How To Use Every Japanese Knife | Method Mastery | Epicurious

Hi, I'm Christine, I'm the executive chef at Kimika and today I'm going to show you how to use all styles of Japanese knives. I only have Japanese knives at the moment and to be honest I don't really see many. Professionals who nowadays use anything other than Japanese knives. I would be very surprised if you buy a Japanese

knife

and don't want another one after buying the first one. A

knife

should last you a lifetime, so it's important to take care of it. your knives as if they were your best friends these are the basic tools for knife care a roll of knives sharpening stones and this is a saya a wooden cover made of magnolia wood one of the first things you learned is that you never Would you give your knife anyone can sharpen it, you have to do it yourself, make sure you soak the stones in water, these are not oil stones, we only sharpen Japanese knives with wet stones using any type of sharpening wheel or mechanism, we actually just shave too much the knife, so If you are making this western-style burger, you should always make sure to soak them for at least half an hour before using them.

This will be at 70 degrees, you'll go this way and then at 30 degrees. On this side, you're going to want to wash it and make sure it's very dry because the water in there will eventually rust and the last thing you could use is a little bit of oil and the oil will protect the knife. of rust or any of those things, but these really are the tools that will allow you to care for and hopefully welcome these knives into your culinary family. Okay, let's get started, this knife is a Kyoto when people ask me what knife should you. getting an 8 inch kyuto chef knife is the place to start, it's the all purpose knife, something we do a lot in the restaurant and at home is use onions so cut off the ends just a little. the butt and we want to peel the onion first, so we're going to cut this.

The knife has a nice bolster that helps you peel the skin off the onion. You can use your hands, but it's good to use this butt bolster. of the knife is lighter, it's thinner, this doesn't feel unsafe when I do this, I'm really guiding it and I'm putting my hand a little bit higher on the knife so I can really control it. I don't want to use a knife that's too big and feels a little heavy and that's where this thinner knife really makes a big difference because it's much easier for you to slice the onion thinner and at a faster pace with onions. paper thin red ones, we could make an onion dice, you can see now you have these nice red onion dice and that's the gyuto, this is a sentoku sentoku means three virtues and the three virtues of this knife is that it can cut fish, meat and vegetables, it is another of our multi-purpose knives for julienne cutting, maybe making some potatoes and carrots,

every

one has carrots in their kitchen.

You can really use this up and down motion and really use the brace that's a little bit higher and you're just doing a very up and down motion. Instead of a rolling motion like you would in Kyoto, another cut that's great to make with carrots is called rangiri, where you're essentially rolling just a knife, roll and keep going, so these three twisted cuts in a si You are not very skilled in your knife skills, this is a great knife to start using, it is a little more compact and works great at home because obviously your kitchen is much smaller than the kitchen I have at work, it is the perfect night for new things. york department, if you have a small cutting board that is this big, perfect only for that size and that is the sentoku, this is a kiritsuke, a knife traditionally only used by the executive chef, the best example of Japanese craftsmanship in knife making and this. it comes from the tradition of making samurai swords so this is my kitchen sword so today we're going to use this one side beveled knife and we're going to cut this tomato and it cuts like it's nothing and it actually falls off the bevel. side of the knife and it is multi-purpose so I can cut some vegetables and maybe a piece of fish for you and a piece of meat which is the kiritsuke, this is a bunker, it is also an all-purpose knife and it is very delicate for For example, we are going to cut some Japanese eggplants here, they are so delicate, thin and light that I can really cut these things very quickly, the bunka has this slanted tip and that is why sometimes you choose to use this knife instead of similar ones. a nakiri, as you can see, we've cut this eggplant in half and we're just going to use this and not go all the way through, but we're just marking putting the tip on maybe like a quarter inch or half an inch. down and making these cross marks and this will allow the eggplant to cook faster and you'll get this really beautiful design.

