Knife To Slice Salmon/Lox

[ericthered]

I make Gravlax with some frequency, but have a hard time slicing it. I have a good Solingen stainless steel slicing knife that has granton dimples and is about 1 and 1/4 inch wide. The lox sticks and it's tough to get consistent thin slices. Would I be better off with one of the narrower salmon slicers? Or do I simply need more practice? Anyone with experience in this area? Would it help a lot if the salmon were well-chilled while slicing to firm it up?

[Chris Amirault]

I'm eager to know the answer to this question. I use a thin Wustof slicing knife that I try to keep wet when I'm slicing, but it's not a perfect system.

[David A. Goldfarb]

The salmon slicers are quite thin, and that helps. If you're not curing very large fish, a longish sharp boning knife works well. I usually use a 7" flexible boning knife. Here's the one I use (Henckels 4-star).

Edited January 24, 2010 by David A. Goldfarb (log)

[ScoopKW]

I use a scary-sharp kurouchi. But my knife collection is rather limited -- that's the best tool I have for the job. I slowly pull the knife against the fish, cutting as thin as I am able. On a good day, I can get almost see-through slices.

I'm also very interested in the responses. I make gravlax at least once per month.

Would a takohiki be the best knife for gravlax? That's my guess, at least.

[Prawncrackers]

I swear by my Japanese sashimi knife (270mm yanagi) pictured in the foreground here, but i think any long thin knife will do the job. If you make a lot of gravlax is probably worth investing in a dedicated slicer.

Technique is important with gravlax as it's quite soft and sticky, a single smooth draw of the blade is desirable over a sawing motion. To that end I find an inside draw cut gives the best results.

I'm particularly impressed with the job done by Baron d'Apcher in his later post though his fish has been smoked so is probably a lot firmer. Not sure what his knife is but it's long and thin!

[scubadoo97]

I use a 270mm Japanese slicer called a sujihiki. I've altered it to be very asymmetric which makes it really sharp and good for slicing fish. I too make gravlax or Nova lox at least once a month.

[paulraphael]

A long yanagi will outperform every other knife by leaps and bounds, but you'll want to get some instruction on how to use it and sharpen it. The cutting and sharpening are technique intensive.

I use a sujihiki, sharpened the way scubadoo describes. It outperforms western slicing knives but is no match for a yanagi in skilled hands.

Edited January 24, 2010 by paulraphael (log)

[David A. Goldfarb]

I'm particularly impressed with the job done by Baron d'Apcher in his later post though his fish has been smoked so is probably a lot firmer. Not sure what his knife is but it's long and thin!

Looks like an older Sabatier carbon steel slicing knife. It's very confusing trying to navigate the various French knives branded "Sabatier," but the ones I have (**** Elephant logo and one "Professional Sabatier") take a fantastically sharp edge.

Edited January 24, 2010 by David A. Goldfarb (log)

[nickrey]

Victorinox (the people who make the Swiss Army knife) make a wide range of very good slicing and filleting knives.

Here's a link to their salmon slicing knife.

As a number of people have said or alluded to, the secret to slicing any meat such as this is similar to that of slicing sushi. You need to use a single slice with the whole knife. Once you start sawing, you will fracture the meat. Start off at the heel and work your way as you slice through to the tip. For this reason, you need something long (around 30 cm/12 inches).

Edited January 24, 2010 by nickrey (log)

[Blether]

I think you need a knife made as sharp as you can, of course sharpened for slicing, and with a long, thin blade. A yanagiba / takohiki from the Japanese arsenal, or a filleting / carving knife from the western.

Do you slice the lox parallel to the skin, gradually shaving off slices till the last one is one big slice between the flesh and the skin itself ? Or with the side of lox still skin-side down, cut vertically / on a slant from the top down to the skin for each slice ? The latter uses the skin to help hold the slice together and stationary while you cut.

[Edward J]

During my apprenticehip I'd slice about a side of smoked salmon every couple of days, and after, in some places I'd go through a side in a night or at a buffet.

In this case the "Kuellenschliff" or Granton edge is ideal, and it was for this purpose that it was designed(over 100 years ago). The hollows allow a bit of air to gt inbetween the knife and the meat.

