Yanagi ba
Yanagi-ba-bōchō (柳刃包丁, lit. willow blade knife), Yanagi-ba or shortly Yanagi is a long and very thin knife used in the Japanese kitchen, belonging to the group of Sashimi hōchō (Japanese: 刺身包丁, Sashimi [raw fish] hōchō [knife]) to prepare sashimi, sushi, sliced raw fish and seafood.
In prepareing sashimi and sushi, there are very important conditions that the sliced cross section is smooth, shiny and sharp in a microscopic view. Those conditions cannot be met by other usual knives. Yanabi-ba-bocho is especially designed to satisfy the conditions. Important design points for it are as follows.
- Length: It has a long blade to cut a fish block only a one-way (pulling). Zigzag cutting affects bad cross section.
- Thickness: It has a very thin blade to cut it with very little force. Large force affects tearing or smashing instead of cutting.
- Exfoliation: The back faces of some Japanese knives are scooped out to exfoliate the cut piece from the blade after cutting.
- Hardness and toughness: Consistency in dulability and sharpness is brought by the same way as a Japanese sword. The blade is formed from a combination of two different steels, a harder outer jacket steel wrapped around a inner core of steel relatively softer.
- Single ground: A yanagi-ba blade is angled only from one side, with the other side of the blade being flat. It brings easiness in blade angle control for delicate cutting. It also brings easiness in grinding the blade. The figures in this article are for right-handed version in which the brade is ground only right side (front face). Of course the left-handed version is brought but relatively few and expensive.
The first three conditions are particularly for yanagi-ba-bocho, and its name 'yanagi' is from long and pliant characteristics of a willow branch. Remained conditions are generally for knives for Japanese cuisine. The important principle to use yanagi-ba to prepare sashimi is not cutting down but pull with its long blade.
