Initial findings on Shun Elite 8" Chef's Knife by Kershaw/KAI

Great pics and review Thom. Glad I finally found out about this thread. Thanks for the heads up Thomas.

Anyway sounds like you will be needing more food stock so you have some more stuff to cut up with your knife there bud.

I never got excited about kitchen cutlery until I saw the first couple of pages in the Kershaw catalog. Now thats exciting cutlery! Leave it to Ken to light up the kitchen with knives. I stop at a Case store off Hwy. 44 on th way to St. Louis everytime I drive home to see whats new in sporting and other cutlery and take a break from the road as I shop. This store has a lot of kitchen ware but I can't remember ever seeing anything that interested me enough to draw me to it to handle it. Boy, if I had a store where those Onion or Shun Elite SGII steel knives were on display along side even half of the rest of Kershaw's kitchen and food prep cutlery I'm sure I'd be like a kid in a candy store.

STR
 
Hi Steve!

If you want, I can let you know when threads like Sal's wharnie/steel thread are going on.

Paring knife is next on the list, but there's so much to do with the chef's knife, too. Need to start cooking a lot more....
 
The weekend is starting some time tonight and my wifey told me the Shun Elite paring knife just showed up.

Muahahahahaha
 
I have the 10" Shun Elite Steak Knife. I have noticed a miniscule improvement over the Shun Classic, but haven't needed to sharpen yet. It may hold the edge much longer. I must say that the aesthetics are awesome. A hammon line and a pin medallion... complete overkill. And do we really need RC 64-66 to cut 'taters?

I don't care, though, I am all about overkill. I won't buy the full elite set, though. I have limited usage for a bread knife of that caliber... am interested in the paring knife and the Santoku as well as the shorter chef's knife. I have the Yanagiba and again, that is overkill given that I will probably only use it to cut steaks and possibly doing some deboning and gristle/sinew removal.
Let us know how the paring knife goes.
 
Thomas W said:
Ummm......were you going to share your paring knife thoughts? Mmeeooww.
Click to expand...

No kitty medallions or any real cooking since the eggplant parm, but... ...my wifey suggested I make some Italian wedding soup (Zuppa di Scarole) to get my fill of chopping and slicing goodness. That may be this weekend if I'm lucky.

update:

No soup for me. Soup is for Saturdays only and not this one.
 
Today, the Kershaw Shun Elite 8" Chef's Knife was joined by the Kershaw Shun Elite Paring Knife. Fajita wraps were made.

The paring knife (which is the second knife to score a 100 on the Edge-Tester in my house; a Razor Edge Systems product - not the cat) did so well at trimming gristle from the chicken breast that I thought I'd see how well it sliced the chicken. Like the Chef's Knife, the paring knife is reluctant on push cuts and has the wanton abandon of Teddy Kennedy at an open bar on slices.

There was no iceberg lettuce at the supermarket today (Romaine, Belgian endive, Boston, no iceberg), so the Chef's Knife was denied meat and denied lettuce. The poor tomato got cubed almost instantly.

Thankfully, we're having a roast soon, so the Kershaw Shun Elite can take out its pent up bloodlust on some carrots, spuds, and bottom round.

The incredibly thin edges of the Shun Elite knives make cutting the mindless pleasure it's supposed to be and the high-hardness SG-2 powder steel keeps those edges in line. The confidence they inspire comes through in the cooking. I know because my wifey complimented my cooking instead of forbidding me to cook another dish.

The paring knife, btw, has a nice palm swell for added comfort and security.
 
:D

Pics of the parer?
And you should, if you are not already, considered a vocation using your writing skills in some capacity. Terrific! :)
 
Thomas W said:
Ummm......were you going to share your paring knife thoughts? Mmeeooww.
Click to expand...

Hey Thomas W, I have a question on the Shun Elites. I have a 10" Chef's knife and the 9" Yanagiba and like Thom, I LOVE them. At this point, the primary difference between the Elites and Classics are aesthetic with the big difference being the more comfortable handles (haven't owned it long enough to know the edge-holding difference), which brings me to my question...

Why the smaller handle on the Yanagiba? I use it as a carving knife and it seems like the smaller handle would be more comfortable... but since it is only a carving knife, I won't use it terribly often, so this is less a concern. Is the handle smaller to allow for more intricate cuts, or would the tang just not fit a larger handle.

