You
Hello and welcome to the J.A. Henkel's Knife Skills instructional video.
I'm Jim Schiebler and I am truly excited to teach you at home how to become skillful,
precise, accurate and confident in your kitchen using the finest knives in the world.
I have been a professional gourmet chef for over 20 years and I've worked as a chef at
six of the leading hotels in the world and as chef instructor at several of the world's
leading institutions.
The goal of this video is for you to spend less time in the kitchen and more time with
your family.
Let's face it, most of the time that's spent in the kitchen is dedicated to the preparation.
Most of the preparation is dedicated to knife skills or cutting or mincing or chopping or
using a knife in some way.
Therefore if you can increase your proficiency while using a knife, you will spend less time
in the kitchen.
This video will demonstrate every single cut using the majority of the most used knives.
Remember safety is the key.
I recommend that you watch this video over and over until you have a good understanding
of all the knife basics.
Then implement them and make them your own.
We also all have weaker areas that we need to focus on.
Therefore I encourage you to use your slow-mo and pause buttons on your VCR to really focus
in on the technique.
Then immediately implement them and watch your confidence and skill soar.
Eventually you will become one with the knife, which is the ultimate breed of cutlery excellence.
We all have this potential to reach this level of cutlery skill and I encourage you, stay
focused, enjoy the journey and commit yourself.
Good luck.
Each knife has its distinct purpose and how we grip the knife determines whether we maximize
its usage.
I am right-handed, therefore I will be demonstrating the techniques using my right hand throughout
this video.
If you are left-handed, simply reverse the techniques.
We will begin with the king of knives, the chef's knife, also known as the cook's knife.
This knife can be virtually used for 80% of all kitchen cuts.
The grip is very simple.
I grip the knife with my three fingers based on the handle where the blade attaches to
the handle which is called the bolster.
I then have my thumb which is almost parallel to the blade of the knife with a slight downward
angle.
I then have my index finger which bends at the top knuckle and then is straight to the
bottom of the blade.
I make sure that the distance between the end of my index finger and the bottom of the
blade is at least one-third of an inch to ensure safety.
By bringing my hand forward, I maintain equal balance and equal distribution of the weight
of the handle and the blade.
That is key for control and precision.
Hankles did not overlook that feature.
In fact, they have been creating the most superior balanced knives since 1731.
I remember when I picked up my first Hankles about 20 years ago and it was a magical experience.
In fact, I felt that they designed this knife specifically for my hand itself.
Let's talk about what size knife you should choose.
First of all, there are several elements to consider.
First, the size of your hand.
The larger your hand, the larger knife you can generally handle.
Secondly, the level of skill.
If you're an expert with a knife, you can usually handle a bigger knife.
If you're a beginner, I would start with a six-inch or an eight-inch chef's knife.
Third, the larger the knife, the more surface area you can cover, therefore decreasing your
cutting time.
But remember, the smaller the knife, the safer it is.
You need to find a right balance between covering enough area and also making sure it's safe.
Those are the four elements to consider when choosing the size of the knife.
How do you hold your opposite hand?
We certainly know how to grip the knife, but how do you position your stabilizing hand?
First of all, you want to make sure that your middle knuckle is perpendicular 90 degrees
from the board itself.
Next thing you want to make sure is that your fingertips are behind that knuckle itself,
never exposed.
Next thing you want to do is you want to make sure your thumb stays as a stabilizer into
the rear of the product, therefore pushing down.
And then you also want to make sure that your fingertips press onto the product.
Aren't just sitting there on top of the product, but they're actually pressing into the product.
Those four elements will ensure that you have a safe cut and will maximize your efficiency.
Remember, safety is the key.
Never bring the knife blade above your knuckle, okay?
Always stay in the center of the middle knuckle, obviously above the product, but never above.
Secondly, never feed the product towards your knife blade, okay?
Because that will expose your fingertips and increase the chance of you getting cut.
Instead, retreat with your fingers.
I do this by utilizing or mimicking a spider-like motion.
