Any good cook worth her salt has a love affair with knives. Dad, as a butcher, treated his knives reverently. And I learned at an early age how important a really sharp knife was, as I watched him use the sharpening steel before carving a roast.
Through the years, I’ve had my favorites. My Wusthof knives held that place for a very long time. And I still really like them. I have an inexpensive boning knife that is lethally sharp, and glides through tomatoes, fish and more. It’s a pleasure to use.
But lately, my devotion has been to my Kitchen Aid Santoku knife that I picked up on sale at Linens n Things just before they closed. It’s a 7 inch knife with a pink silicone handle (an extra bonus, Kitchen Aid donated 10% of the retail price to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.) I love the comfort of the silicone handle…it’s soft and non-slip. It has a nice heft, and both the weight and the shape make this knife user-friendly. I use it for everything! Chopping vegetables, slicing tomatoes, carving a chicken.
What I like about the Santoku knife is it cuts like a knife, but can also chop like a cleaver, and with it’s relatively wide blade, also can scoop the onions I just diced right into the pan.
I think it’s time to add some more sizes of Santoku knife to my (ever-) growing collection.