Thanks and keep up the good work... wish the Elites were around when I was buying my collection of Classics...
 
Thom a suggestion for your nacho or fajitas that will be a good use for the paring knife. A great big pile of paper thin sliced olives. :)
As I did a lot of these just this weekend a nicely sharp knife is a must.
 
ADD said:
Pics of the parer?
And you should, if you are not already, considered a vocation using your writing skills in some capacity. Terrific!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the words, ADD. Didn't take pics yet. :o My bad.

clmayfield said:
Why the smaller handle on the Yanagiba? I use it as a carving knife and it seems like the smaller handle would be more comfortable... but since it is only a carving knife, I won't use it terribly often, so this is less a concern. Is the handle smaller to allow for more intricate cuts, or would the tang just not fit a larger handle.
Click to expand...

I'm not Thomas W (and Kohai999 will pay a visit to anyone confusing us with each other), but I think the traditional carving/slicing knife if the sujihiki. Does that have a longer handle?

db said:
Thom a suggestion for your nacho or fajitas that will be a good use for the paring knife. A great big pile of paper thin sliced olives. :)
As I did a lot of these just this weekend a nicely sharp knife is a must.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the inspiration. Like a total sloth, I had bought mine pre-sliced. :o Then again, the roast we're cooking today was pre-butchered and the cow was pre-killed. The olive slicing sounds fun, but I'll probably draw the line at killing steer until we get a larger freezer.
 
Your a much better man than I am if your going to kill your own cow with a paring knife. :D
 
My own cow?! Holy cats! We have barely an acre and a half and most of it is a steep hill. That'd make for either a scrawny cow or a cow I can't catch. The only livestock fun previously envisioned was to get some fainting sheep (their tendons lock up when they're startled and they fall over as though fainting) and a cap gun. Thinking thinly sliced olives will be as cuckoo as it gets.
 
There’s no shame in getting your olives pre sliced. Heck I even know a guy who buys his soda and beer cans pre emptied and crushed. :)
 
First off, here are some pics of the Kershaw Shun Elite Paring Knife:

epare1.jpg


epare2.jpg


epare3.jpg


Cooked the roast today and it came out great. The Kershaw Shun Elite 8" Chef's Knife cleaned and cut the carrots and spuds and the Paring Knife got the onions peeled before they could bring teers. My wifey had to stop me from thinly slicing all of the carrots. Next time, I'm going to slice all but two or three into the lil discs I made this time. They get tender faster and absorb all of the yummy seasonings and oxenfleisch flavor.

Used an off-brand knife to cut the roast and it was doing okay until fat trimming time. Grabbed the Kershaw Shun Elite Paring Knife and the fat and gristle leapt away. Still cutting servings, I just didn't put down the paring knife. First, I used the off-brand utility knife as a safety knife ala Talladega Nights and then switched to a fork (yo, Thomas W! I used the Kershaw Shun Elite Paring Knife with my right hand :eek: ). After getting the roast on our plates, I noticed I only diced my daughter's meat, but not my wifey's or my own. So I used the high-tech high-precision knife and cut the meat on the plate. That's right, I cut on a ceramic plate with an expensive knife! My wifey cut up my portions in the same manner! Hah!

So as you can expect with a high-speed stainless steel (or any steel) blade with a really thin and polished edge touching a plate, dulling occurred. I had already dulled the knife before letting wifey use it and she was impressed with how well the dull knife cut compared to other knives (cutlery rule: Thin is in and Flat is where it's at). It's very reassuring to have waterstones after such silliness.

So what's wrong with me? I use the Chef's Knife to cut all of the veggies and the paring knife to cut the roast. The hunk of delicious dead moomoocow got pwnd by the knife that should be making raddish garnishes and substituting my longer knives for peeling apples and the ground-dwelling starch storehouses met their surgically precise fate with my super-uper-duper Chef's Knife.

Ciao for now (too late to chow or mow).
 
I love those Shun knives. Beautiful and functional! And of course, the girlfriend's favorite Food Network chef--and now mine--Alton Brown of Good Eats endorsing Shun with his own line doesn't hurt either :)
 
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