decent veg chopping knife - help needed please!!!

[teejwood]

hello - i do not normally frequent the housekeeping threads but am hoping to pick your collective less slatternly brains for advice!

my beloved veg chopping knife bit the dust after many years service and dp took it upon himself to purchase a replacement - which is a disaster. it gives me nasty blisters and seems to slip a lot. it's only a matter of time till i lose a finger so i need to buy an alternative, pronto.

can anyone recommend their fave veg chopping knife, please? thanks in advance

I'm watching this with interest. I bought some dreadful knives from Tescos. What a false economy. It just butchers everything. Awful.

I have been using the Kuhn Rikon colourful ones - you can get them at good prices in TK Maxx. I like the fact that they come in their own plastic guards too.

DP is a fan of Victorinox knives.

oh - thanks for that, berry - will check those out.

Global, but I have small hands...

Definitely Kuhn Rikon from TK Maxx

We invested in a set of Global knives seven years ago and they are still like new. They have to be sharpened every six months or so. They are lightweight and easy to hold for chopping. You can buy them individually too. Pricey, but worth every penny. We dread using other people's knives and even take a couple of global knives on holiday with us if self catering!

Was going to say Kuhn Rikon from TK Maxx too! I have a pink one and a green one.

Global as well. Love, love, love them. You can slice things to transparency. I give mine a swipe with one of those ceramic water sharpeners each time they're washed and they're like new still.

oh hello all - thanks so much for all your advice! i have small hands too and that's partly why I find a lot of knives can be very uncomfortable/unwieldy. will see if i can get myself to tk maxx to try a kuhn rikon; other than that will try and find out if there are any Global stockists nearby

consistency of recommendations in a thread is very helpful

Our Victorinox is our favourite too (they make Swiss Army Knives).

Taylor's Eye Witness Knives are our faves, but we are from Sheffield where they are from. But then, what is Sheffield famous for?

Have a lovely set of John Lewis knives. But my favourite little knife for veg is a cheap one from sainsbury's.

I have stupidly tiny fingers for someone who's 5'7" - more scaled to if I were about 5' - and I love my Victorinox paring knife. Have a larger one too. The wooden handled ones are quite thin and also very non-slippery so you get good control. There are cheaper ones which have plastic handles - not recommended.

Really ought to see how to get another one since I dread losing it.

www.povinelliproducts.co.uk/knives/peelers-and-parers/14-paring-knife.html seems to be the smaller one and

www.russums-shop.co.uk/knives-c44/victorinox-knives-c89/victorinox-rosewood-cooks-knife-7-p868 is the other one.

I got them both from Switzerland while on holiday so they were significantly cheaper than this!

ps. DH hates my knives as he finds them too small to hold! But then he's got bear paws.

If you have small hands then Global are great - I have big hands and have a Wusthof 10inch Cook's Knife - brilliant for chopping large veg as the length and shape of the blade make light work of tricky tasks. Even for chopping onions I prefer a large knife with a good rocking action. I also have a small paring knife for more delicate work - this time I plumped for a Henkels Knife as it just felt more comfortable, You need to invest in sharpening equipment but if that is too daunting buy ceramic knives which are so hard they are neither be sharpened or blunt easily - downside is that if you drop them on a hard surface they will shatter.

thanks all for the additional recommendations. i've just been trying to avoid using the bigger knife in the meantime, but we're coming into squash season and so need a bigger one. my favourite paring knife is also starting to look a bit tragic, so it's probably best to pick up a replacement for that, too.

to be fair i've had more than a decade's service from my old knives - which i think were from JL?? - so i can't complain!

redor dp does not mind sharpening my chopping knives (hence why they lasted so long in the first place), so that is not an issue. but it does look like i need to get out there and start getting to grips with the various options!!

IKEA does nice knifes with sort of soft grippy handles. they are not cheap but I love mine.

ohhh moonbells now i've clicked on the links your second one looks a lot like the one that I had

and the other one looks like the one i favour in my mum's kitchen .

but i suppose i'd better try them for size in RL if possible. will try and fit in a quick trip to John Lewis &/or TK Maxx after a meeting later this week - see what they have in stock.

thanks again, all!

I bought my Wusthof over 10 years ago - it will last a life time, it really is worth making an investment purchase if you can afford it. It is my Desert Island Kitchen Gadget.

I think Global knives need special Global sharpening tools to get the best from them - it's not tricky but if you have sharpening tools already you think it a waste to replicate.