All About Kitchen Knives - Which Knives Do What and How to Sharpen

You only need one knife. A sharp chefs knife does pretty much everything except for cutting bread. For that you need a bread knife.

St. Louis represent!

Couldn't say dull

I have a vintage kitchen knife (from the 60s?) stainless steel, non-serrated, wavy, 10" blade with red plastic handle. I have no idea what it's purpose is. Bread? Carving birds? No clue. Love your videos. Appreciate your expertise.

Bladesmith here-what are you doing, dude? You go through all of this great advice and then you tell people to buy a hand sharpener instead of taking the time to properly sharpen their knives? They are going to destroy the proper geometry of the knife edge scratch the hell out of the blade.

Categorized steel as "Carbon steel, German steel, Japanese steel", uses a carving knife like a saw, says whetstones ruins his knife, uses a pull through sharpener (which DOES ruin your knives), thinks a honing steel sharpens... A shocking degree of ignorance and misinformation. Dude shouldn't be allowed in any kitchen, much less a professional one.

As an engineer I'm so confused by the fact that German steel and Japanese steel are considered types of steel 😂

This is so dumb. The three main types of steel is carbon, German, and Japanese? Are you an idiot?

These day, and for the past several decades, there's no national or regional varieties of steel; every major manufacturing country can access pure raw materials from the global market. Terms like "German steel" and "Japanese steel" are marketing gimmicks that may sometimes reflect a specific composition, but they may also not. You're better off just knowing the compositions.

The tomato. My knife’s worse enemy

I can't afford any of these knives 😭

Terrible sharpeners

A paring knife is part of the pair.

You're running your Shun's through one of those sharpeners? You must be sponsored by Shun and they keep giving you new equipment. WOW!

isnt it paring knife, not pa i ring...?

I'm on a budget, which knife set do you recommend?

Good video but I'm going to disagree with your sharpener. I've not used the Henkel brand, but those sharpeners are set at an angle which is different than the angle of a Shun. Speaking of which, the hilt on that shun hone is machine at the appropriate angle to act as a guide. It's the appropriate angle for a Shun.

Chef, with respect, a slicing knife is for slicing, not sawing.

Really terrific. Knives are so sharp. Works much better than I expected

DO NOT use a piece of paper to test the sharpness of the blade. This will mess up the knife's edge

how do we prepare apple flan

Good video, very informative for what the different knives do. One bit of feedback, with those sharpeners make sure that the abrasive is still intact. I used to use one and didn't realise that mine wasn't and the knife was just going right up agains the plastic, making it more dull. I moved onto whetstones, as i felt that they are more reliable, despite being a bit more challenging to get the hang of, and have never looked back. One recommendation if you do get one of the sharpeners he talked about, get one with a replaceable sharpening element.

Never take knife advice from a man who thinks that whetstones are ruining his knives

RIP bed bath and beyond

What knife do I use to slice a roast?

Would replace the carving knife with a petty knife (the latter serves the same function and more) but overall great vid.

A lot of Chefs I've seem to discourage those kind of shapreners in favor of whetstones.

Thank you so much!!! This was very simple and a great video.

Those coarse/fine sharpening systems are fine for the "good enough" people. A truly fine nearly mirror finish edge is only accomplished with a progression of stones. Takes some time, but in the end you'll have a spooky sharp edge that will effortlessly slice thru nearly everything. Perhaps way more then anybody really needs, but once you experience the next level sharpness, nothing else will do. I will use my knives till I need to sharpen them. Typically the dull edge develops slowly over time and largely goes unnoticed. Until you have to slice or carve a large roast or turkey or glazed ham, or need to make up some jerky, then I'll get out the stones.

That knife sharpener is a good way to ensure your knives don't last very long. Those things remove a crap ton of material each time you use them. Also most japanese knives have asymmetrical edges. If you use that sharpener (it's symmetrical) you will absolutely destroy that. also looking at how poorly that knife went through that paper I can tell it's not vey sharp.

Lol what is up my comise(spelling?) earned a subscribey

Please use a stone. The sharpeners he uses can chip your knife.

Mr Parisi;
Thank you for the time and effort you have allocated to this subject matter. It has become an invaluable form of reference. And your choice of a sharpening tool. Is one I have also chosen. Inadvertently, I hasten to add. However, it is very beneficial. And ensures the sharpness, of the blade.

Thank you! I have a cheap Farberware butcher block set. How do I know when it's time for a new set?

What's gets me at times is when I watch someone with a bad or unsafe grip on a knife. I keep expecting to see blood spurt at any moment. My grandmother cooked for a living and started teaching my siblings and I how to cook when we were in elementary school. I also learned from cook friends I had in the Army and by watching cooks when I was overseas. I'm not a fan of cooking competition TV programs but I do like the cooking shows I can learn from. My mom was one of those who used a paring knife for a whole lot of vegetable cutting. One day she realized that I was handy in the kitchen and started asking me to do her chopping for her. Otherwise onion, bell peppers, etc. would be in chunks. I'd do more than what she needed and put it freezer bags what was leftover.

May i know the brand of these knives?

When I first started cooking my uncle made sure that I knew how to properly hold and use all the different knives 🔪

Went to sur la table and got myself a Japanese knife set they are unbelievably sharp and very nice knives made sure to do lots of research on care for them so they last like there supposed to

Have a Japanese Shun 4" Nakiri knife. Loved using it, until family member used it to cut large raw chicken bone and blade chipped in several small spots along the edge. Worth keeping & sharpening? Where would one go to have this specialty knife sharpened - don't want to use local sharpening/grinding shop, but someone who knows what they're doing.

Me:"OOOooo, what's that one that's curved backwards? I like it!"
Chef: "This is a boning knife for meat."
Me: ~cries in vegan~

Pealing knifes are so useless. Just get a decent pealer and you are twice as fast.
Also please don‘t use that sharpener. Get a wetstone and learn to use it. It‘s very easy to learn and the results are so much better.

Stones are used for knife sharpening so you can control the apex of the blade. Not sure if you can sharpen a single beveled knife on that thing

While I would really like to be your friend, it's bold of you to assume I have a dishwasher 😂

I just got access to amazing knives that didn't break my bank, and this video, Josh Weissman's, and Binging with Babish's ones are vital to my growth in the love of food and awe of good knives.

The 8in Crixus..review it pls

Carbon steel, German steel, Japanese steel. Oh brother. But out of respect, I watched the video.

Knives are SO EASY to wash by hand, why would anyone run them through the dishwasher???