knife if you're doing fancy garnishes (although you can just use the tip of your chef's knife in most cases). Easy!
Oh, and for the record I use Henckels 4-Star knives... I like the weight although I'm looking to change to a thinner blade...
I'm sure MPW would agree:
