The best kitchen gadgets and other stuff ...
 

Kitchen Gadgets and other stuff I actually now still use and value and wouldn't do without .....

Zojirushi neuro fuzzy rice maker
Meat temperature probe
Temperature laser
Kitchen scales
Pizza oven (1000f)
Mini Ovens
Britannia Oven
Airfryers
Lava BBQ Grill
Big extractor
Spit roaster
Large wok hob
Pie maker
Toastie maker
Noily Prat
Bouillon powder
Ice maker
Ancient Kenwood
Panasonic breadmaker
spreadsheets so I can record and repeat
Chinese cleaver
Ocado
Nisbets pans
Hawker food in Singapore
A really large utility room with racking




Kitchen gadgets and other things and other stuff that seemed like a good idea at the time ....

Sous vide
Waffle Maker
Meat slicer
Double deep fryer
Single deep fryer
Pressure cooker
Waffle maker
Expensive knives
Waitrose
Tesco
Really cheap wine because it is on offer and/or gets me miles
Celebrity chef products and in particular pans and knives
Going to Paris for decent food

~~~~~The rules are you can come back and argue or indeed add or even subtract.~~~~~~

I'm generally opposed to buying single-purpose gadgets.

I like/want:

KitchenAid professional series mixer
1 good steel chef's knife
1 good ceramic chef's knife
All clad pans
Pizza stone!
Bread peel
Cuisinart food processor
Stick blender

That's about it.

Can opener, and a good knife..

Cannot believe that a pressure cooker made your second list. I own two. One large and one 2.5 L (really hard to find) and they are great for all types of meats, stews and veg.

My favorites are my KitchenAid mixer and Le Creuset dutch oven. I gave up using a bread machine a while ago. Part of the fun of making bread is doing it by hand.

For me it's a hand blender, a good knife and a molcajete.

I kind of miss my cheap rice cooker though.

I couldn't be without my kitchen aid.

And I love my potato ricer. Amazingly fluffy lump free mash and I use it for mashing bananas for banana cake too.

Not sure it qualifies as a gadget but I love my banneton for proving softer bread dough.

Ocado are swiftly going from my necessary to unnecessary list. Someone today thought that packing eggs under several tins and a 5kg bag of potatoes was a good idea. It wasn't. :mad:

To muse on some replies.

Never understood why one needs a pressure cooker for veg ... and I use meats that cook reasonably quickly.

I love the breadmaker for overnight french bread. Make smallish loaves and use the crusts for breakfasts with strawberry jam. I do like the french bread tins with holes and I'm pleased that I was able to "make" a bread oven with steam. Never mastered the banneton.... the sour dough always sticks.

Ocado, Always throwing heavy stuff on the bread. But I always get it free ...

I was thinking about a ricer on my list but I don't use it enough.

I'd also add having three fridges ... that is so helpful because we don't have enough room for one big one.

As a pizza fanatic I am interested in starting to make my own pies. Where can one find a good pizza stone? Is it possible to make a pizza dough without owning a mixer?

If you have any hints please tell!

Thanks

uk1 is the go-to on this. I bought my stone from Amazon.

Also see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/dinin...ade-pizza.html

Hi,

I suggest you read the thread linked above.

If you wish to make Neapolitan style I'm afraid you won't be able to as you need a pizza oven that reaches 1000f or more. I've posted stuff about my ovens on the other thread, one a Fimar pizza oven, the other an outside pizza oven. If you want thick American style then an oven stone will be fine. You might also look at the Ferrari G3 table top ovens. I have an early one that they are no longer able to sell because of the temperatures it reaches.

eg

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...d/P1020653.jpg

http://www.teconova.it/public/gestio...ar/Micro1V.jpg

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...64A4050DEB.jpg


You'll make better dough by hand than with a machine and it is a true art.

This is the forum you should explore

Pizza making forum

This is the old Ferrari G3 Divina I use to use and it reaches very high temperatures and will produce a Neapolitan but it is fiddly and an acquired art.

http://www.moltogusto.nl/userfiles/i...20G3%20RVS.JPG

http://www.italiewinkel.nl/component...57f774b160.jpg

Good luck

Crock pots/slow cookers - I have 3 in different sizes, use them frequently including a Nesco 4 in 1 pot that slow cooks, browns and pressure cooks. We were without a kitchen for about 4 months during a remodel and I did all my cooking in them. I even cooked eggs in the Nesco.

Good knives, Le Creuset griddle pan, deLonghi coffee maker and, for our vacation home, deLonghi ice cream maker.

Funny, I no longer believe in expensive knives or pans. Some of the cheap Nisbets pans are always on TV in all the best kitchens and last forever. I also use to buy expensive knives but I'm not so sure. You need to spend "enough" but ...

