Yoshihiro AUS-10 Uzushio Damascus Santoku 165mm

The gyuto came to Japan with the beef-eating culture of the Meiji era, and that is where its name comes from. Tojiro says it is used for all kinds of cooking, which is why it is also called the chef's knife.

The santoku is a household knife that combines the good points of the nakiri and the gyuto. Tojiro describes it as all-purpose, from vegetables to meat and fish, double-bevel and built on the same construction as a Western knife.

Choose a gyuto if you want more length and reach. Choose a santoku if you want a shorter all-purpose knife. Tojiro's own size figures: gyuto 150 to 210mm for household use and up to 360mm for professional use, santoku 165 to 170mm for household use.

Match the shape to your stroke. Rock chopping keeps the tip on the board and rolls the curved belly through the food, so a gyuto or a Western chef's knife suits it, and Japanese knives rock fine as long as you rock gently.

Up-and-down chopping, the Chinese style, wants a straight run of edge, so a nakiri, usuba, santoku or bunka suits it better; a curved edge chopped straight down easily leaves pieces joined. Neither shape is better; it depends on how you cut.

A Japanese dictionary explains the name of the santoku (三徳包丁) as coming from the three things it handles: meat, fish and vegetables. The same dictionary entry points from the santoku to the bunka (文化包丁), treating the two as one knife.

One Japanese knife maker guide distinguishes the two by the tip. It says that in the Showa era the bunka was made with its tip cut at an angle, and the santoku came after it by rounding that tip.

We suggest AUS-10 as a sound stainless for an easy-care first knife, not a budget compromise. Aichi Steel, which makes it, groups AUS-10 with AUS-6M and AUS-8 as the grades that add more carbon, plus vanadium and molybdenum, to improve hardness, wear resistance and tempering resistance.

We stock it in our K&S AUS10 Monosteel line and the Yoshihiro AUS-10 Uzushio Damascus line. Stainless means 10.5% or more chromium and rusts less, the JSSA says, so wash and dry it after use.

Yamawaki Hamono (株式会社山脇刃物製作所), a Sakai knife company founded in 1927, makes them: Yoshihiro is its main brand and carries the name of the Kamakura-period swordsmith Goh Umanosuke Yoshihiro (郷右馬允義弘).

Its company page says the firm makes and sells mainly high-end kitchen knives for professional cooks, as well as knives for homes and cooking schools.