I press firmly down with my three fingers and then I bring my two fingers back.
I do it again, I press down, and then I bring it back.
I always retreat.
And the final thing is, I always cut with my knife against my knuckle.
I never move my knuckle and then move my knife.
Move my knuckle and then move my knife.
I always move it together and they are always touching.
That will make sure that you never get cut.
You see that?
I'm constantly on the knuckle and I'm retreating.
And remember, if I have a 10-inch carrot, if I begin here, I will end up 10 inches to
the left because I didn't feed the product.
Our first cut is lion's-nose onions or finely sliced.
I want to take the heel of the knife and go through the top and the bottom of the onion,
taking the root off completely.
Now to lion's-nose or finely slice the onion, I make sure that the rounded area faces one
side of my board.
Now I press my fingers into the onion itself, making sure that it can't move around or slip
away.
My thumb is my stabilizer.
My fingertips are always behind that middle knuckle.
And remember, I hit my knife and then I come down.
I hit my finger with my knife and then I come down.
I never move and then the knife.
It's a together motion.
I keep them together simultaneously.
And I always retreat my fingers, never feed, never expose my fingertips.
My fingertips are always behind that middle knuckle.
And we use a straight up and down motion on that knuckle.
If you notice, I don't move away from that knuckle at all.
And now the height is greater than the width.
Therefore, to ensure safety, I turn it over and now I continue on the other side.
And I retreat like a spider with those fingers.
Let me do one more.
Again, retreat like a spider.
Never feed.
Never lift the knife blade above the knuckle.
Press down on the onion and keep this knuckle perpendicular to the board.
Our next cut is diced onions.
Notice when I peel the onion, I left the root on.
That is key in keeping the onion together and prevent it from falling apart.
Now I utilize a stabbing and pulling motion with the onion.
I stab and I pull.
And I slap the tip of the knife against my knuckle before I pull it.
Here we go.
Remember, stab and pull, stab and pull.
Look how I go right against my knuckles, just like that.
Now the onion is sliced but it's still together, okay?
Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to come underneath.
The distance that you retreat dictates the distance of the cut of the onion.
Now I cut underneath and I bring the onion towards me because of this gap between the
knife and the board.
I want it to be flush.
I want my cuts flat.
Then I go over the top and now I come straight down using a rocking motion, just like that.
And there you have diced onion.
Our next cut is julienne, which is also known as finely slivered.
Now I take my red bell pepper.
What I want to do is I want to remove the ribs to make sure I have a consistent and
even surface.
Now what I do is I use a rocking motion.
Again, same technique.
My knuckles are perpendicular to the cutting surface and I'm rocking the blade using the
heel.
Now the heel is positioned directly underneath my hand, therefore ensuring that I have complete
control and proper balance of the blade.
And there we have proper julienne, which is approximately 1 1⁄8th thick by 2 1⁄2 to
3 inches long.
And that's also known as finely slivered.
Our next cut is brunoise, which is finely minced.
Now what you do is you take the julienne cut, and it's just a variation from that.
You just take the julienne cut, turn it now so it's perpendicular to your blade, press
on it with your fingertips, and again, using that same rocking motion and the heel of your
knife, you come straight down, cutting it into tiny little cubes.
And this is known as finely minced, or in France, the name is brunoise.
And there you have our examples.
The next technique is smashing.
I'll use garlic first.
Now there's a couple of rules to follow on this.
Make sure that the product you're smashing is not taller in height than it is in width.
Also, make sure that it's not wider than the blade of your knife.
And before you come down with a tremendous amount of force, what I want you to do is
just tap it lightly to make sure that you got it going and it's cooperating, and it
doesn't take off like a rocket.
Now once you get it to that point, what I want you to do is remove the garlic clove
from the peel.
Now once you get it to that point, again, I want you to get it going.
I want you to bring it towards you so again, you have that ability for that blade to be
flush with the board without any gap in between.
Now what I want you to do is I want you to hit it hard, and I want you to drag your knife
against it.
And look at that.
Now we have minced garlic, which normally takes you minutes to prepare, now done in
only seconds.