The more surface area you have on the knife (width), the greater the chance for the meat to stick, so narrower is better. If you use one continious strike you can't get a jagged surface or boken bits, so long is good.

The blade needs to be flexible, ridgid blades will only squash the meat.

Hope this helps..

[paulraphael]

Granton edges generally don't do much. At best, their effect is minimal, maybe even psychological. The exception is Glestain, a Japanese company that has figured out a fairly extreme geometry for the cullens in the blade; these knives seem more immune to sticking than other Western pattern blades. However, for most cutting jobs, good technique does a better job than granton edges. And for thin slices of delicate fish, nothing comes close to asymmetrical geometry of a yanagi. If wielded properly, the bevel shape of a yanagi will slip through delicate fish with virtually no friction. Symmetrical western knives (including ones like mine, or traditional grravlax slicers, or granton edge slicers) just don't work as well, no matter how well they're sharpened.

Skill is still more important than the knife ... an old school cook with years of gravlax experience and a Euro slicer will do better than I would with a high end yanagiba. But someone with serious yanagi experience will cut thinner, more evenly, faster, and leave a smoother, shinier finish on the fish.

[budrichard]

Knife flexibilty is much more important than sharpness. I use a Wusthof 4543/32cm Lachsmesser 'Flexibel', salmon slicer with kullens(scalloped edge). The knife is thin and flexible allowing your hand to remain above the fillet while the blade bends and stays parallel to the working surface/fish. Slices do not adhere. A stiff blade such as a yanagi is not flexible and you must hold your hand very close to the working surface/fish and you can get interference. I never use any of my yanagi's to slice cured salmon for lox.-Dick

[paulraphael]

I checked with my fish expert, and he disagrees with me. He thinks a yanagi is indeed a little better than a western salmon knife, but that its thick spine (not its stiffness) makes it less than perfect for big slices along the grain. He thinks a takobiki (octopus knife) and even a very sharp sujihiki are better. This last one surprised me, since its a double beveled knife. Best of all are specialized Japanese salmon and sole knives (Glestain gets top marks; Misono and Global are supposed to be good too). I don't know anyone who actually has one of these. I'm going to try my sujihiki.

[Edward J]

Yeah, I know, that's pretty much what I said, and you're using the same knife I use.

Problem is, the knife isn't Japanese, and that's just not right.

The Kullenschiff ws invented over a hundred years ago for moist sticky foods, like cheese, smoked meats an the like--foods that the Japanese were not familiar with. Doubt if it's "maybe Physcological" True, a granton edge on a ridgid chef's knife is useless, a sales gimmick, but if works very well on thing flexible blades for mosit sticky foods.

[Edward J]

Must appolgize, I meant for this post to appear after Budrichards, someone else posted in the same time I sent my post. I should have copied and quoted his post and added my comnets after it.

[Edward J]

I checked with my fish expert, and he disagrees with me. He thinks a yanagi is indeed a little better than a western salmon knife, but that its thick spine (not its stiffness) makes it less than perfect for big slices along the grain. He thinks a takobiki (octopus knife) and even a very sharp sujihiki are better. This last one surprised me, since its a double beveled knife. Best of all are specialized Japanese salmon and sole knives (Glestain gets top marks; Misono and Global are supposed to be good too). I don't know anyone who actually has one of these. I'm going to try my sujihiki.

Must give my congratulations to your fish expert, it's not every fish seler that slices smoked salmon to order for customers. Virtually all smoked salmon availabe now comes pre-sliced, interleafed, and vacuum packed.

Thing is, smoked salmon is not octopus, smoked salmon is smoked. But before it is smoked it is brined--as is graved

lax. Thus the flesh goes through chemical and physical changes that differentiate it from plain raw salmon Smoked salmon will have a "skin" or a crust on the outside, as a result from the brining and smoking. Many European mnfctrs remove this before putting the salmon on the market, and many N. American ones do not. Smoked salmon is almost always sliced across the grain--as is all other meats, so that the eater does not encounter long fibres.

