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Whatever your culinary repertoire, you’ll want a blade that’s a cut above the rest
Most of us are familiar with the traditional chef’s knife, with its piercingly sharp tip, straight spine and a distinctly curved cutting edge. Its shape makes it incredibly versatile in the kitchen and you can use it for everything from carving meat to finely slicing herbs in that classic rocking motion chefs love to demonstrate.
But hot on its heels in recent years has been the santoku knife – a style of chef’s knife that has its roots in Japan, although many models you get now are made in other parts of the world.
Santoku translates to “three virtues” in Japanese, which signify the three uses this style of blade is best known for: slicing, dicing and mincing. Visually, it looks just like a reflection of the traditional chef’s knife – the spine curves downwards into a point resembling a sheep’s foot while the cutting edge of the blade is almost completely straight.
Its shape means you have to use it slightly differently, too. Instead of the rocking motion where you leave the tip of the blade on the chopping board, when using a santoku, you have to move the knife up and down, lifting the blade completely off the board each time.
Chef’s knives are much better at quickly chopping up some herbs, but santoku knives really come into their own when you need precision – like when you’re finely slicing potatoes for a gratin or cutting thin slivers of onions for a tart – and this is all thanks to its much thinner blade. Essentially, when presentation matters, santoku is your friend.
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We tested a whole range of different santoku knives on the market, using them in everyday cooking, which included everything from cutting raw and cooked meat and fish, to preparing vegetables and chopping herbs. Here are our favourites.
It was really neck-to-neck when it came to picking the best buy for this set of santoku knives but in the end it was hard to beat Judge sabatier IC santoku knife in terms of quality and value for money. If money was no object though, we’d go for Tog’s santoku multipurpose knife, which if nothing else, is a beauty to show off.
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