I'll now demonstrate the same smashing technique with ginger.
I make sure that it's not higher than it is wide, and I make sure it fits underneath
my blade.
And before I come down with a lot of pressure, I make sure it's cooperating.
Now it's separated into two pieces, which I'll split.
And again, I will smash it into a paste.
But now, ginger is very fibrous.
Notice all these fibers.
So what I do now is I line these up perpendicular to the blade of the knife, and then I just
come down with a rocking motion again, and I mince those.
So again, garlic, ginger, this technique also works for lemongrass.
What normally takes you sweat and a lot of tears in the kitchen now can be done in a
minimal amount of time.
Now I'll demonstrate how to chop parsley or any herb.
Chopping herbs is easy.
What you do is you take a motion from the back, and you go to the top of the herb.
Then you scrape down towards you, and then you go to the rear of the herb.
Now make sure your hand is not pinched on the top of the blade, but actually is in the
center or the bottom of the palm.
And that will enable you to have control and safety.
And once you learn this technique, you can then gain speed and chop a lot of herbs in
a minimal amount of time.
That will ensure safety as well.
The next technique uses the back of the knife, and it's wonderful for scaling fish.
Now you're going to see these things fly around like crazy.
They usually wind up in my hair.
And you might want to do this technique outside before you bring the fish in, because let
me tell you, it is quite the clean up.
The back of the blade works perfectly because it has a 90 degree edge, and it has the rigidity
to stand up to the scales, and it works wonderfully with this technique.
The next technique is how to fillet a whole fish.
This is a side swimming fish, fresh salmon.
It's a very large fish.
So I'm actually going to increase the size of my knife.
This is a 12 inch chef's knife.
Now the first thing I'm going to do is cut behind the gill area.
There's a little bone structure in here.
Notice also I'm using a very large chef's knife.
This is a 12 inch knife.
I always use a knife that's larger than the fish itself.
Now I come behind the gills itself, behind this bone structure, towards the head at about
a 30 degree angle, making sure that I maximize the yield.
Now what I do, once I have that, I cut through the belly, and I grab this flap with my other
hand.
Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to come down, and I'm going to twist the knife, and
I'm going to turn it over, and then I'm going to bring it down to the tail of the fish.
Now notice you're going to hear a sound.
If you hear this cracking sound, you know you're right in the zone because you've cracked
the pin bones and you're riding the spine all the way to the tail.
So we'll listen for that.
So remember, I turn my knife over, at the same time I thrust it towards the tail of
the fish.
You hear that?
You hear that wonderful crack?
I'm right in the zone.
Now I angle my knife at about a 5 to 10 degree angle down against the spine of the fish right
here.
And that enables I have a smooth sail all the way to the tail.
Now remember, I also lift with my thumb the belly of the fish to make sure that my knife
doesn't cut it out and I don't waste my yield.
So remember, I guide my knife all the way back, all the way to the tail of the fish,
and I remove my fillet.
And I'm going to trim up this white gill or fin area as well because we know that that's
not palatable either.
Trim this up so I can skin it.
Okay, now we're ready to go.
Now I turn the fish over.
I now enter the tail.
I angle my knife at about a 5 degree angle, the center part of my blade, and I grab the
fish with my opposite hand.
Now stroking gently, I rock the fish back and forth, and I wiggle the tail.
And I come all the way through until the head of the fish, and then I come out the other
side.
Now, what we do is we always remove the pin bones and then we slice fillets always from
the head to the tail of the fish.
And that is exactly how you fillet a fish.
The next cut I will demonstrate is how to cut fish steaks.
Now these steaks contain the backbone and the spine of the fish, adding more flavor
to the actual flesh.
I've already taken the liberty to cut off the fins and gills with kitchen shears.
Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to slice straight down through the actual skeleton of
the fish and make steaks.
And these cuts are fantastic for grilling or roasting, just full of flavor.
The second knife is the slicing knife.
This is definitely a valuable and essential knife to have in your kitchen.