The "Kulenschliff" or Granton edge is just a simple matter of physics:

When you slice a raw potato or cheese, or any other moist sticky food, the potato sticks to your knife. Sometimes its the starch and sometimes its just a simple vacuum that makes the item stick to the knife. You have a smooth knife and you have a solid item; when you slice, little or no air is introduced inbetween to the two slices. With the Granton edge, you have a series of vertical shallow grooves, as you draw the blade back, each groove introduces a little air and helps the slices from sticking to each other.

[paulraphael]

My fish expert's a chef! my local fish butcher is great, but none of the guys there know much about cutting.

I understand the theory of cullens. In practice, the only knife where they've seemed to make a lick of difference is a Glestain slicer. With other brands I've used, the cullens just seemed to force the maker to use a thicker edge geometry, resulting in worse performance all around.

[Prawncrackers]

Just wanted to add, if the original poster is still reading and wondering what knife to get (conspicuous by his absence; probably scared-off by now)? If he does opt for a yanagi he might be surprised at how thick they are and doubt that it could slice well at all. Persevere and you’ll find that it’s the wonderful geometry that makes this kind of knife work. I’ve always wondered about and have been tempted to buy a fuguhiki - a thinner version of a yanagi. Surely they would be even better for slicing salmon after all they are used to slice fugu so thinly that the pattern on the serving plate can be seen clearly (not to mention that fugu is chewy so needs to be sliced very thinly). But in the end I’m very happy with my yanagi and couldn’t really justify buying another similar knife.

As for takohiki, I always thought they were the same as a yanagi but without the pointed tip. The benefit being for mass-processors of octopus that there’s no tip to snag on all those awkward curling tentacles. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen or heard of a sushi chef putting down his yanagi and picking up a takohiki just to slice one octopus tentacle down for some nigiri. I don’t think it would have any benefit over a yanagi in slicing fish.

Btw, I'm not getting into the cullen debate because I have no experience of them. But I suppose there is a debate because no empirical evidence is out there conclusively for or against?

[Edward J]

Btw, I'm not getting into the cullen debate because I have no experience of them. But I suppose there is a debate because no empirical evidence is out there conclusively for or against?

Well.............Maybe it's just that 3 posters who have had extensive experience in cutting this product and who have a choice of knives available always choose the Western smoked salmon knife. Maybe we're all wrong,(We didn't choose Japanese steel) you'll just have to ask Chefs in places where they still slice salmon by hand for thier opinion. As far as I know salmon is not found naturally in Japan, nor is smoked salmon, and not much smoked salmon shows up in Japanese restaurants. O.T.O.H. the Western countries have developed a knife specifically for this purpose for quite some time now, as far as I know, the Japanese have not. See if you borrow or buy a smoked salmon knife and try it out yourself, so you can have the experience. The blade is very thin and flexible and has no spine

[Chris Amirault]

I think that part of the tension also involves the fact that a number of western knife fans (including this one) have had Archimedes moments switching from those to the Japanese knives. It tends to make me, at least, cognizant of the possibility that everything I know about knives is flat-out wrong.

What would be ideal, I think, would be some videotaped (and then posted) head-to-head comparisons. Does anyone have both western and Japanese knives and a big slab of lox?

[David A. Goldfarb]

The Zabar's guys who do nothing but cut lox and sturgeon all day, along with the occasional piece of sable or scoop of caviar, are using German salmon knives.

[dougal]

I'm eager to know the answer to this question. I use a thin Wustof slicing knife that I try to keep wet when I'm slicing, but it's not a perfect system.

Try oiling it. Flavourless cooking oil. Better lubricant than water.

For slicing at about 80 degrees from vertical (nearly flat -- where the cut slice inevitably sits on the blade), the idea is to get as little steel in contact with the fish as is possible.

That is why the least tall blade is the best.

And (in proportion to the blade) a lot of dimpling reduces the area of steel potentially sticking to the fish flesh.

And just to spell it out, the MORE the knife sticks to the already-cut flesh, the more the slice will be subject to tearing.

Some flex in the blade (perpendicular to the cutting direction) allows you to keep your hand slightly above the fish and yet cut to (but not through) the skin.

A knife for this type of fish slicing - where the bones have been scrupulously removed - should be encountering absolutely nothing that is hard and 'difficult'. Even at the bottom of the stroke, the knife should be horizontal, skidding along the skin, not cutting downwards onto the chopping block.

