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- - The best kitchen gadgets and other stuff ... (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/diningbuzz/1671287-best-kitchen-gadgets-other-stuff.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by exerda (Post 25043310)

If you're getting mushy steaks with SV, you're not doing something right. ;)

I have no dea what you are going on about. :confused:

If I had said that I was getting mushy steaks you might have been right. But I didn't and you are not. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by uk1 (Post 25043378)

I have no dea what you are going on about. :confused:

If I had said that I was getting mushy steaks you might have been right. But I didn't and you are not. ;)

Well, you did mention not liking the softening and wanting your steaks to be chewy... If you're losing the chewiness, you're SV'ing way too long IME.

An electric kettle is a must! Talk about the first thing I invest in when moving countries...

Quote:

Originally Posted by uk1 (Post 25037953)

Yes, SV is extremely easy to use and it has upsides. I think the main upsides are it's ability to pastereurise potentially dangerous proteins using time rather than temperature and it's ability to soften tissue.

Oddly with chicken the fact that you can safely eat pink chicken with SV still never managed to cheat my mind out of thinking it was unsafe. When you have lived as long as I always viewing anything red in poultry as hazardous - for good reason, SV isn't going to take those subliminal messages away. So I cannot enjoy pink chicken however safe I tell myself it is.

:)

Which temperature do you use? I usually cook on 62.5°C and it's not pink at all...try the iOS Sous Vide App :D
It is a recommendations for temperature for all kind of food (in °C and °F) ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrgreen (Post 25048064)

Which temperature do you use? I usually cook on 62.5°C and it's not pink at all...try the iOS Sous Vide App :D
It is a recommendations for temperature for all kind of food (in °C and °F) ;)

Thanks ... yes .. as an aside .. a tip is always to use F rarher than C on your SV as the calibration is obviosuly narrower and more accurate.

I can't resist anything to do with cooking. What I use constantly:

Popover pan & I'm glad I moved this with me since I've never seen one in Mexico.
Microplanes, different sizes
A ruler, a necessity for me with baking

Thermapen which I got in London & is great for testing the temp of breads in addition to meat.

I'm terrible about sharpening knives so I love the ceramic ones that are sharper than any of my "good" knives.

Silpats & parchment paper
Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, though I have to pre-freeze the canister.
Cast Iron Skillet

I'm terrified of pressure cookers. I remember when they exploded & now I'm cooking with propane at a high altitude. I'm in no hurry anyway.

Deep fryer
Kitchen shears - used almost daily
Electric kettle. I'm a tea purist so use loose leaf tea, etc.
Bench scraper, again I use it almost daily.
Kitchen-Aid & Cuisinart
And don't get me started on cookbooks...

One of the stranger uses for my KitchenAid immersion blender:

I am a fan of a shampoo that's been discontinued and I stockpiled several liters of it before it became impossible to find. Because it's old, the shampoo has a tendency to separate a bit, so when I open a new liter bottle I dump it into a mixing bowl and go to town with the immersion blender, then funnel it back into the bottle. Works like a charm!

Quote:

Originally Posted by chgoeditor (Post 25049406)

Saves you cleaning up with dishwasher fluid :p

Quote:

Originally Posted by uk1 (Post 25037698)

I was a very early adopter of SV, and was initially totally won over but it really didn't catch with me long-term. I went back several times to it but eventually it became confined to the garage.

:(

On the other hand very pleased with the latest Panny breadmaker range. Won't duplicate post and so there are some piccies in the other daily food thread.

:)

I have the panny breadmaker as well. Its used three times a week and it makes very nice bread.

The only problem is that I've put on well over a stone in the last 6 months after the breadmaker arrived. :-(

Quote:

Originally Posted by ukdoctor (Post 25069825)

I know exactly what you mean. Our regular one is the French. I book it for early morning and we have it with strawberry jam and marmalade.

By the way, I have made my wife a criminal. When no one is looking, she puts a few bread bags from Waitrose into her trolley and brings them back to me. Shameful.

Wow - so much stuff on here.

My adds to the collection:

Aga - Pizza oven and slow cooker in one
Slow Cooker for when the Aga is off for the Summer.
Kenwood Mini Chopper

Amazon

- Great for micro chopping onions and other veg to sneak past kids. Easy to throw in the dishwasher. Great also for herbs.

Good things
- Chef's knife
- Cast Iron Skillet
- Parchment Paper
- 1.5 qt Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker (love!)
- Dutch Oven
- Pizza Steel

Something that I want to try that I already own:
- the Instantpot that I bought during the prime sale a couple of months ago

Something that I want to try that I don't yet own:
- Sous vide

Amazon

Something that I rarely use:
- at my weekend cottage I have a roll of Saran Wrap from 2002!

Things that I own but won't use again:
- Mandoline, I'm not adept and feel that my fingers would be at risk

Quote:

Originally Posted by blueskeyes (Post 25391089)

Things that I own but won't use again:
- Mandoline, I'm not adept and feel that my fingers would be at risk

I use my Mandolin a lot more since I got some Cut Resistant Gloves:

Amazon

My best kitchen gadget is Mrs Clint Bint.I'd starve without her.
Although I suppose I could just about survive on grilled cheese on toast done sideways in the toaster. ( Thanks Jamie Oliver.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by exerda (Post 24666094)

My most critical kitchen gadgets:

Good Japanese high carbon steel knives. Much more care required but so much sharper and better cutting than even the priciest stainless steel knives. My general-purpose kitchen knife (a gyutou vs. a santoku) cost only a bit more than my stainless steel santoku and is 1000x better at cutting. Granted, the sharpening stones cost double what the knife did, but I could have gone cheaper on those stones had I wished.
Pressure cooker. Easy risotto, quick beans, grains, etc.
Sous vide. Perfect meats, parcooked starches, and more. I don't get the hostility toward them... Properly used, they're invaluable in the kitchen. Yes, you can turn your meat to mush... but you can also cook a steak to medium-rare all the way through, straight out of the freezer, and you can end up with fork-tender roasts. As with any kitchen tool, you have to know how to use it!
Vitamix or equivalent. Regular blenders cannot replace them. I use mine daily, sometimes multiple times a day. Smoothies, soups, salad dressings, etc.
Immersion blender. Great for soups, and almost foolproof for making aioli and mayo and other emulsions that can be a pain otherwise.
Specialty pans for tamago-yaki, crepes, and paella. You can improvise, but the results aren't the same.
Good mixer. I have a KitchenAid Pro 6 from 15+ years ago, and other than having to effect a repair on my own (correcting a design flaw), it's been a workhorse of the kitchen.
Microplanes.
Half-sheet pan silicone sheets.

My least-used kitchen gadgets:

Ricer. I typically mash potatoes with a masher. If I really want them done right, I sous-vide them to the gelatinization temp for the starches (I'd have to look it up), then put them on ice for a couple of hours, then cook them. No need for a ricer IME if you do them that way.
Jaccard. Yes, I know some people swear by them, but I just haven't found the need. Maybe I cook better cuts of meat, or prepare them differently. I'm also concerned about introducing surface bacteria into the inside of a cut of meat that I want to cook to rare or medium-rare (yes, you can cook longer in the sous vide to achieve effective pasteurization, I suppose).
Crock pot. The problem is that my wife doesn't eat meat, so I lose most of the benefits since I'd have to cook the meat separately and add it at the end for my portion. Otherwise, this would be a much more-used device.

I have to use my bosch mixer and a few other gadgets like griddles - I have like 4 in my kitchen - zester, sandwich press to name a few