Now this works wonderfully obviously for slicing meats, poultry, seafood, etc.
There's a few different grips on this knife.
There's actually three.
The first grip is used when you are cutting perpendicular to the surface or at a 90 degree
angle to the cutting area.
You position your fingers by having all four fingers on the handle of the knife, including
the index finger, and the thumb basically parallel to the shaft of the blade facing
at a slight downward angle.
This technique in this straight up and down motion and this grip on the slicing knife
works perfectly for perpendicular slices such as turkey breast, meats, some fish as well.
The second grip on the slicing knife is when you have all four fingers on the handle and
the thumb actually on top of the blade running parallel.
This technique works when you slice to the right such as gravlocks or smoked salmon.
A wonderful technique.
The third and final grip is the identical grip that you use for spearing proteins making
a pocket for stuffing.
I make sure I keep all of my fingers, including my thumb, back on the handle.
That way when I spin my knife, my thumb and my fingers are out of the way and that is
the key.
So what I want to do is I want to come inside the pocket of the loin itself creating a pocket.
And I want to turn that over, go through the same spot, therefore creating a wonderful
pocket to stuff whether it be mushrooms or some kind of dressing.
It makes a wonderful roast.
The next knife is the bony knife.
This is definitely an essential knife to have in your kitchen at home.
Butchers rely more on bony knives than any other knife.
If you trim proteins at home, including meat, seafood, poultry and more, you need this knife
in your kitchen.
There are three main grips on the knife.
The first grip is where I have three fingers underneath the handle.
You have your thumb parallel to the handle on top of the bolster.
Then you have your index finger placed on top of the blade itself.
This gives you precision, accuracy and control.
With your index finger on top of the blade, using your tip, you just poke and you spear
and you pull and you pull with your opposite hand.
You pull that meat.
Here I have a wonderful lamb rack and I'm just able to go right underneath against the
bones using that tip of the knife and pulling it towards me.
This technique enables me to maximize the yield while minimizing waste.
We're going to have a great dinner tonight.
The same technique works fantastic for flatfish such as sole.
Again, using the tip, I just come straight through the spine and now I'm able to just
separate the actual fillet from the actual spine itself.
Next I'll demonstrate the exact technique with this chicken.
Notice I can just go in the chicken with my knife just spearing and poking and stabbing
motion.
I pull that thigh bone right out and I'm able to go right underneath the oyster just like
that.
Let me do the other side.
Notice that spearing and stabbing motion works wonderfully.
I turn it over.
I pull that joint from the oyster itself and I go right down.
Works wonderfully for chickens.
I'll now demonstrate the same grip segmenting an orange.
I keep the orange in the cup of my hand making sure my fingertips are truly out of the way.
Then what I do is I bring my blade on one side of the rib until I reach the center.
Then what I do is I take it on the other side of the segment and I repeat the same procedure
until the rib pops right out.
Remember this technique can be utilized for lemons, limes, tangerines, grapefruits, and
oranges because all citrus is constructed identically.
The second grip is also widely used and is used mostly when cutting to the right.
It's utilized with all four fingers on the handle and the thumb on top of the blade itself
for precision and control.
Now it works wonderfully for medium sized items such as this salt.
I'm able to skin the salt with the same knife because it's a very small fillet.
The third and final grip for the bony knife is when I have my hand back on the handle
because I'm going to spin the knife.
I come through with the tip of the blade and then I aim to the right.
I bring my forefinger underneath to grab that fat and then I slide my knife all the way
to the end of the beef.
Now I lift that and then I continue to lift as I use a sawing motion to remove all that
outer fat.
As I exit I come up and making sure I come up with my elbow as well so therefore my forearm
and my elbow are out of the way of the blade of the knife.
Our next knife is the fillet knife.
The fillet knife is identical to the bony knife except it has a longer blade.
This makes it ideal for filleting medium sized fish and meats.
Now the grip is identical to the bony knife and watch how effective it is on this rockfish.
I come underneath the back of the head with the blade of the knife using an angle to maximize
yield.