We can also do that with mushrooms like these king oyster mushrooms here, just chop them up real quick and then here I'm going to do the same score and you can put them in a hot pan, a little bit of oil, maybe finish with a little bit of butter, do let this side be super golden and think about it at a dinner party, how great it would be for you to have a bunch. of these on a plate, people are very impressed, it's not too long, it's so light and maneuverable, it's a really nice knife to be able to slide right in and that's the bunka, this is a small, small knife, which means small in French, generally speaking, They are five to six inches long and it's really fantastic for cutting vegetables or herbs or small fruits and any kind of detailed work that you want to do, for example, I'll show you here it's really fantastic for peeling garlic, so if you look here Again you have the blade that goes all the way to the heel so you can use the heel to help you peel off some of the skins and actually use the heel here to get between the skin and the garlic and we have our nice piece of garlic and if we want to make some sliced ​​garlic, let's say we're making some linguine at home and you can slice the garlic and then you're going to mince it, it's small, it's light, it's practical, it's perfect.

Another thing that would be great is using shallots, so for some fine work here, if you want to make thinly sliced ​​shallots, this is the perfect knife to do it with and there you have it, a nice shallot brunoise and this is your little knife. It is a paring knife, the smallest of knives you will find, a beautifully handcrafted Japanese knife, hard Japanese steel, wooden handle. I use it most for cleaning small things like these beautiful little radishes I bought. I really use it a lot in my hand. this so we can clean the tails and clean the top, you can use it to make sure that if there's a little bit of dirt in here, I don't really like to peel any of my vegetables, I try not to do that at all, I try to rub them to that you are really using all the vegetables and there is no waste.

Another application that I use a paring knife for a lot is mushrooms like these beautiful Canada chanterelles, so here I'm just going to cut off the butt and then very delicately, I'm going to scrape off a thin layer of chanterelles and that's what they're really for. the paring knives, it's for the very delicate work that you're going to have and that's the paring knife, this is a nakiri, a nakiri is a square kitchen knife for vegetables, it's great. to cut open pumpkins and things like that because these hand hammered dimples here are called tsuchime and the purpose of them is not only that they are very beautiful but when you cut these tough vegetables it allows them to not get stuck on the sides of the blade the balance is great for putting weight on these harder skinned vegetables let's cut this squash open we have this kabocha here you really need a knife with a little more weight to get through the tough skin it's very easy here do it with one hand I can do it with hands like this one is great we have this beautiful freshly cut purple sweet potato we want to make some sweet potato fries get the next one you see how the potato just falls off that edge it's because we have these dimples here we could do some simple knife cuts and this square blade is also great , the larger surface area allows you to move things a little faster and that's the nikiri it's a usb which translates to fine slicing it's a single edged vegetable knife and it's really used for high level Japanese decorative knife work For example, I'll show you this cut we make for the cucumbers you see in sushi rolls.

It's a great knife because it's single edged and it's got the blade all the way to the heel, so you control the knife and you twist the cucumber and you just roll it up and roll it into thin slices until you get to the end. to the core it can take a lifetime to master these knife cuts and then we get to the core and then we can use it to finish the julienne cut and again there is no rocking it's just a straight up and down motion to get a nice even julienne here and these are your little thin strands of cucumbers that you see in sushi rolls this is the usual this is a demon it is a simple beveled Japanese knife with a thicker spine that is used for butchering fish and meat and has a lot of weight so you can break some of the thorns.

This is a nice one and a half pound branzino and we're going to use kitchen shears to cut the fins here on the fish and then we're going to cut off the head. so here the weight of the dab is really important you can literally cut all the way through look ahead so now we're going to take the rest of this and we're going to remove the fillets and it's super sharp so you can We're going to be able to very smoothly go through the fish, it is very delicate and can break very easily, so it is very important to have a super sharp knife and because it has a beveled angle, it will slide down the spine of the fish very easily, so here I have hit the spine, what we do here is we cut the bones here in the belly and then we'll remove them, then let me go all the way through them so you have a fillet here and then we'll do the other side and just go all the way down the fish until we get to the spine vertebral and you just cut through the ribcage and you have your second fillet here, now we're going to clean the rest of the fillet here.

