The Japanese Knife You Should Be Using To Carve Turkey

After all the work that goes into prepping and cooking a turkey — from working out how long to cook the turkey for to what to season it with — it seems only fitting that everything goes right when you carve the bird. However, as every experienced turkey carver knows, this is not guaranteed. One way to boost your chances of successfully carving a turkey is to use the right knife, and numerous people recommend using a Japanese honesuki knife.

There are many different types of knives. Despite this, the honesuki knife stands out. This is because it looks like a spear or an arrowhead. It is that design that makes it the knife of choice for many chefs, especially when they are working with poultry. Despite its tough appearance, this triangular knife is light and sharp, and its uniquely pointed tip is ideal for getting rid of fat, skin, and small bones. Alongside performing these intricate tasks, honesuki knives are also strong enough to make tough cuts. This combination means that all parts of the turkey are easy to carve when you are wielding a honesuki knife.

Interestingly, honesuki knives are specifically designed for de-boning poultry; the word honesuki literally means "bone knife." Because of this, honesuki knives lack the flexibility of carving knives. However, the knife remains uniquely suited to carving turkey. The key, experts say, to the honesuki's effectiveness is its distal taper which means it's much thicker near the handle than it is towards the point. This design means the knife's heel can be used to cut through thicker parts of a turkey while the more intricate jobs can be performed by the point of the blade. Such a design means very little turkey meat should be left on the bones after carving and that the meat that is removed should come off cleanly. (This is doubly true if you avoid this common slicing mistake people often make when carving turkey.)

While often derided as a tool with only a few uses, having a honesuki knife can actually save you space; while many people use both a sturdy, thick knife and a small, thin knife to carve poultry, the honesuki knife's design ensures it is the only knife you need to perform this task. What's more, it does a better job. Thicker-bladed knives don't perform as well and thinner blades can be too fragile, especially when carving larger birds.

Individual honesuki knives vary in price, however a 6-inch Tojiro honesuki knife can be purchased for under $100. As this knife takes the guesswork out of poultry carving, we'd say that's money well spent.