Knife School

The care card

For the kitchen drawer. Everything that keeps a Japanese knife sharp for decades.

Five habits

1. No dishwasher. Heat, detergent and other cutlery damage the handle and the edge. Hand wash and dry straight away.
2. Wooden boards only. Glass, stone and marble are harder than the steel and dull the edge in days.
3. No twisting through bone. Hard steel slices beautifully and chips if levered. Use a cleaver for bones.
4. Store it on its own. A magnetic stand, a rack or a sheath. Never loose in a drawer with other metal.
5. A whetstone, not a rod. Japanese steel is too hard for honing rods. A stone session a few times a year keeps it sharp.

Your first whetstone session.

1. Soak a 1000/6000 combination stone until the bubbles stop, about fifteen minutes.
2. Hold the blade at about 15 degrees: roughly two coins stacked under the spine.
3. Pinch grip on the handle, fingertips of the other hand on the blade. Push from heel to tip, ten to fifteen strokes on the 1000 side.
4. Feel for the burr, a tiny ridge on the other side of the edge. Then repeat on the second side.
5. Turn the stone and finish with lighter strokes on the 6000 side. Leave the slurry; it’s doing the polishing.

Done right, a tomato skin parts under the weight of the blade alone.