Chinese cleaver

Should I buy a Chinese cleaver? Advise me please!

Who uses one? What do you use if for? Which brands are good?

For now, I mostly use a classic French-style chef's knife and a demi-chef sized santoku for finer work.

I cook mostly vegetarian food.

I use one.

What for? Mainly vegetables, but basically anything that needs to be cut into small pieces. It's also great for smashing garlic and ginger. I use a large chef's knife for larger things like cutting steaks, big fruit like melons, etc.

What brands are good?
Chan Chi Kee (often abbreviated CCK) is great value for money, though they don't look very nice.
High end? Sugimoto.

If you already have a chef's knife and you like it then I don't really see a reason to switch.

Not sure I want to switch as I like my current knives, but always looking to experiment and just gathering some opinions.

I didn't strictly need the santoku either, but I found it very enjoyable to use for lighter and precise cutting work, and now I use it very regularly.

I own pic related.

I use it for... Pretty much everything. Meat, veggies, fruits, fish. Fuck, I'll even use it to spread butter on my toast if I feel so inclined. For me personally, it makes veggie prep a little more fun than it typically is. Something about the little extra weight on the front end makes me feel a little more confident making my cuts on something dense like carrots or potatoes.

Just try and find a kitchen supply store or local Chinese market. Hold them, and pick up whatever you find the most comfortable.

>I cook mostly vegetarian food.
Eh I don't see where the use for one is here.
Chinks use it for cleaving meat and bone or hacking ground meat.
There is hardly a vegetable where using a cleaver gives any advantage.

I have one and use it when cooking for my chink gf because their kitchen doesn't use as much prepared meat as we do. Often there is bones to hack etc or if you prepare a life chicken/duck you could use it for the head (I use a regular axe though)

As the other user pointed out you don't need one if you're happy with your chef's knife. For me the Chinese cleaver became my #1, and I never use a chef's knife anymore.

Did you grow up using one, or have you switched at a certain point? Why/when?

>Chinks use it for cleaving meat and bone or hacking ground meat.

We're not talking about the heavy meat cleaver. We're talking about the thin one. You'd break it if you tried to chop bones with it.

>>There is hardly a vegetable where using a cleaver gives any advantage.
Agreed that you can cut veggies just as easily with a western-style chef's knife. The benefits with the chinese style are fairly minor: the large flat of the blade is handy for crushing spices/herbs, and the large flat shape makes it easy to scoop up the food to transfer off the cutting board.

The chinese cleaver is a multi-purpose tool like a chef's knife. The chef's knife has the advantage of a longer edge and a finer point. The chinese one has the advantage of the large flat blade. You might prefer one over the other but for the most part their uses overlap.

Cutting mechanics are completely different, so you'll have to retrain yourself how to cut things. If you're a novice, you won't have to unlearn how to use a French knife, so that's a plus.
I would definitely find someone to teach you the basics. Doesn't have to be a pro, just find a grandma who grew up using one and get her to show you the form.

How's it different? From the vids on youtube I take it's more of a chopping straight down motion rather than the push cutting of a French chef knife?
Also: much appreciating everyone's input and advice so far!

Buy a nakiri. Same applications of a cleaver but a little shorter so you can chop things easier. It is traditionally a vegetabke cutting knife.

You can slice with it just like a French knife. You can also use it in a chopping motion for fine mincing (again, like a French knife). You can't, however, use a "rocking" motion as is commonly done with a French blade.

When I was first learning to cook I got some pointers from a Cantonese friend. So a wok, a rice cooker, a bamboo steamer and a Chinese cleaver were among my first kitchen purchases. By the time I picked up a decent chef's knife I'd become so used to using the flat side of the cleaver to pick food up from the cutting board that the chef's knife was just annoying to me, because it couldn't do that. Also I've NEVER nicked myself with the cleaver, whereas I definitely have with the chef's knife. That's why the chef's knife lives in the bottom of a drawer and the cleaver is usually out.

>>chopping with a Nakiri

You're an idiot. A Nakiri is a dedicated vegetable slicing knife. It's used in a slicing motion.

The ONLY blade you will EVER need in the kitchen is the Chinese Cleaver.

