Anthony Bourdain's Crucial Tip When You're Learning To Cut Onions

Aside from food safety and other kitchen safety practicalities, long before jumping into actually cooking, knife skills are among the first things you learn in culinary school. They are among the building blocks in cooking. Without proper knife skills (which include how to use knives safely), you can't progress in the kitchen, especially if you don't have the basics down, like cutting onions and potatoes. In a video showing Anthony Bourdain's easy beef stew recipe, the late chef gives viewers a no-nonsense tutorial on how to safely and properly cut an onion. 

Working at the time as executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York City, Bourdain instructs viewers on how to make a humble French beef stew known as beef bourguignon, a dish Bourdain loves, saying that the dish actually works best with inexpensive ingredients and involves minimal preparation. Early on in the video, Bourdain emphasizes the importance of basic proficiency with a knife, saying that "everybody should know how to use a knife–it ain't that hard, okay?" Bourdain demonstrates the importance of properly positioning your hand when cutting an onion to avoid injury. Never hold your hand parallel to the knife, meaning, never have your thumb running in the same direction as the knife.

While you might know how to hold a knife like a pro, what you do with the other hand is just as important. Using a knife while your fingers are pointing to the north of the cutting board is just asking for disaster, as your thumb could easily make its way underneath the knife's path, and depending on how sharp your knife is, could very well take off a chunk of your thumb. Instead, Anthony Bourdain shows that it's imperative to rotate your hand so that your four main fingers are pointing directly towards the flat side of the knife, perpendicular to the blade. Bourdain says that your hand should be turned, "the one holding the object to be cut, at a 45 degree angle," and demonstrates this for viewers.

By turning your hand so that your fingers point toward the knife blade, you avoid the risk of cutting off a good portion of your thumb. Additionally, your fingertips should tuck in and curl under themselves like a claw so that the flat part of your fingers between your first and second knuckles is parallel with the knife's blade. Curling the tips of your fingers underneath not only makes the onion easier to hold as you cut, but it also keeps your fingertips out of the path of the knife's sharp edge. Rather than risking a serious injury, "the worst thing you can do to yourself is just shave off a little flap there," which Bourdain shares is "a hell of a lot better than a thumb injury."