Mike tries out the new knives specifically designed to perform well in the kitchen and not at all in the street
Foodepedia loves a sharp knife. So it is with anticipation that I attack the vacuum formed packaging on my new Assure collection of chef’s knives from Viners.
Pleasure wanes as I struggle to get into it. Ironically, I need a knife just like one of the four inside to get at them.
With ergonomically designed, matt black soft touch contoured handles and non-stick coated stainless-steel black blades, these knives wouldn’t look out of place on James Bond’s Island kitchen next to his 7.62mm Walther PPK with 4†Brausch silencer. These are cool looking knives, but how will they perform on a mission?
Just twenty minutes later, the packaging conundrum is surmounted thanks to kitchen scissors and I’m performing the first cucumber test with the 5†Utility Knife.
Lovely thin slices fall away from the blade. No disappointment, these knives are sharp. They are lightweight and comfortable to use too.
For mission two I select the 6″ Chef’s Knife. The hard-boiled egg. Lesser knives would clag as they passed through soft sticky yolk but not here, instagrammable egg halves in seconds.
The 6″ Santoku Knife lives up to its meaning – the ‘three virtues’ or ‘three uses’: chopping, dicing, and mincing, making light work of all three on spring onions various veg, garlic and portioning the resulting quiche. The little Paring knife is perfect for detailed & controlled cutting too.
The collection features an innovative new blade design, created in response to rising knife crime statistics and new government legislation, which means each knife has a square shaped blade end to make it safer to use.
Mission three: Stab a family member: It is indeed quite difficult (Do not try this at home).
But seriously – I do often end up dinking off the point of my kitchen knives whilst levering up the lid of some paprika tin or other in the heat of cheffing, so this design appeals in order to avoid that inevitability. I won’t use these on tin lids though, much too nice.
Mission Four: I had thought that getting these knives right in there when de-boning raw meat might not be so easy but there was no compromise on performance, the point formed by the end of the blade and the squared end is enough.
Mission Five: Rapid chopping herbs. Holding the squared blade end is easier than a pointy one, but my only negative is that the 6″ Chef’s Knife could do with more depth of blade at the handle end so that your fingers don’t hit the deck when furiously chopping your parsley.
Viners Sheffield origins date back to the early 1900’s and there is obvious quality here, I can see these knives lasting well through many missions. I just need some sort of black leather shoulder holster to put them in.
Assure 4 Pce Knife Set £15.99