and in this episode I go over the difference between a nakiri knife the
santoku and a chef's knife and welcome back to moore approved if you're joining us
for the first time my name is James and I do stuff and today I'm going to be
showing you the difference between a Japanese nakiri knife a santooku santoku
santokku a santoku and in your everyday chef's knife so let's go over
the basic differences between these knives they're all pretty much the same
they all have the same use and they're all supposed to be held the same way I'm
going to tell you what I like about them and what I don't like about them and
then I'm also going to tell you which knife I like the best out of all the
ones that you see before you so let's take a quick look at the nakiri knife
itself we'll go ahead and set these out of the way the nakiri knife itself if
you notice it has a cut off end so if you were to compare this to say that
knife right there it looks like they just chopped the front of the blade
right on off the thing I like about this knife is the handle is ergonomically
designed to support good knife cutting habits so if you take a closer look
there if you see it sort of tapers in and comes right into this area and I'm
going to show you on this knife a demonstration of properly hold a chef's
knife with two fingers take your knife and grab it just like that so hold it
just like that and when you wrap your hand around the
blade your thumb is going to move as well as this finger and it should look
something along those lines now this is the proper way that you hold the knife
that we set the way that I was taught and this is the way that I've been
cutting for quite some time now and it gives you a lot of control and takes a
lot of play out of what you're cutting so let's go ahead and demonstrate on let's
say a potato for instance potatoes are cheap and easy it's a good way to
practice your skills if you're just getting into this and you're not super
comfortable with cutting things especially holding the knife a new way
you're going to want to give yourself a flat side so you just go ahead chop off
a little piece make it flat so it's not flopping all over the place you're going
to want to have your hands like this remember that movie with that the new
kid the new guy is like Tiger Claw or Tiger Paw or whatever it was imagine
that and your knife is going to go up and down against your knuckles and
that's going to keep you from losing finger tips just make sure you're moving
your thumb back as you're going across your product
I'm not doing an in-depth of really how to cut but I just want to make sure that
you're not going to cut something off now a nikiri knife is meant to be
like a chopping action up and down but ideally you want to have a slightly
forward motion as you're chopping so and you just want to go ahead and do it that
way so that's how you should use a nakiri knife and as you can see worked
out pretty good the knife does have a really great handle I found that this is
a really really hard steel so it's like Japanese VG steel core you know bonded
to stainless steel on the outside and it makes it really hard to hone this blade
and bring it back to a super sharp edge and I've found that the steel sort of
brittle on the tip so if you're really going at it getting it too thin and it
has a micro fracture in it you'll lose a little chip out of your blade and that
just drives me crazy so a once in a blue moon knife I will use this I do think it
looks cool but it's not an everyday use because it's way too hard to get back to
sharp so the santooko santuki santooki santoku I don't know whatever this
knife is when they first became like super hot like I don't know is like
early 2000s I'm in like 2004 2005 2006 something like that they had some sort
of Food Network program and everybody's like oh I just got the set of you know
whatever knives I never jumped on that bandwagon
they are cool they look different than a regular chef's knife and compared to my
culinary school chef's knife which I do not like this is a better knife and let
me tell you why on this particular knife I don't have the clearance to hold this
knife properly and make cuts so my knuckles touch the board before the
blade touches the board and that just not conducive for cutting all the way
through things so I don't really use this knife I had to use it culinary
school I don't use at all anymore and this is not a cheap knife it has really
great clearance the board the handle does sort of help you and encourage you
to hold the knife properly which is good this was really cheap my wife had picked
us up from all these I think it was like 9 bucks or 8 bucks or 10 bucks or
something like that so I'm actually pretty impressed with it it's really
easy to sharpen and maintain an edge it feels somewhat comfortable in
your hands I don't really like that style of grip I think it's just a little
bit off for me but overall it's a very solid knife and I do like it and with
this knife this one operates pretty much like the nakiri the ideal thing is like
a short thrust forward you can do a rocking motion and cut as well so all
those knives have that in common you could pretty much use them either way
for the nakiri and the santoku knife they want you to do more of a chopping
motion or forward motion as you're cutting so we'll just go ahead and flip
this potato around and cut through it now I have noticed with this knife
because of the angle of the blade and where I like to cut with it I don't
