It’s a well-known chef fact that it’s not the sharp knives that cut you, it’s the dull ones.
That’s because a properly sharp knife moves effortlessly and efficiently, while a blunt knife requires extra effort and is more likely to suddenly slip with unhappy results for the user.
It’s surprising in fact just how many people will pay out a lot of money for excellent kitchen knives and then fail to keep them sharp, so making kitchen work unnecessarily difficult, as well as more dangerous.
Of course, we’ve all done the Sunday Roast thing, standing like a Dickens father, or a Norman Rockwell character, stropping the carving knife dramatically on a’steel’. It rarely works though; using a steel to sharpen is a bit of a skill. You can actually unsharpen a knife with one if you don’t get the 20-degree angle right.
Enter the AnySharp Pro, the best £15 you’ll spend in the kitchen,
Small and heavy, clearly well built, the AnySharp Pro features a powerful lock-down suction cup (PowerGrip) to fix itself to your work surface. Or even a vertical surface.We locked it down on our standard worktop and it was totally immovable even with both hands. The worktop threatened to come off before the AnySharp Pro did. That’s a good thing when you’re dealing with knives and because you only need one hand to use it, it’s even safer.
There is a V shape slot and into that you place the handle end of your blade, then with very light pressure, almost no pressure at all, you draw the knife back to its tip. Lift out and repeat two or three times.
We actually saw microns of steel being shaved off of our bluntest blades by the tungsten carbide sharpeners, which are factory set precisely at the optimal 20-degree angle.
The results were incredible, the blades were razor sharp in seconds. We started hunting through kitchen drawers to dig out long lost Sabatiers whose days we thought were over.
A few strokes of the AnySharp Pro and they were back in full fighting trim again.The device also works on most serrated knives too, making slicing bread a pleasure after years of hacking at loaves with blunt blades.
Penknives can be sharpened too, in fact any blade of a reasonable size will get the edge, even hardened steel.
The unit has a ten-year guarantee, and should you wear out the sharpening blades, they are easily replaced with a new set.It’s available in Metalic Red, Metalic Purple, Bronze, Copper, Black and a lightblue that shades to pink.
A true little marvel the AnySharp Pro belongs in your kitchen right now, don’t wait until you’re struggling with the Xmas turkey.
Available from:Amazon