Cooking Knife Skills: Western Techniques vs. Maybe "Asian" Techniques?

[HighlyVolatile]

I learned cooking in a self-taught and intuitive way growing up. I slice my meats and veggies with fingertips holding them in place rather than knuckles. So far I've never knicked myself very seriously (have burned myself with oil but I almost never knick myself).

Is it so important to learn careful knuckle-way in home cooking?

I've tried to do knuckle and safety way like Jamie Oliver but it feels so wrong to me now. I especially can't grasp the veggies with my knuckles so well even if I flop them about on their flat sides at the ends. I can almost match his speed by holding things at my fingertips and that just feels more right to me even if it's more dangerous.

Is it so important to do knuckle way? Maybe if I was in a pro kitchen doing nothing but chop chop chop, I should prioritize safety. But in the home kitchen with so much less volume, it seems like a waste of time.

Also, I don't see how chopping a carrot or onion can slice through bones even if I'm drunk and miss so hard. It might slice through flesh a bit but that doesn't seem so serious if it doesn't cut through the bone. I've gotten very deep cuts through the flesh in my youth and it takes so much force to go through bones.

Updates

+1 y

My father has the same technique and he can mince onions like a great chef. But he uses the fingertip technique also. He still has all his fingers.

[DonkeyDan]

I use my finger tips but with fingers vertical to the food I'm cutting, so my finger nails act as a guard against the knife edge, and the kinve glides along the face of the nails. I've tried the knuckle approach but don't find it gives as much control over the item I'm cutting, also with the nail as a guard I can quickly reposition my fingers for each cut, allowing for very fast the controlled slicing.

[HighlyVolatile]

That sounds like a very good way! I watched this YouTube video I've been trying so hard to find but unsuccessfully. I seem to have failed to bookmark it. But it was of a Chinese woman using a Chinese cleaver to cut open aloe vera, and she sliced into her palm. Then the comments were flooded with danger warnings about what she was doing like she can cut all her fingers off, but to me, that seems the most natural way to carve a fruit as long as we're careful.

[HighlyVolatile]

She rotated the fruit as she was slicing towards her palm so that she doesn't put pressure inwards to her palm.

[HighlyVolatile]

I also got a problem with the ends of the veggies even with fingertips, but I think I can at least avoid coming up with new solutions before the knuckle approach. If I use a carrot as an example, chop-chop-chop then very end and I make a thicker slice and slice it in half when there's barely any carrot left.