Santoku (Kitchen Knives & Cutlery)

A santoku is a Japanese general-purpose knife, usually 5 to 7 inches long, with an almost straight cutting edge and a tip that curves down to a blunt point. The name translates as three virtues, meaning meat, fish and vegetables. What sets it apart from everything else in the drawer is that flat profile, because there is no belly to rock on and the whole edge meets the board at once.

Japanese blades run thinner behind the edge and are ground to a narrower angle, near 15 degrees per side against the 20 degrees common on Western knives. That narrower angle bites a tomato skin under less pressure and glides through a carrot instead of wedging it apart. Fragility is the price: a thin, hard edge chips if you twist it, hit bone or cut anything frozen. Those hollow ovals ground along the blade, sold as a granton edge, break the suction that makes potato and cucumber slices cling. They help on wet starchy food and do almost nothing on herbs or meat.

The chef's knife is the direct comparison and the difference is in your wrist. Its curved belly is built for rocking, with the tip parked on the board while the handle rises and falls through a pile of herbs. Try that with a santoku and the flat edge slaps down unevenly. You push forward and down in one stroke instead, lifting clear each time. This is slower through a mountain of parsley and cleaner on a single onion. The santoku also runs 1 to 3 inches shorter and noticeably lighter. So it turns easily on a small board where an 8 inch chef's knife runs out of room. The utility knife sits elsewhere again. Santoku is a board knife for volume, utility handles the one item you did not want the big board for.

Small hands, short counters and boards under 15 inches suit it, since the shorter blade never overhangs the edge. Vegetable-heavy cooking suits it best of all. Skip it if you break down whole chickens, because the blunt tip cannot get into a joint, and skip it if you already rock chop happily, since you will fight the shape for a month before adapting. For most kitchens this is a second knife rather than a first one.

Blade height matters, meaning the distance from the edge up to the spine at its tallest. It needs to be deep enough that your curled knuckles clear the board, and a slim santoku has you rapping the counter all evening. Feel the spine itself, the blunt top of the blade, and reject any left square and sharp at the corners, since your forefinger rests there and will ache within ten minutes. Hard Japanese steel dislikes a grooved steel rod, so hone on ceramic with very light pressure and keep the knife away from bone, frozen food and any twisting cut.