We have the ribs that we cut with the debba, so you're just going to want to take the edge of the knife and get under these bones and it also goes through the skin very easily and there you have this step here. It is a six and a half inch deva, they come in different sizes. I have used one that is 10 inches long. It really depends on the type of fish you're killing so obviously this branzino is smaller so we have one of the smaller devos and that's the deva this is a yanagi yanagi translates to willow leaf it's a long knife and thin single edge you can use it to cut sashimi or raw or any smoked salmon or any smoked fish so you can really see the lineage here of the samurai sword that makes it is long and thin so you are using the knife and the length of the blade to make very long cuts so again you don't break the fish at all and it slides very nicely off the one beveled edge so here we're going to clean up this salmon a little bit, this wild king salmon that we have here and then Let's make some slices of sashimi.

You can also use the yanagi to help peel the fish and really make use of these long tears. what it has is actually these long strokes that you're making with the yanagi so here we have the belly that we're going to make some sashimi slices from it still has skin on it so we're going to take the skin When using the yanagi, this shinagi is 10 inches and a half and they come in different sizes so again, with the bigger the fish and the more skilled you are, the longer you can handle an unagi and we want to use this very sharp one. single edge knife so that we don't break the fish and it really slides smoothly through this salmon belly.

It's also very important to clean the knife between slices because then it will decrease the friction that you'll have when you cut again and it keeps

every

thing neat, so here we're just going to cut this piece with these long cutting motions, which is important here for sashimi and you actually use the entire sheet, starting from the bottom and moving up to the top. and you almost just glide with it it's a nice solid strike almost like using a sword this is the yanagi this is a cocky mookie khaki is oyster in

japanese

and this is the

japanese

oyster knife the japanese oyster knife has a much sharper tip sharper than Western style oyster knives and is very elegant and very simple in functionality, it has a wooden handle and fits perfectly in your hand and honestly has very little curvature.

It's pretty much a very sharp piece of metal on this very simplistic piece of wood, the handle is a little thicker than Western and French style knives and also oyster knives and it really gives you a little more leverage and ability to control the knife a little bit more, so you see this very, very sharp knife here, we're just going to use this tip and try to get that into the hinge of the oyster, hear that popping sound, that means you've been able to open the oyster and then you want to take the knife you can use the sharp part to cut the muscle and then you have your oyster you can also use this flat parthere to help scrape and separate the bottom muscle of the oyster from the shell and then use it to flip the oyster and there you have your perfect summer oyster on the half shell yese is your kakamooki this is a tsujihiki tsujihiki translates to pull the muscle so this is a Japanese meat slicer the angle that the tsujihiki is usually sharpened at is a little steeper so you get very fine cuts with this it is designed after the European style but it is it is thinner and it is made of a harder steel so that it retains its edge longer.

An edge is very important when cutting cooked meat because you don't want to tear up the delicious steak you are about to eat. We have here a dry aged ribeye, we are going to cut the cartilage, which is the fattiest and most marbled part of the ribeye and then we have the other side and this is the eye of the ribeye, so this is the part where we need the super sharp knife to be , so it's like you can cut the meat almost like paper again, like any fish, these long slices and it's just one long movement and that's why the length of the tsujihiki is important, you don't swing back and forth, so just making a straight motion almost like a sword going through the meat, the knife really has to fit well in your hand because you're actually using very few motions, just a long swing in general, when you first use your slicer you probably I want a shorter one because you don't want a blade that is too long and you can't control it.

I love the super sharp edge because as you can see it actually just cuts these beautiful clean cuts out of the steak, there are no tears and we already got a really good solid crust out of the sear and the length of the blade is long so it's easy to pick up the other pieces and move them to a plate and there is the beautifully cut rib eye. You can use a tsujihiki for fish too, I actually really like using a tsujihiki to cut scallions because here the height of the tsujihiki is a little shorter and I can get very paper thin slices of scallions and that's the tsujihiki, this is a honeski, honeski is a Japanese boning knife, it is different from a European cellular construction knife, it has a triangle here and a point in the front and has very little flexibility.

