We have separate knives for bread and for tomatoes. If you love good cheese, do yourself a favor and get a cheese knife. No more slicing your fingers when cutting hard cheese or having a lopsided mess when cutting soft cheese.
By Nicole Martins
The holidays are upon us once again and it’s that time of the year to dust-off the fine china and polish the cutlery for this season’s festivities. If you are planning to do a lot of entertaining don’t wait till the last minute to take stock of the serving and cutting utensils. Appetizers often include a cheese plate and depending on what you’re serving there are specific cheese cutters designed to do very specific tasks. For example, you may be serving both Parmesan Regano – which is a very hard cheese; along with a soft cheese – like Camembert. In this case, you’ll want to set out different cheese knives: one designed to cut hard cheeses and the other designed to cut soft cheeses.
Holiday Parties are Not the Time to conduct your Own Cheese Cutting Trial
If you use your chef’s knife to cut a soft delicate cheese it will most likely stick, cling and make a mess of the cheese: Not a good party favor. In fact, this experiment was already conducted in a Cooks Illustrated trial to determine if the soft cheese knife, designed with 3 cut-out holes on the blade, really works. The answer was a resounding – yes. If you’re the really adventurous type, you could conduct your own trial with your guests. But there’s no need to bother because the soft cheese knife really works.
If you’re really aiming for perfection, you can go out of your way to have several cheese knives: hard cheese knife, soft cheese knife, cheese slicers and cheese spreaders. You can serve several types of cheeses displayed on a wooden cheese board. Soft cheeses, like Brie, look great when set upon a wooden board. Bamboo is also a nice choice.
If you are looking to do a cheese plate individually, for each guest, one suggestion is to include a slice of 3 to 4 different cheeses. Choose cheeses that represent a balance of differences in flavor, texture, and/or milk type.
About the Author
You can read more of our cheese knife review and other kitchen knife reviews by visiting: www.best-in-kitchen-knives.com