Again I come down to cut through the belly and then grab that with my thumb.
Then I make sure I don't cut through that.
I then come to the top and then I spin my knife downward and make sure I fillet the
entire snapper fillet.
Skinning it becomes very easy as well.
Remember I bring that to the back of my board.
I go in with a slight incision.
I hold that down and then I wiggle as I wiggle my knife in an opposite direction motion.
Here we have skinning and filleting our snapper.
This fillet knife works great for cutting meats especially fillets of beef, lamb or
pork.
Look how easily it goes through the meat and I love that long blade which gives me a tremendous
amount of power and force.
Our next knife is the paring knife which is an all around small utility knife that you
really can't do without.
It's wonderful for trimming smaller proteins, segmenting fruits and scoring tomatoes.
The grip is almost identical to the boning knife grip where you have your index finger
on top, the thumb on the handle and the bolster parallel to the shaft of the blade and the
three fingers underneath on the handle.
You have complete control.
Examine how effective it is on these tomatoes, coring and also scoring for blanching and
peeling.
It also works great for segmenting small citrus such as limes.
Remember same principle on all citrus.
One side of the rib, the other side of the rib, I go to the center and my knife already
automatically stops.
I go to the other side and this segment comes right out.
The second grip works great for peeling potatoes and sweet potatoes and yams.
What you do is you square off your potato.
Now I hold my potato in my thumb and my index finger and my middle finger and then I come
around having my three fingers on the handle and then my index finger around the blade
and I use my thumb on the other side of the product and I just come right underneath the
skin using a semi-circular motion.
I turn the product counter-clockwise, therefore going directly under the skin and let me tell
you I have very little waste and this sure saves me some time.
You can utilize these techniques with yams, sweet potatoes and potatoes.
This exact technique and grip works for an apple.
I begin my incision and I spin the apple, notice my thumb is constantly moving across
the surface of the apple and I'm just slicing my way through the apple.
You could use a peeler of course, but I bet you I'll beat you with this technique and
if you're good you do it in one shot just like that.
The third grip works great for trimming citrus such as oranges, lemons and limes and tropical
fruit like papayas and mangoes.
First I square off the actual orange.
Now before I do the technique let me show you the grip.
I have my thumb actually on top of the blade itself with all four fingers underneath the
handle.
Now I'm able to effectively put a lot of pressure on the orange and get great results.
I use a semi-circular motion around the orange.
I try to maximize my flesh by going right underneath the skin and not wasting too much
by carving too deep into the flesh itself.
And now I'm almost ready to segment my orange.
Again paring knife is indispensable in the home kitchen use.
Our next knife is a serrated knife.
This knife works great for cutting things that are tough on the outside and soft on
the inside.
Breads especially and tough skins vegetables such as eggplant, bell peppers and tomatoes
work great with a serrated knife.
Now the grip is easy.
My four fingers are placed directly underneath the handle.
My thumb is parallel to the shaft on a slight downward angle making sure I keep at least
one quarter of an inch away from the bottom of the knife blade and the bottom of my thumb.
Now watch how easy it is to slice through this bread.
Remember holding down firmly with my other hand and retreating never feeding the blade.
The knife also works great on eggplant again which have very tough outside and soft inside.
Remember retreat.
Remember I'm slapping almost slapping the tip of that knife off my finger before I cut
it.
Pankos also makes a fantastic five inch serrated utility knife which works great for smaller
breads like muffins, dinner rolls and bagels.
Also on tough skinned fruits and vegetables like Japanese eggplant, apples and pears.
Let me demonstrate on this Roma tomato.
And notice I use the tip it's a stab and drag motion again but it's against my knuckle.
So I have complete control and complete precision as well.
The five inch utility knife works great for cutting smaller breads such as rolls, muffins
and bagels.
Watch how easily it goes right through the bread.
Using its sawing motion and its serrated teeth it has the best of both worlds in a small
utility knife.
Here I demo it with a fresh Macintosh apple which again we know it has very, very tough
skin.
Be able to go right through the apple with effortless energy.
