What Is a Kitchen Cleaver?

Classic Cleaver

• A cleaver's wide, squarish blade, weight and thickness give it strength for heavy-duty kitchen tasks but not much flexibility for delicate flourishes. Classic cleavers are used to chop through tough foods, including bone. The heavy blade is also used to mash or pulverize garlic and to crush the seeds used to spice some recipes.

Japanese Cleaver

• The Japanese fish cleaver is called a deba bocho, and the best ones are handcrafted in a 700-year-old tradition. The deba bocho has a wide, angled blade that comes to a point. Typically it has a wooden handle modeled for safety and a comfortable grip. The cleavers are used to whack the heads off fish, one of the main ingredients in Japanese cooking. They will also cut through lobster shells, frozen fish and tough foods like pumpkin and are indispensable in raw food preparation. Deba bocho easily cut through the hard root vegetables standard in the Japanese diet.

Chinese Cleaver

• Made of steel, the best Chinese cleavers are high carbon steel that is strong enough to chop through light bone and that will hold a sharp edge longer in heavy use. If you have a stainless steel cleaver, don't use it on bone because it could buckle or break. Stainless steel cleavers are fine for chopping vegetables. A good cleaver in the hands of an experienced cook can turn out delicate, decorative vegetable peels to garnish dishes as well as filet flesh from bone and perform the heavier work of meal preparation and crushing spices.

Chef's Knives and Santoku

• A chef's knife looks like a cleaver, but there are important differences. Its blade curves upward at the tip, and the spine or back of the blade is broad. These design features allow the cook to rock the blade back and forth to quickly mince vegetables while preventing wiggle in the blade that would make it less precise. Chef's knives are used for a variety of chopping, slicing and other kitchen tasks. Santoku are Japanese chef's knives that look something like cleavers. They are squarer than a regular chef's knife but are also multipurpose. They are used for chopping, slicing and thin cuts, even for fruit. The wider blade lets the chef push chopped food off the cutting board into a pot or bowl.