Santoku - Japanese universal

17. dubna 2023

The very popular Santoku utility kitchen knife has its roots in Japan, where it was created in the mid-twentieth century. Its name in Japanese means three virtues or three uses. The three virtues would be slicing, cutting and chopping, and the three uses would be processing meat, fish and vegetables. Japanese cuisine required a special knife for each ingredient and the Santoku became the universal solution.

And why is the Santoku so popular not only in Japan, but all over the world? There are many reasons. Unlike a regular chef's knife, it has a slightly different blade geometry. While a European chef's knife has a slightly curved blade towards the tip, requiring a swinging motion when finishing, the Santoku has a straight blade so that the cut can be completed in one downward motion. Despite the fact that many chefs like to use the rocking motion with European knives, slicing with the Santoku is faster and more efficient.

The Santoku also has a thinner blade than a regular knife, so it cuts the ingredient more and crushes less. This will be appreciated when slicing onions, for example, when you don't squeeze out as much juice and save yourself the typical tears. A classic Santoku is usually sharpened on one side, but since it takes considerable skill to cut with such a sharpened knife, we sell knives with a double-sided blade - but at a sharper angle (10 - 15 degrees) than Western knives. The advantage over a single-edged knife is that it can be used by both right- and left-handed people.
Santoku chefs also appreciate that it is great to use as a spatula, which is easy to pile the cut ingredients onto and transfer to the pan or pot.

We have two Santoku knives in our range. The first belongs to the exclusive Ruby kitchen set. The handle is made of wood composite, the blade is made of martensitic stainless steel DIN 1.4116 with small cut-outs on the sides, which helps when slicing thin slices of meat or cheese. The second Santoku knife is made of 420 steel, has a plastic handle and is part of the Classic kitchen knife set. Both knives are rightly among our best-selling products.