It's the only blade I use, and I use it for everything.

Fuck man, you could buy ten of my cleaver for the price of that!

THE ONRY BRADE NECESSARY
TOP QUARITY

They're useful, sure. But the only blade needed? Lol. Cleaver is pretty useless for say, hollowing out peppers to stuff them. Boning out a rack of ribs. Removing silverskin from a tenderloin. Cutting bones.

For a talentless hack like me, anything sharp functions the same way. Place on top of food and press down to cut.
But, if you are going to work with speed and efficiency, the styles diverge. French knives are designed so that with the right technique you can process food (rocking motion) so that you always have contact with the cutting board and set up a cutting machine that you simply feed things into with your off hand.
The cleaver technique requires more up and down motion and generally you move the cleaver more than the food being cut.
Both are legitimate techniques for different tools and cooking styles.

altho I agree with you on most of those, bones is LITERALLY the reason a cleaver exists...

A chinese cleaver is very thin; some are even thinner than a normal "chef's knife". If you tried to cut bones with it you'd break it. It's not the same thing at all as the western meat cleaver.

People really ought to call it a "chinese knife", but it tends to get called a cleaver because most people only know what it looks like from the side and aren't aware of it's thickness (or lack thereof)

yes.
vegetable/medium grade
Shi Ba Zi
Amazon
/thread

If I can't get the rocking motion of the chef's knife down, would learning the motion of the cleaver be a viable alternative for newer cooks?

>A chinese cleaver is very thin; some are even thinner than a normal
Thats the first time I heard or read that. Most cleaver I saw from Chinese people I cooked are either the same thickness or a lot thicker.

Why would you be better with one knife if you can't with a slightly different one?
You'll have to learn it anyways.

>I cook mostly vegetarian food.
You're looking for a Nakiri, not a Chinese cleaver.

The Chinese do make thick heavy cleavers for chopping bones but that's not what people are discussing here. You can tell by the shape of the blade from the side. The pic you posted is the thinner slicing type.

This pic is the heavy "bone chopper" one. See how the blade gets wider as it goes away from the handle? That gives it more weight for chopping the heavy stuff, just like a western cleaver.

If the blade gets narrower as you go away from the handle (like your pic) then it's a thin-bladed slicing knife, not a chopping cleaver.

this pic is a very popular "chinese cleaver", CCK model 1303. See how thin it is? You clearly wouldn't want to chop bones with this. It's a slicing knife.

Ok I see now I wasn't aware of the distinction between the two.

>white people can say "gyuto," "nakiri" and "santoku"
>but not "cai dao" or at least the translation "kitchen knife"

Y'all just making this shit harder for yourselves calling it a cleaver

I have one, I only use it for cutting the top off young coconuts for drinking

It's too big for every day use, I have some smaller but very sharp knives for everything else

I have one. I use it for most of my cooking, together with a cheap (but good) Victorinox pairing knife.

I also have a western chef's knife, but it's blade is a bit thick and the cleaver is better for most things. I rarely use it, except for large cuts of meats where its length comes in handy.

>It's too big for every day use,
I have the big one (size number 1 stamped into the side). I like the size. Other knives feel small and fiddly to me.
Most folks I know call a Chinese kitchen knife a Cleaver because of its resemblance to a cleaver. I find it surprising the distinction isn't obvious. I guess there's a lot of folks here who have never watched Chinese cooks. The other great thing about these knives is they're pretty cheap - at least the ones the Chinese cooks use. You can beat the hell out of them, sharpen them with a grinder if you want and it doesn't matter. It takes over a decade to destroy one, and its replacement can be had for $25. My kind of knife.

I've had that same one for 20+ years and it is still my preferred knife for most things.

Mine is about an inch less wide from all the sharpening, but I think I prefer it that way.

I would say get a cheap one like the pictured Dexter and then if you like it you can buy and expensive one if you really want it.

you must be talking about a meat clever which is made to go through bone. Chinese Chefs knives are much thinner & lighter.

My main knife is a Chinese Chef knife also, but I think you are going a little far saying it is the only blade you need.