always go through so that's another thing I don't really like about that
style with it I don't know if they're all like that it is a pretty decent one
but it does work better if you're doing the rocking motion so the next knife
we're going to take a look at is a regular chef's knife there's a lot of
different styles of chef's knife from old-school to new-school the whole
shebang there's a whole bunch of different manufacturers for these I like
the knives that have a wider back on them so it has more space from here down
to the blade and it just makes me feel more comfortable I have more control
over it whereas with this one it's really short again my knuckles tend to
make contact with the board as I'm trying to cut things which slows me down
and makes me second-guess what I'm doing I'm always worried that I'm going to cut
myself when I use something for this so you have to make sure that you're
comfortable with the size of the blade that you use this is a pretty expensive
knife price for what you get I don't think this is the best knife the knife
that I really like this I picked up from Sam's Club this was a two pack and I
think it was a two pack for like 13 bucks you got an 8 inch chef's knife and
you got a 10 inch chef's knife the 10 inch chef's knife I actually chopped
down a tree with and messed up the blade but it was really cheap it was like a six
dollar knife and I didn't want the tree to fall in my house so before I got too
big yeah I used a chef's knife for that that is an improper way to use a chef's
knife for the record but they're really strong they're really durable I like the
way the handle fits my hand I really like how its formed it keeps your
fingers up on the blade where they're supposed to be
you know just feels comfortable for me and again it's a really easy blade to
maintain and sharpen and resharpen and keep sharp with very little effort the
best knives that you're going to have regardless of what brands you're looking
for you're going to want it to be a high carbon blade that is stain resistant
those are going to be the best one that's what they use throughout the
industry there aren't too many kitchens that are going out there spending five
hundred dollars on this you know cut through you know a tree stump knife even
though I technically did cut through a tree with one of these knives but this
was like a six dollar a knife on its own or a seven dollar knife on its own
really cheap great value in restaurants a lot of times they'll use Dexter I'll
leave a link down below for all the stuff you see here you're not gonna be
able to see the Aldi knife down below but I will leave a link to the
Caphalon knife because it is a pretty cool looking knife just very hard to
maintain and I will leave a link to the knife that I got in culinary school and
I'll leave a knife to the Dexter knives which are pretty much like this I really
do like Dexter in every restaurant that I've worked in they've used Dexter's and
I'll give you a little demonstration of how this and I should be used again
you're going to want to take give yourself a flat surface to work with
you're going to want to rock this blade from tip to handle as you're going
across so you're pretty much going to want to do that here's going to repeat
you can also do chopping motions with these it's not a problem it's an
ugly-looking potato but whatever this is for demonstrative purposes we'll just
move this out of the way but again it's a really easy blade to sharpen it's very
very sharp and I like it all around this one is dishwasher safe you'll notice
some like weird coloration on the blade if water sits on it so it just looks
like water spots and they are difficult to remove but that will happen with any
of these knives this knife is not dishwasher safe it has gotten run
through a little bit but these handles will crack and break off so the handles
for some of these things you really have to look they may not be dishwasher safe
this is NSF approved this is dishwasher safe the whole shebang easy to sharpen
very very cheap it comes in a two pack so it has a smaller knife like this and
it also has one that's like that it's a pretty
pretty intense knife and I really did like that knife I'll probably pick up
another two pack here pretty soon but if you don't have a Sam's Club that's close
to you I will leave a link for Dexter knives down below in the description box
to Amazon they're pretty much the equivalent they're going to look very
very similar to this they're going to have the same type of quality to it and
they're very easy to maintain they are dishwasher safe they're NSF approved the
whole shebang and I do like the Dexter's in addition to this knife so I'll leave
you a link down below for that I'll also leave you a link for the Calphalon
nakiri knife again this knife does encourage proper knife holding technique
but it's really hard to maintain it'll hold that initial edge for quite a long
time because it is very very hard steel but it is going to be a lot more
difficult to sharpen than the high carbon stain resistant knives so again
the cheapest knife here is my favorite knife or the Dexter's are pretty equivalent
the Dexter's are a little bit more expensive but still a very quality knife
I'll leave all that information down below so be very safe thank you for
watching leave some comments down below give me a thumbs up give me a thumbs
down ring the little bell subscribe if you're not already a subscriber and
signing off for moore approved - I'm James until next time see you then