Angle to hold the sashimi knife
 

Until yesterday, I've just used a regular slicing knife, and it has generally been "ok enough." Then yesterday, I bought a real sashimi knife. Emblazoned with Japanese characters stating "your fish has never tasted this good" and sharp enough to use as the "painless mohel," I now have this knife. (A right-handed version)

I noticed that when I sliced the fish at the knife-holding angle I thought would be appropriate, that it ended up curving down near the bottom of the fish, with an overall "partially-reclined lounge-chair" type of slice.

Any FT tips on the "perfect slicing technique and angle" would be appreciated.

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; Series60/5.0 NokiaN97-3/22.2.110; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1) AppleWebKit/525 (KHTML, like Gecko) BrowserNG/7.1.4)

Angle related issues aside... remember to keep your knife away from hot water.

45 degree angle towards you -- probably you are slicing away instead of towards. See http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Cut...r-Sashimi-1432

I thought this thread would be about the Republican candidate for Senate from Nevada making a ceremonial ribbon-cutting appearance to woo the Japanese-American vote.

I never owned a "real sashimi knife" but suspect it is a product of the knife manufacturers marketing department. I have sliced many sashimi grade ono and knife sharpness seems to be the key to uniformity. A chilling of the ono also helps.

MisterNice

What knife did you buy?

I have no idea. Everything is in Japanese - the box, the engravings on the knife - well, the Made in Japan mark is in engrish.

It isn't marketing. They have a single beveled edge, the other side is hollowed, and they come in right and left handed versions.

I say its marketing and marketing with an advanced degree in marketing (eg L or R edges). I know 2 chefs on Maui who do sashimi and both use what we call 8-9 inch filleting knives or equivalent (I once bought one but my Canadian filleting knife worked better). The main requirement is a long, thin and flexible blade. Sashimi grade fish aint exactly as tough as USDA Commercial Grade. One trick for ease of cutting they say is to slightly coat the blade with a very light coating of vegetable oil.

MisterNice