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Butchering with a Paring Knife

The small size of a paring knife makes it much more maneuverable than a larger chef’s knife for certain butchering tasks.

We love using our paring knife for tasks such as coring fruit, hulling strawberries, scraping the seeds from a vanilla bean, and deveining shrimp. But we also call upon it for detail work including trimming, boning, and cutting up meat. Its small size makes it much more maneuverable than a larger chef’s knife and thus better at executing these tasks.

We also don’t rely on the main cutting edge alone. While that edge is suited to cubing or slicing meat, when separating meat from bones or from seams of fat, we typically use the tip of the paring knife, almost like a scalpel, because it allows us to slice more precisely.

To remove bones from meat, use the tip of a paring knife, drawing it slowly along the line between meat and bone while pulling the bone away with your other hand. The same technique can be used to remove seams of fat.

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