knife skills

My Culinary Adventures – How NOT to Chop an Onion

Cooking

I was chopping onions for pasties when I felt the pain. I had sliced a chunk out of my thumb. There was blood, lots of blood. I called my husband to assist in bandaging me up.

It was quite obvious that the bleeding would not stop on its own. My husband used some woundseal powder which did a good job of clotting the wound, however, we decided a trip to urgent care was in order. My son was handed over the job of making dinner (a dinner that he had requested on his weekend home from university). So glad he is a true masterchef and could take over the task. I truely felt bad that he had to step up, as I had wanted to make it for him.

My husband questioned the knife I chose to use for the onion chopping. I told him that the knife I normally use was waiting to be washed so I chose the now dreaded knife to use instead. So, when chopping onions, be sure to use the proper knife and keep your fingers tucked under.

Luckily, urgent care was practicly empty and we didn’t wait but five minutes to be called back. This never happens! My day was making a turn upward. The nurse and doctor were very nice and fixed me up. I was rather disappointed that they did not even want to examine the severed part of my thumb. The boys had managed to find this piece of skin amongst the onion slices and put it in a baggy for me to take along. The doctor had no desire to reattach this piece of skin and just as well because truthfully, none of us were positively sure if this was indeed part of my thumb or part of the onion.

As always Happy SAFE Cooking!

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Practicing Knife Skills

Cooking

After season ten of Masterchef, I decided my knife skills were lacking. What to do when a new skill is needed? Turn to You-Tube of course.

I tuned into chef dann knife skills at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12issg3EdA8 for further instruction. Chef Dann has an ‘anybody can do this’ attitude which I loved. His video went slow enough to keep up with and his explanations were easy to understand. His focus is on technique and not speed. Speed he reassures will come with time.

Chef Dann has already made it clear to me that I do not know anything about using a knife the proper way. But no worries! With a little practice I will be mastering this skill like a pro. The first thing I need to work on is holding my knife properly. The second thing I learned was how to hold the food I am cutting with my thumb and pinkie and to curl in my other three fingers to use as a guide for the knife. The importance of curling in these fingers is so they are not chopped off along with the carrot. Nice!

Chef Dann goes over cutting carrots, onions, and garlic, all of which I found very helpful. While anyone can get by in the kitchen just chopping away, I do think that having proper knife skills will help save time, produce finer uniform dishes, and be safer in the long run. So I will strive to keep my knives sharp and my fingers tucked as I sharpen my skills.