This delicate-work-only ethos allows you to sharpen at a stupidly flat angle. This is exactly the task for a scalpel-like blade - no matter that the edge is very delicate, its going to be used with utmost delicacy for cutting through soft stuff !

I think that this is an important distinction of a knife to be used for this type of salmon slicing ONLY.

Things are very different if you are making vertical cuts.

A chisel blade does the minimum to disturb the block of fish remaining to be sliced, and promotes the cut slice falling cleanly away from the uncut material.

And if there are dimples, they will act to prevent the slice being stuck to the blade by air pressure. But if the material is itself sticky, you want the least area of steel in contact with the food, rather than just vacuum-seal-breaking occasional dimples.

As previously mentioned, the longer the blade, the better, because then the fewer strokes - ideally just one - per slice.

But short (as in not tall) is also important.

And the sharper the better!

[budrichard]

Yeah, I know, that's pretty much what I said, and you're using the same knife I use.

Problem is, the knife isn't Japanese, and that's just not right.

The Kullenschiff ws invented over a hundred years ago for moist sticky foods, like cheese, smoked meats an the like--foods that the Japanese were not familiar with. Doubt if it's "maybe Physcological" True, a granton edge on a ridgid chef's knife is useless, a sales gimmick, but if works very well on thing flexible blades for mosit sticky foods.

I don't understand what you mean by "the knife isn't Japanese".

We are not talking about using a knife to slice in a traditional Japanese sashimi/sushi cut but a Western slice of thin cold smoked salmon other wise known as lox to many.

I didn't think we were discussing slicing hot smoked salmon either.

I routinely cure farm raised Norwegion salmon and slice with the Wusthof I mentioned. The blade is quite flexible(giving birth to the Trade Name 'Flexibel') and thin(less a tenth of an inch thick) and not very tall(about 0.6inches) and is available with or without kullens. This is a very specialized tool and is just right for the job. One certainly can get the job done using any number of knives and techniques but I doubt any are as elegant and yield the same final results.

A takobiki is a very long specialized tool which I believe it blunted so one doesn't run another person through. I have not seen one used on an octopus but i have seen one like it used to take apart a 400#+ fresh bluefin. It makes a nice long deep cut until one reaches the spine of the fish and then you roll out the blocks(four if you look at a tuna cross section) for smaller cuts that eventually work their way down to your plate as either sashimi or sushi.-Dick

Edited January 29, 2010 by budrichard (log)

[prasantrin]

As far as I know salmon is not found naturally in Japan, nor is smoked salmon, and not much smoked salmon shows up in Japanese restaurants. O.T.O.H. the Western countries have developed a knife specifically for this purpose for quite some time now, as far as I know, the Japanese have not. See if you borrow or buy a smoked salmon knife and try it out yourself, so you can have the experience. The blade is very thin and flexible and has no spine

You'd better tell the Japanese none of the domestic salmon is really domestic, then.

From the ever accurate source Wiki:

Cherry salmon (Oncorhynchus masu or O. masou) is found only in the western Pacific Ocean in Japan, Korea and Russia and also landlocked in central Taiwan's Chi Chia Wan Stream.[8]

. . .

Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) is also known in the USA as Red salmon.[13] This lake-rearing species is found south as far as the Klamath River in California in the eastern Pacific and northern Hokkaidō Island in Japan in the western Pacific and as far north as Bathurst Inlet in the Canadian Arctic in the east and the Anadyr River in Siberia in the west. Although most adult Pacific salmon feed on small fish, shrimp and squid; sockeye feed on plankton that they filter through gill rakers.[2]

You're right that the Japanese have never developed a knife specifically for use on smoked fish, but they've never needed to. They were able to do quite well with the knives they had already developed, so there was no need to fashion a new one.

And you're right that smoked salmon is not found naturally in Japan, but then it is not found naturally in any country as it's a processed food. They do, indeed, eat lox or similarly cured salmon in Japan, and judging from what can be found in grocery stores, it's consumed relatively frequently.

I have no doubt that a Western-made knife made specifically for slicing smoked salmon will work splendidly, nor do I doubt some of the Japanese knives could do an equally splendid job.