Japanese kitchen tools 台所道具

Graters for wasabi, ginger and daikon

An oroshigane is the general Japanese word for a grater, and Wikipedia's entry on the tool explains that oroshigane differ significantly from Western style graters, producing a much finer result than a box grater does. Traditionally these were tin coated copper plates gouged with tiny spikes rather than punched through holes, and that style is still considered the best by professional chefs. A coarse grater handles daikon and similar vegetables, while a fine grater is for wasabi or ginger. For wasabi specifically, the finest traditional surface isn't metal at all. Wikipedia notes that graters made from shark skin were used exclusively for wasabi and yamaimo, since the surface is even finer than a metal one, closer to sandpaper. We stock that version. Our Japanese sharkskin wasabi grater pairs a real sharkskin grating surface with a natural wood body, fine enough to break wasabi down to a creamy paste rather than a coarse shred, and it comes in three sizes, small to large. Grate in a circle, as if drawing the character no, without pressing, and rinse and shade dry the grater after each use rather than soaking it, since standing damp peels the skin and cracks the wood. We don't currently stock a metal or ceramic oroshigane for daikon.

Mandolines, for even slicing

A mandoline is a culinary utensil used for slicing and for cutting juliennes, and Wikipedia's entry describes the mechanism plainly: two parallel working surfaces, one often adjustable in height, with a food item slid along until it reaches a fixed blade that slices it as it falls, while other blades cut the slice into strips. Compared with cutting by hand, a mandoline produces uniform slices quickly and with less skill. Slices come out uniform in thickness, which matters for anything deep fried or baked and for how a dish looks on the plate. A mandoline can produce that result with far less knife skill than cutting by hand. Benriner's own site identifies the company as a Japanese maker of mandoline and vegetable slicers. We don't currently have a Benriner mandoline in stock.

Fish bone tweezers and pliers

Pulling pin bones out of a fillet cleanly is a fiddly job, and the tool that does it well grips rather than pinches. Our Honenuki Tatsujin III is a spring loaded pair of pliers built for exactly this: the pointed tip grips a small bone precisely and won't drive a broken bone deeper into the flesh the way tweezers can, the force comes from the palm rather than the fingertips, which matters over a long session. The spring reopens the handles so you aren't prying them apart all night. It's the newer generation of an older bone plier design, with a larger handle and a sturdier spring than the model it replaces. We don't currently stock plain fish bone tweezers on their own, so the pliers are the tool we'd point you to for this job.

Peelers and kitchen shears

A peeler is a distinct type of kitchen tool from a knife: Wikipedia's entry describes the blade as having a slot with one sharpened side, while the other side of the slot stops the blade cutting too far into the vegetable, which is what lets a peeler take off skin without taking flesh with it. Our Yoshikawa stainless vegetable peeler follows that design in a light, balanced body, with a stainless steel blade honed for a clean, low effort peel and a rust resistant body that stays bright. Kitchen shears do a different job again. Wikipedia's overview of scissors and shears explains that kitchen shears, also called kitchen scissors, are built for cutting and trimming tough food materials such as meat, tendon and bones, unlike a pair of scissors meant for paper or cloth. Our Green Bell 95mm blade kitchen shear is the long blade version of Green Bell's kitchen scissors, built from high carbon Japanese stainless steel with a serrated edge that grips hard surfaces like crab shell and fish bone, plus a built in bottle opener and nut cracker notch. A couple of other shears and scissors we've listed before are out of stock right now, so the Green Bell is the one we'd currently point you to.

Scrapers, drop lids, mortars and scrub brushes, what's not on the shelf yet

A few more genuinely Japanese kitchen tools round out this guide, and none of them are currently in stock, so we'll describe what each does rather than link a listing. A Hasegawa cutting board scraper is a hand tool built to bring a marked up board back to a clean surface: it takes out tough spots, mould and mildew, plus the grooves that build up on a board over years of use, then finishes with a smoothing face. An otoshibuta is a Japanese style drop lid that floats directly on the liquid in a pot while food simmers. Wikipedia's entry explains that it spreads heat evenly and cuts down on the liquid boiling in large bubbles, which reduces mechanical stress on delicate ingredients; otoshibuta are almost always wood, so they're soaked in water for a few minutes before use to stop the wood picking up the dish's flavour. A suribachi and surikogi are a Japanese mortar and pestle, used to crush ingredients such as sesame seeds. Wikipedia describes the suribachi as a pottery bowl with a rough ridged pattern on its unglazed inside, worked with a surikogi pestle traditionally cut from sanshō wood so the wood wears down rather than the bowl; bowls run from 10 to 30 centimetres across. A tawashi is a Japanese scrubbing brush for wet cleaning, traditionally made from palm fibre. Wikipedia notes that in Japan, a scrubbing sponge is now often treated as a type of tawashi too.

How does this connect to knives and cutting boards?

Most of these tools live next to a knife rather than instead of one. Our Japanese kitchen knife guide covers the knives these tools support, our cutting board guide covers the surface a peeler, a mandoline or a pair of shears works over and our cutting board care guide covers washing and drying the board underneath. If a knife needs sharpening rather than a new tool, our whetstone guide and sharpening guide cover that separately.

For cake tins, moulds and other bakeware, see Cakeland baking tools. For the iron and aluminium pans those tools work beside, our pan care guide covers seasoning, washing and drying.

Quick answers

These are the questions people ask us most often about Japanese kitchen tools, answered briefly.

Do you stock a metal or ceramic oroshigane grater? Not currently. We stock a traditional sharkskin wasabi grater instead, which is the finer, wasabi-specific version of the tool.

Is the Benriner mandoline in stock? Not right now. We'll link it here again once it's back in stock.

What's the difference between fish bone tweezers and the pliers you stock? Both pull pin bones out of a fillet, but our Honenuki Tatsujin III pliers grip with a spring loaded jaw rather than a pinch, so a broken bone is less likely to get driven deeper into the flesh.

Do you sell otoshibuta, a suribachi and surikogi or a tawashi brush? Not currently. They're genuine Japanese kitchen tools and we've described what each one does above, but none are on the shelf right now.

Which kitchen shears do you stock? Our Green Bell 95mm blade kitchen shear, built for tougher jobs like crab shell and fish bone as well as everyday cutting.