Video Transcript for Feature Breakdown: GSI Outdoors Camping Santoku Paring Knife with Cutting Mat

Ellen: Hey everybody. I'm Ellen here at etrailer.com and we're taking a quick look at the GSI Outdoors Santoku paring knife with ultralight cutting board. This is a nice kit if you really are concerned about weight and space, when it comes to your camping pack, but you still want to be able to prepare a fresh meal while you're out in the great outdoors. So we're going to kind of take a look at it. I'm going to try it out with a couple of things. I've got a couple of things for my lunch that we're going to cut up with the knife and see how the cutting board does as well.Overall, again, I think this is a kit that's really designed for somebody who's concerned about weight since this does just weigh about three ounces.

The thing that kind of attracts from it is going to be this cutting board. As you can see, it comes rolled up in this tube and it kind of wants to stay like that. So that is something to keep in mind. You can roll it the other way to kind of correct that curve. Also, if you want to roll it the other way, put it back in the mesh tube, leave it in the sun for a while.

That'll probably also help to get it to flattened out a little bit more. When I tried it earlier, I got it to kind of stay relatively flat, especially if you have the curve going kind of like up from the surface that you're cutting on, so that as you're using it, your hands are doing the work of keeping it down. That does kind of help. So just got it this, and I'm going to kind of hold it there for a minute. So that should kind of help to flatten it out.Now, the knife itself is really nice.

It is again a Santoku style. So that's a Japanese style of knife. It has that kind of sheepsfoot that's the blunt end here are the kind of cutoff end at the tip. And this is designed for mincing, dicing, and slicing. That's the Santoku style.

That's what that name means, is three uses. So it is a paring knife. So it's a little bit shorter than your typical chef's knife, and it's not really intended for rocking, although it does have a bit of a curve to the blade. So it's kind of a cross between a Western style and that traditional Santoku style. So it should be good for a lot of different uses. Again, since this is a little bit shorter, it's maybe not going to be the best chopper, but let's take a look and see how it does in our quick test here.So I've got some things to chop with, got some pecans, just to see how well it does with chopping. So just doing the traditional kind of Western style of chopping using that rocking motion, it does okay. Especially for something like this with nuts, you really kind of have to use that sort of fulcrum rocking chop so that everything doesn't go flying. Now I haven't sharpened this blade at all, this is just coming straight out of the package and it does pretty good. I mean, pecans aren't the hardest thing to chop up, but I really don't have to use any effort at all to get these to chop.Something I do like about this design of the flexible cutting board is that once you have everything cut, you can then kind of grab it up and use this as a funnel to go into your pot or into a bowl or anything else. So that is one nice thing about this design with that flexible surface.Let's try it on little clementine here. Does a pretty good job. I'm going to see how fine I can get this to slice. And this is kind of more of a reference on my own cutting skills than the knife necessarily. Does pretty good. Again, this isn't your typical use. I mean, we typically will just peel these little guys rather than chopping them up, but just to give you an example of something to cut with this, just so you can see how sharp the knife is and how well it does cutting pretty thin.So all in all, I think this kit is pretty nice. And as you can see, this is laying flat now just from a kind of rolling it up and letting it sit there for a minute. So it is possible to get it to lay flat. It doesn't really take too much effort again, if you can let it sit in the sun for a while, that should also help. But of course, if you don't have time to wait around, I think just rolling in the opposite direction kind of holding it there for a minute and then having it so that the curve is towards the cutting surface should really help so that as you're using it, you're pushing down on it again. If that makes sense.All in all, it should be a nice kit. Again, really great for somebody who's concerned about space and weight since the weight is just about three ounces, really shouldn't take up too much space in your pack. If you want a more dedicated set, we do have other cutlery sets. GSI does have a three blade Santoku or Santoku's sets that comes with a larger straight blade and also a larger cerated knife. So if you want something that's a little bit more advanced, if you're going to be doing a lot of cutting, I would suggest getting that one. If you just want to have one knife for a lot of different uses, this is a pretty nice way to go.I hope this has been helpful in deciding if this is the right kit for you. Again, we do have a lot of accessories here at etrailer.com, should be sure to check them out. Thanks for watching.