The honeski is the knife of choice when shredding chicken, so here I'll show you how to use the Honeski. First we're going to remove the tail, it's sharp enough that you can cut through the bone and then we'll remove the wings and it cuts through the joints and the weight of the handle helps you have more leverage. Pushing down simply cuts through the tip, you can reach smaller places or it can help you pierce the skin without tearing the flesh. Also, the angle of this blade and the weight of the handle really allows you to push in this direction so you can We're pushing the weight against you, moving the knife in a different direction that you don't see very often and we're pushing through the skin. and then now we'll use the tip to go through the hip joint and the oyster. and then you can just remove the rest of the chicken, so we do the same thing on the other side using the tip pointing down, pulling this out and using the weight of the knife and the heavier handle to really use it against gravity.

You can use the tip here to get between the joint and cut the cartilage and you have the legs using the tip again. We're going to take the thigh joint here and on this side as well and really point out where that joint is and Put the blade right in the middle of the gizzard, so now I'm going to continue using this heel of the knife again. European style knives wouldn't have bone knives, they wouldn't have this triangular shape or even a heel that you can do this with. We actually used this edge to get through some joints in specific parts of this chicken as we deboned it.

This is a cool technique I learned when I was learning to make yakitori in a very different style than what we call airline. chicken breasts, but I'm going to use this heel and go up this way, it's very unusual to cut things away from you, normally you cut things towards you, but I learned this technique from a yakitori master, so let's go all the way we're going to use the tip to cut this little piece of silver skin and remove it and you'll have your airplane chicken breast here, what we're left with is America's favorite part of chicken, the chicken. tender, just think about it, an order of chicken tenders, how many chickens does it take to make one of chicken tenders again?

We're going to use the heel of the honeski, remove this little bit of fat and go up to the ribcage. flip this over, use the tip here to separate it from the shoulder and we can just pull it out and we have the second airline chicken breast and then we'll use the tip to get under the tender chicken to release it. the ribcage and take it out, there's your other skewer, so right now we can order two strips. You can remove the shoulder blade here, which is actually probably one of my favorite skewers and you just have to break this joint, take your shoulder. so it's like a nice moist piece of white meat, we've got chicken tenders, you've got the breasts, you've got the legs and the thighs, I mean here you can pull it apart again using the weight of the knife and just going through it. the joints you have your thigh here you have your chicken thigh here and there is your chicken and that's the haneski this is a honkotsu this is actually made to take meat that is on the bone, whether it's the whole animal or primal cuts, so yeah You have Just like hanging meats, you are actually carving the parts of the animal that you want to remove.

What's really unique about this knife is that, again, it doesn't have any flexibility and the shape, if you look at it here, it doesn't have a heel. knife, which is great for cleaning, let's say, the membrane of the meat so that it doesn't catch on the heel, but this is really the only Japanese knife that doesn't have a heel, today we're not going to do a whole pig. but we have a whole bone in the pork shoulder and I'm going to show you how to use the honkotsu to break down this pork so here we're going to go over some of the natural pork muscles that we're actually using the tip for. help us guide and traverse the different muscles within the shoulder with the lack of a heel.

I don't get stuck in anything. I can get really close to the muscles I'm trying to identify and next to the bone, so here. I'm cutting around this large pork shoulder bone and really allowing the tip to be the guide for where I'm going to pull the knife to the right. It's thicker and heavier, so you're not afraid to bite. the tip or ruin the tip, let's say like a small knife where it's a little bit softer and a little bit more delicate but you can really get close to the meat and really carve where you need to go and then it's a real extension of your hand and it's thin and small so you can maneuver at different angles as well so you can follow the curvature of the bones and then here I just need to carve this area, so I'm actually going to use the tip to It's kind of like drawing and cutting this last little bit of bone.

You can really get it under the bone. There is no resistance here. You're just using the knife to guide you to where the natural break of the bone is and then the point. It kind of just separates the pieces of muscle and cartilage from the bone, so we have this piece here, so we take out the bone, it's also very thin, so again here we are left with this little piece of skin that we wanted to take. that and like I was telling you before, it's very good for cleaning meat, so in times like let's say you get a steak and sometimes it has a little more fat, you can use this tip to go right underneath and cut it. you don't have to do any weird fishing or anything like that this knife is designed for breaking down whole pigs and hanging meats so we could use this knife to break down a whole pig and that's the honkotsu and that's how it uses all the styles of japanese knives, we may not have used every style of japanese knives, but you get the idea.