Your guide hand is important for not only overall accuracy when cutting with a chef’s knife, but it also keeps your fingers and thumbs out of the way so you don’t cut them off (not fun).
In this picture, you can see that I’m using my guide hand to cut off the top of an onion. To start, make a “C” like shape with the opposit hand that you are holding your knife with, and curl your fingertips slightly behind your first knuckle.
Place your fingertips on the obeject you are going to cut, and place the knife blade up against the first knuckle on your middle finger, with your fingernails curled slightly behind your knuckles. Maintaining constent contact with your knuckle is going to insure that you are guiding your knife at all times, improving the accuracy of your cuts.
Once your knife is up against your knuckle, make your normal slicing motion, making sure to keep contact between your knife and guide hand at all times.
Notice in the picture how my thumb is tucked back behind my fingers. Doing this will keep your thumb away from the blade and save you money by not sending you to the ER.
Learning to use your guide hand properly might seem a little awkward at first, but once you get use to it, your knife skills and the overall accuracy of your cuts will improve greatly.
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Thanks Jacob. I’ve been all over the internet trying to find out the proper way to use the OTHER hand. I’ve sliced a finger and several fingernails and was really hoping not to repeat that. Two follow up questions… If you have fingernails, should you dig them into the food slightly to maintain a grip? And, for instance, slicing mushrooms (or most things, really), I find when I get to the end, the guide hand has nothing to grip and my mushroom has flopped over on it’s side. What’s the best thing to do here?
@ April,
Yes, I’ll use my fingernails a little bit for cutting things like mushrooms. Just always make sure that you wash your hands really well before cutting, and use a nail brush while washing. I’ve been a little behind on my videos lately but this one is next on the list.