And that is key because normally a flat bladed knife might get stuck and cause you some problems.
The next knife is the cleaver.
Generally there's two different types of cleavers.
A heavy blade for bone chopping and a thin one for mincing, slicing and cutting fruits
and vegetables on the bias.
This is the thin one which works wonderfully for those techniques.
Now the grip is identical to the chef's knife.
I have my three fingers underneath.
I have my thumb basically parallel to the blade itself on a slight downward angle.
And then of course I have my index finger bent at the top knuckle with the two knuckles
straight at the bottom.
The thin cleaver works great for stir fries when cutting on the bias.
Using the tip of the blade you'll see the complete control I have.
And again using the same techniques.
Always retreating with my fingers, using those knuckles and having complete control of the
blade.
Here we have our second type of cleaver which is the dense heavy cleaver used for chopping
bones.
Now bones are the foundation for all soups, stocks and stews.
And it's vital that you use them to get the most flavor out of your bases.
Now most of the time when you get bones you get them whole.
Therefore you need to chop them up because the smaller the bones the more flavor that's
going to permeate into your soup or stew.
The grip on the heavy dense cleaver is the baseball bat grip where you basically just
grab the handle.
Therefore keeping your fingers and your thumb away from the blade because you have all that
tremendous force.
You have to make sure you keep your hand out of the way.
First of all I want to tell you, you take your cutting board and you flip it over.
Especially if it's a wood board because each wood board has a beautiful galvanized surface
on one side meant for cutting and julienning and mincing.
Perfectly flat surface and the other side is not refined.
So therefore when you're going to put big hack marks or dents into your board you want
to make sure you designate that bottom side.
So turn that board over.
Next only raise the cleaver as thick as the bones are.
Make sure your cleaver is sharp obviously and let it do the work.
That's why it's heavy because it does the work for you.
You don't need to slam down on something that's only a quarter of an inch thick because that
increases the chance of safety risks.
So we want to be very careful.
Also make sure you keep your stabilizing hand that you're pressing down the meat or fish
on at least eight inches away from the cleaver that's coming down in its motion.
That will ensure safety.
So remember only bring the cleaver up as high as you need to cut through the thickness of
the bones and make sure that you keep your other hand completely out of the way.
Let's begin.
Now I have my fish cut up.
I'm all ready to make my bouillabaisse and we'll move to our next lesson.
A sharpening steel is your final element in your knife set.
First of all let's talk about how we hold our knife when sharpening.
We first again hold our three fingers underneath the handle, our thumb basically parallel to
the blade with a slight downward angle and our index finger on top for control and balance.
My grip on the steel is as follows.
This would be a normal baseball bat grip as I call it.
What I do is I bring my thumb around to where my other four fingers are.
This is also known as a hook or false grip.
Now there's an oval base that all steels have.
What I want you to do is make sure that the long part of this base is facing towards your
body.
So in case I do miss it goes into the steel base instead of obviously into my hand.
These two safety precautions will ensure that you won't get cut.
Now my arm is bent away from my body.
My steel is almost perpendicular with a slight angle.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to utilize the motion of my wrist and not my shoulder.
My shoulder stays fixed.
I'm going to sharpen the knife from the heel to its tip trying only to use the top half
of the steel.
Now you alternate strokes on each side of the sharpening steel utilizing an approximate
20 degree angle with the knife.
If you do it correctly you will not hear a clanging or a banging sound.
It will be the nice gliding sound of an ice skate.
So first start slow obviously all in the wrist.
20 degrees on each side.
And then once you gain confidence then obviously you can speed it up.
But notice I'm only using the top of the steel.
I'm not even coming near the bottom of the steel.
And that will ensure that you never get cut.
And you really only need about six or seven strokes.
Let the knife blade do the work.
Not the power of your shoulder or your wrist.
Those techniques combined will ensure that you have a safe and effective skill.
Another variation for those who might be a little timid with that approach would be to
have the actual point of the steel pointed into the board.
And then you utilize a downward motion using your wrist at again another 20 degree angle
just like that.
