What are your unconventional kitchen tools/utensils you were skeptical of at first but feel you can’t live without?
A Marijuana grinder. I like foraging for foods, so I tend to use the grinder on things like Staghorn Sumac, or Spice Bush to make a course grind. It allows a lot of control on how much you want to use and how fine, unlike a blender.
Before it’s asked, I actually have never smoked weed. It was listed as a “spice grinder” and I never thought it was for weed when I got it.
My mother in law gave me a spice grinder as she had a spare. This raises some questions.
Your mother in law is a real one. Hopefully this answers some questions!
A good grinder can do a lot of good
A safety can opener that doesn’t create any sharp edges, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_mLxyIXpSY (a LONG video, but quite an interesting one IMHO).
It’s nor even funny how much this thing is better than any other opener I’ve ever used, it’s just so bloody amazing!
Knew what video it was before I clicked the link. We bought one because of that video!
It’s amazing how someone can just tell when it’s going to be a Technology Connections video. Such great videos on so many different topics!
Seconded. I never thought the subjects he chooses would make for good viewing but TC is consistantly surprisingly interesting.
Ordinary wheel-cutting can openers get used wrong - they should be cutting the side of the can and not the lid, with the knurled wheel flat and pressed against the rim of the can.
No sharp lip, and you don’t need to fish a lid out of the can. Downside is you can’t use a lid cover to “save” the contents if you don’t use them all.
I have an OXO Good Grips one that has been great for 25 years.
Like gramathy said, safety openers are just to make it difficult to use the tool wrong. Regular can openers are designed to do the same thing, but it isn’t as obvious and limited in the design.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=i_mLxyIXpSY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
A garlic press - saves so much time and effort over mincing garlic with a knife because I’m not a pro chef, and can be used in about 95% of situations where you need garlic. I don’t use it when I want the garlic texture, but otherwise I just adjust the amount or the cooking time versus minced garlic. There’s some hate floating around from professional chefs, but I bought one a few years ago to try it and haven’t looked back.
I bought one and hated it. How do you even clean it? The garlic gets everywhere except the dish I want it in. Maybe I’m using it wrong.
Do you peel the garlic first? I peel by squashing the garlic with the side of the knife to crack the skin and let it peel off, so I’m half done by that point.
I use a toothbrush to clean it
Do you use it on your teeth later? ;)
Seems like so much work! I’m still not conviced a toothbrush would help that much with getting all the bits out from inside it. I do wonder if the one I got isn’t a very good one.
Odd, I just push the bristles through the other way and all the gunk gets pushed out
Maybe I’ll have to try again some time.
Mine goes in the dishwasher after you reverse-press the fibers into the trash. I do peel the garlic first.
Now to be fair, I hate chunks of garlic, I just want some garlic flavor in the food if it’s supposed to be there. So I’m never going to just smash or coarsely chop it. I’m also a garlic-sweater so I don’t use garlic at all if it isn’t necessary for the dish. But some delicious foods require it, and I just have to try to plan them so I don’t have something important the next day.
Does yours have some function to bend it the other way and push the bits out? I always ended up having to scoop out the stuck bits and it is so much more work than squishing the garlic with the side of a knife. But I admit it may have small lumps. I normally squish, peel off the skin, slice against the grain, and squish again.
Takes about 10 or 20 seconds, nothing extra to clean, and the biggest bits are still pretty small.
I actually stopped using my garlic press because I felt it was more work than finely chopping with the knife. It’d be great if it was just “press and done”, but there’s always heaps left in the press itself that refuses to go through, which then has to be dealt with by hand anyway.
You just flip the handle over and press the little nubbins backwards through the holes to push out the woody gunk into the trash. If it doesn’t fall completely out a gentle whack on the side of the can knocks it out. It’s all fibrous and doesn’t have much flavor.
I unironically love cooking with my steel chopsticks.
I use the longer steel ones that are used for deep frying foods. They are about 12-14" long.
A danish dough whisk. Somehow it’s easier to mix dough and it won’t have so much gunk sticking between the wires like in the balloon staped whisks. It can be cleaned easy by hand. It’s pretty large though.
Probably unconventional now, but one of those old can openers. Not the turning ones, the manual single-piece ones. Every can opener I have had dies after a year or two, but this one has been going strong for like… 50+ years.
I have an old Soviet wheel-cutting can opener that is still doing good after 40 years and lots and lots of exploitation
Boy oh boy have I been waiting for the opportunity to plug my favorite can opener. It’s a “turning one” as you call it, from a company called OhSay. American made, and built like a brick shit house, I have no doubts it’ll outlast me. Google it, I think they’re like $15-20
I love the passion for your can opener! I’ll definitely take a look at your recommendation.
In return, here’s a pepper grinder my ex-chef dad raves about that seems to be pretty tough:
!(OXO Good Grips Radial Grinder Pepper Mill, 0.385 lbs, White)[https://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Lewis-Pepper/dp/B003L0OOQM/)]
A microplane grater - it’s been really great for dealing with ginger, and even garlic (although for garlic I mostly prefer to just squish it with the flat side of my knife). I’ve also used the slicer end to make chips out of baby potatoes and turnips.
Another go-to for me is a conventional pressure cooker - I use it when I’m feeling lazy, I just chuck everything in it - lentils/beans + rice + veggies + condiments, and it’s all done in one go, only takes 15-20 minutes and there’s no need to soak stuff beforehand. The best part is that I put all my ingredients in just a single ceramic bowl, so cleaning the cooker is super easy (just rinse it with water), and I can eat directly off the bowl, which saves me from having to use a separate dish.
you do a ginger bug yet?
I’ve been meaning to, but never got around to it. Thanks for the reminder!
I use a mandoline. It used to take me easily 5+ minutes per onion to dice. Now I can get 2 onions diced in about 2 minutes. Less dramatic time savings are available for other veggies too, depending on how finely I want them chopped up.
A measuring jug (from oxo) that allows you to see the marks when looking at it from above.
Also I have two timers, and I need and use both.
A coffee grinder. Freshly grinded beans taste so different from normal preground coffee.
My boiled egg slicer. It seemed really frivolous when I bought it, and I probably only use it five or six times a year at best but man if it doesn’t cut down prep time for any salad with boiled egg in it, it also works with avocados!
Fish spatula
I’ve got two - a potato ricer, basically a big garlic press you put a boiled potato in, instant perfect mash.
And one of those spiral apple peeler/corer/slicers, makes cooking anything with apple in so much faster (it’s a fiddle to clean though unfortunately)
A standalone egg steamer / boiler / poacher (like https://www.sunbeam.com.au/kitchen-and-home/cooking/pie-waffle-snack-makers/poach-and-boil-egg-cooker )
Yes I can boil or poach eggs on a stove or in the microwave, but the sheer ease of use and that it’s always perfect is a life changer.
Electric knife sharpener.
Maybe more of a splurge purchase and it works so much better than those janky acoustic sharpeners.
What? It in no way works better. It’s faster, and takes less attention, but the edges they give are crap, and don’t last well.
Even the workshop belt systems aren’t better than stones.
Hell, if you want to factor in damage to the knife, any of the motorised home sharpeners are horrible. Until you get into stuff like a tormek, you’re heating the edge as you work, and that means you have to sharpen sooner, which can reduce the life of the knife by years over time.
I’m not saying you can’t do what you want with your knives, but there’s too much actual data on the various sharpening methods to call any of the available electric sharpeners better by any criteria other than speed.
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