Can a cook find happiness in a $20 knife?

[Fred]

Possibly. The knife under review here is the Chinese vegetable knife available from http://www.wokshop.com for $20. It is not the ideal Chinese chef knife for me but it may be just the ticket for others. Let's look into it a little.

Model:The Wok Shop Vegetable Cleaver
Blade material: Carbon Steel
Blade length: 8 5/8"
Handle: Turned wood on a stick tang
Overall length: 12 5/8"
Weight: 12 oz.

This is a traditional Chinese made cai dao. The upper portion of the blade is unfinished. It remains black from the heat treatment. Then the blade is ground from front to back to provide a bare steel segment. Finally, the bevels are cut from top to bottom. The wood handle and ferrule are affixed by simply hammering the end of the tang over the back of the handle.

The cai dao is designed to last for a long time. The very tall blade profile provides for a lot of sharpening. The primary bevels are made extremely acute to help keep the blade thin as it is worn away from sharpening. Thin is the operative word. This knife is a slicer and the blade is very thin - similar to the blade thickness of a short Japanese gyuto.

The steel is not bad. The Wok Shop doesn't provide any hardness figures but I would estimate the hardness to be in the high 50's on the Rockwell C scale. The knife holds an edge just fine.

My major criticism of the product is the flat profile of the edge. I prefer a little belly on any knife edge and this knife simply doesn't have any. It requires me to keep the top of the blade parallel to the cutting board. A little belly on the blade will make this unnecessary and make the knife easier to use.

But we're talking about a $20 knife here, not a $250 gyuto. One can live with shortcomings at this end of knife price spectrum. Overall, this is a solid, practical, perfectly useable light pattern Chinese cleaver that won't break the bank and won't have its owner fearful of loss. Also it will last the user a long time. So can a cook find happiness in a $20 knife? Yes, if he or she is comfortable with keeping the edge lined up with the cutting board all the time or if he or she is willing to regrind the bevels to provide some belly to the profile. Certainly this knife doesn't compare with the many fine cai daos made by Japanese craftsmen but it isn't something you should dismiss out of hand either.

My ratings:

Fit and Finish - 1
Performance - 3.5
Ergonomics - 2.5

And the image:

http://www.foodieforums.com/knife images/wscaidao.jpg

[Peter]

[ QUOTE ]
Possibly

[/ QUOTE ]
I own a $9 bird's peak, a handmade Solingen carbon steel knife with a beech wood handle. Very sharp, one of those knives that might last a lifetime but always are thrown away together with the potato peels.

http://www.roedter-messer.de/windmuehle/vogelschnabel.jpg

Peter

[esvoboda]

[ QUOTE ]
...My major criticism of the product is the flat profile of the edge. I prefer a little belly on any knife edge and this knife simply doesn't have any. It requires me to keep the top of the blade parallel to the cutting board. A little belly on the blade will make this unnecessary and make the knife easier to use....

[/ QUOTE ]

Chinese vegetable cleavers with a fully straight contour are specialized for straight slicing while ones with a curved contour are suited for both straight slicing and rock-mincing. There's an explanation of this in Barbara Tropp's The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking. Personally, I don't find the curve on a curved contour cleaver to impair slicing so I don't understand the need for one with a straight contour.

[Fred]

Thanks for the clarification, Ed. My experience has always been with Japanese-made Chinese cleavers and every one I've had or seen has had some belly to the blade. On the contrary, the Chinese-made ones appear to be straight. I agree with you about slicing. I think the belly assists rather than detracts from slicing. That might be a result of my Western knife orientation, however.

[Oded]

I am sure that for the additional $3740 our cook will be even happier... especially if he cqn get someone else to foot the bill /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Just take a look at This beauty (http://www.mizunotanrenjo.jp/shop/search_e_s.cgi?&file=E.01&strings=HRU01)

[louisianacook]

Wow! Check out that hamon on the back of the blade. If I was a serious chinese chef that made 55gal. drum quantities of stir fry everyday, that would be in my arsenal.
Lee

[Scott]

Yeah, but did you check out the price?!? Say the yen is about 110/dollar, that works out to over $3400 per. OUCH! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Scott

[bkrownd]

Most of my knife work is very coarsely chopped veggies for stir fry or pasta sauce, so it seems on one hand that a cleaver should be ideal for me. I like BIG peices of veggies in my dishes, so they keep that fresh crunchy raw-veggie goodness on the inside. However, having never tried a cleaver, I can't imagine how it could slice better than a "chef's knife" - it just looks like it should be used like a hammer to beat and mince the hell out of the food item. Should I just stick to what I know best?

[esvoboda]

You can do fine work with a Chinese cleaver just like you can with a chef's knife but there's a learning curve involved with switching from one to the other. I guess if I were you I'd ask yourself why you might want to switch first and then if you decided to give it a try, be prepared for a period where you aren't as efficient. I remember looking at these things and thinking they must be very clumsy but I think that's all in the head. I made fine dice of some shallots tonight and if anything I found it easier with the cleaver but I've been practicing. Making a huge generalization, I'd say it's something like thinking about your edge being "out there" with a chef's knife and "down below" with a cleaver. I don't know if that makes sense.