Flexibility is another element that you should consider when purchasing knives.
Certain knives you want them to be flexible and have some give to them and other knives
you want them to be very rigid without any give.
For example a boning knife.
Boning knife you want some flexibility to because you are carving in and out of joints
and cavities with proteins.
Very important that it has some give so it has some forgiveness to it.
Slicing knife again a lot of the times I will be slicing leg of lamb with the bone in or
carve roast turkey on the bone or even a bone in roast ham.
Therefore a good amount of flexibility is also a great idea and it won't hinder your
methods.
Now on the other hand choosing a chef's knife you want a rigid characteristic because you
are cutting tough and firm products like onions and potatoes.
Therefore you don't want any give to the play at all and the more rigidity we have the better.
Also our final concern would be a paring knife.
Paring knife you want a rigid characteristic as well because you are paring and you are
turning and you are peeling.
A lot of stiff and hard objects like potatoes and carrots therefore you don't want a lot
of flexibility and rigidity is key.
So keep those elements in mind when you are choosing your knife.
Henkel's make varieties of flexibility within their branding so seek those out and make
the right choice.
In addition to the safety elements the grips and the opposite hand placement that we have
covered so far in this video.
There are other safety concerns that you should understand.
I personally haven't cut myself in over a decade and I am very proud of that fact and
that's because I am a stickler and make sure that I pay strict attention to all the safety
elements involved with cutting.
Now first of all I want you to roll up your sleeve before you even start to handle a knife
because the knife handle and the blade can easily get caught or snag on the sleeve and
that can result in a deep cut.
Next is never to grab a knife without looking at it first because you never know which direction
the blade is facing.
Next never cover a knife with an object like a towel or rag because you never know what
you are going to grab.
Next is never to pick up or use a greasy knife because it can easily slip out of your hands.
Next is when you cut an object parallel to the board never keep your hand behind because
you never know when the knife is going to come out the other side.
Always keep your hand on top and that will ensure that you never get cut.
Never cut when you are distracted.
Instead first put the knife down then tend to what is needed.
Never try to do another task with the knife still in your hand.
Never clean the knife with the blade facing your hand.
Instead turn the knife over and stroke it on the top and the bottom with your fingers.
Never under any circumstances attempt to grab a falling knife.
Instead step back and let it fall.
Henkels recommends that you do not use a dishwasher when washing your knives.
Instead wash my hand with soap and water.
Also never store your knives loosely in a drawer.
You can accidentally cut yourself and storing them loosely like this will damage the blades.
There are three ways to properly store your knives.
First in a knife block set, second in a knife tray which fits in your kitchen drawer, and
third on a magnetic rack that is attached to a wall.
If properly stored and cared for your Henkels knives will last a lifetime.
Henkels makes several different types of knives all of which have the identical exclusive
construction methods but differ in handle design and construction.
Let's examine each of their four signature lines.
First we have the Professional S series.
This knife is a traditional three rivet handle with a full tang and is a true classic.
Second is the 4 star series.
This knife comes with the molded polypropylene handle which has a slight different feel and
has the same classic shape as the Professional S.
Third is the 5 star series.
This knife again has the molded polypropylene handle but also has the patented ergonomic
handle design which improves function, convenience and safety.
And finally the Twin Select series which has the same patented ergonomic handle design and
the handle is stainless steel, permanently bonded for seamless accuracy and no gaps.
Before purchasing your set of knives I advise that you sort of test drive the feel of each
of the different Henkels series knives.
Each one has a distinctive feel so be sure to choose a knife that feels most comfortable
in your hand.
The most used tool in the kitchen requires a personal touch.
JA Henkels knives represent the finest in cutlery craftsmanship.
When you purchase a set of Henkels you are investing in a lifetime of cutting enjoyment
and cooking pleasure.
I hope you learned something valuable about each and every one of these knives today as
it was certainly my pleasure to teach you about them.
Now remember stay focused, commit yourself and practice makes perfect.
I'm Jim Schiebler, take care and good luck.