The Chinese cleaver is the only knife you need

By Fuchsia Dunlop

The Chinese cleaver, when compared with the slim, pointed knives used in Western kitchens, may appear to be a crude and brutal object. A rectangular slab of metal with an upper edge extending straight into a handle, it’s more often associated with butchery and murder than julienned vegetables. In China, however, such a knife is the indispensable tool in both domestic and professional kitchens, as delicate and dextrous as it is versatile.

The Chinese cleaver is surprisingly thin and light if you’re expecting a butcher’s weapon. Known as a “vegetable knife” (caidao), it’s typically the only knife in a Chinese home kitchen and used for practically everything. A good caidao does almost all the jobs accomplished by a whole set of French chef’s knives, from slicing a clove of garlic to jointing a chicken. It can be used for filleting and boning (I once watched a young chef debone a duck with a cleaver, while wearing a blindfold, leaving the entrails perfectly contained in the naked carcass and the rest of the bird in one piece). Held at both sides with a rocking motion, it can reduce a pile of herbs to minute scatterings. Slicing potatoes or chopping celery is much faster with a Chinese knife than a French one and probably much safer, because you can lean your knuckles against the sheet of metal as you cut, keeping your fingertips away from the blade.