I would say you need:
Chinese chef knife
pairing knife
bread/fruit knife
flexible boning knife if you clean alot of whole fish

Not the user you're responding to, but your list looks about right. The only time I don't reach for the Chinese knife is when I need the other knives on your list.

ONRY CHIRNERSE CREAVER BRADE NEEDED
ONRY BRADE

In my opinion, the chinese chef's knife does all the same things a nakiri does, but better.

>takeda

oh god yes

I like my Chinese cleavers, but I find them to be like the cast iron skillet of knives. Sure, you COULD use it to do everything you want, but you're better off diversifying your equipment for ease, convenience, precision, and versatility. Since I got better knives, I use my cleavers for a lot less things than I used to. It's rarely the best tool available for a task, like a cast iron skillet, but damn useful when you want/need to use it and it's cheap and durable.

Like cast iron, there will always be some autist that swears that they use only a Chinese cleaver and insist that the rest of us follow that creed. I believe that every serious cook should have, or at least try a good French/German style chef knife and a good Japanese/Chinese thin cleaver.

I prefer using my cleaver but im not a real Veeky Forums im just a casual. I find them easy to use and the grip/ hand position is very natural to me.

I have a cheap Chinese cleaver and I like it, probably split my knife use 50/50 between it and my western chef's knife.

There's nothing magic about a cleaver, but the extra weight is handy when cutting thick vegetables, and the height of the blade makes it easy to use the knife as a scoop for transferring ingredients from your cutting board to the pan.

>The other great thing about these knives is they're pretty cheap - at least the ones the Chinese cooks use. You can beat the hell out of them, sharpen them with a grinder if you want and it doesn't matter. It takes over a decade to destroy one, and its replacement can be had for $25. My kind of knife.
I want one, what brand(s) do you recommend? I'm in Europe.

Unlike op I want to buy a cleaver for vutting through bone. I looked on the Victorinox site and their cleaver doesn't specificaly say what it's goid for. Anybody think it would be good and stong enough for the job?

You mostly use it to look like a serial killer.

The fact that the blade gets wider the further you go from the handle makes it obvious it would be safe for that.

However, it's not very heavy. I would look elsewhere. Go to an asian market and buy a thick heavy one.

I didn't show you a picture.

Also bigger doesn't mean better. I'd be interested in knowing how good of a cleaver it is.

>I didn't show you a picture.
I know. I went to the victorinox web site and looked at the pictures and specs so I could better help you.

>>bigger doesn't mean better
If you want to chop bones you want a heavy cleaver. The victorinox is unusually light for that type of cleaver.

>>quality
Like all the victorinox products it's solid quality but nothing special. And it's fairly light as far as cleavers go.

Ok thanks, maybe I'll look at another brand. I like their quality, but I need something tough and built for the job.

All of the different Chinese languages are tonal languages; the meaning of the words changes due to the inflection place upon a phoneme (which is a distinct and completely different sound to all native speakers).

There are almost no diacritics used in general written English (since it doesn't need them), so the actual pronunciation is lost even further. Thus, I can approximate how to pronounce Mandarin and Cantonese when written regularly, but because Japanese isn't a tonal language and only uses a few diacritics when writing it in Romaji, it is much easier and cleaner to say. Japanese also has way less complicated phonotactics (vowel-consonant structures on a word-by-word and word-by-sentence basis) as well.

I also personally think Japanese has a much better flow to it as a result and doesn't sound like you are actively trying to choke on a penis while whining incessantly.

t. Linguistics degree

How is a gyuto for general use?

I've tried santoku knives before but I prefer the angled edge that the chef's knife has. It looks like the gyuto is a good compromise between the two.

Pic related is what I'm looking at in lieu of just getting a Victorinox.

>doesn't sound like you are actively trying to choke on a penis while whining incessantly

Isn't that French?

Gyuto are great for general use(tojiro especially). The blades aren't generally as tall as their german counterparts so that might take some getting used to. They're also typically very lightweight, which may be a good or bad thing depending on your preference.

Hon hon hon! Touche, mon ami!

Thanks, I think I have my answer.

if you never hollow out a pepper or bone out a rack of ribs, then its the only knife you'll need. I can't remember I hollowed out a pepper or boned out a rack of ribs.

that translates to vegetable knife, not kitchen knife