You reminded me ... I should have added to my list the Gaggia Ice Cream maker .... some finished stuff with ingredients. I take piccies to remind me what I did!

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...923B6B4930.jpg
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...4EFEE47E56.jpg
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...1A81ADF0CA.jpg

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.

UK1 and I have several favorites in common. My favs also include:

• Zojirushi neuro fuzzy rice maker -- it's awesome even if you're a great rice maker because you don't have to worry about timing your rice to finish cooking at a specific time and you don't waste a burner on a pot of rice
  
• Meat temperature probe -- specifically a Thermaworks probe with an external alarm so it alerts me when the food reaches a pre-specified temperature
  
• Kitchen scales -- digital, precise to the gram. If you ever look for digital kitchen scales on Amazon, notice the items that it suggests people frequently purchase alongside digital scales

I'd also include:

• Double layer baking sheets -- no twisting and warping when you put it in the oven
  
• Wine fridge -- I have a Danby with two temperature zones, which is nice for chilling both white and red or different types of beers
  
• Immersion blender -- specifically a Kitchenaid model that's been discontinued. I burned mine out while trying to pulverize dried mandarin orange peel that was packed too tightly into a jar and within minutes had bought a replacement on eBay. (Thank goodness for eBay.) I won't make that mistake again.
  
• Silicone pot cover -- never mess around with saran wrap again when heating items in the microwave and never worry about being unable to find a lid that fits a specific pot
  
• Paella pan -- I have to mention this, since I got a lot of grief over in OMNI a year ago when my father (stepmother) gave me a paella pan. I was insulted because a) I am the family paella maker and it's ridiculous to think I wouldn't own my own paella pan and b) the paella pan I own was a gift from my father years ago.
  
• Riedel stemless wine glasses -- dishwasher safe and take up less room in the cabinet
  
• Microplane -- great for shaving cheese over pasta
  
• Mandoline -- don't laugh, but I have this one and it's awesome. I've owned it for 15+ years, using it at least once a week (and for a long time using it daily) and it still rocks
  
• Great knives, natch -- I'm a fan of both Henkels and Global
  
• Electric kettle -- I know Europeans and Asians reading this will think, "Well, duh. That's about as obvious as saying a fridge or stove is a great kitchen gadget," but they aren't that common in the US.
  
• French press coffee maker -- Great for making ice coffee, which is my daily brew.
  
• Martin Puryear pan scraper -- Cleaning up is a breeze with this tool
  
• Instant Pot -- I'd never heard of this before a couple months ago and once I did I didn't know how I ever lived without it. Pressure cooker + slow cooker + rice cooker + steamer + yogurt maker + braiser all in one appliance. I can caramelize onions overnight using the slow cooker and then serve them with perfectly cooked short ribs that I've pressure cooked in less than an hour. (Needless to say, I don't use the rice cooker function.)
  
• Silicone rubber bands -- Great for trussing poultry, etc., and machine washable so you never need to ask yourself, "Do I have cooking twine?"
  
• Parchment paper -- If I'm slow roasting anything in the over, I line the tray with parchment paper. It's awesome.
  
• Almost anything by Oxo -- If I'm shopping for a kitchen tool, I always look to see if Oxo makes a version of it. They have a very talented design team that takes commonplace tools and improves upon them.

Things I own but wish I used more frequently:

• KitchenAid mixer -- My kitchen is small, so it lives in my hall closet. I dig it out when I'm baking or whipping cream, but it doesn't get used as frequently as it would if it were on my countertop.
  
• Regular (Kitchenaid) blender -- I lent my Instant Pot to a friend so she could try it for a week and I'm borrowing her Vitamix in exchange. I love how easy it is to make green smoothies every morning with the Vitamix, but it takes up so much room. I'd probably do breakfast smoothies more frequently if I had my Kitchenaid blender on the counter. Instead, it's in the back of a cabinet.
  
• Silicone egg poaching pods -- Love poached eggs, but make them far too infrequently. This makes perfectly shaped poached eggs and takes all of the guesswork out of the cooking process.
  
• Food dehydrator -- I mainly use mine for drying herbs. Really should use it for drying fruits such as apples and bananas.

For lovers of gadgets, I highly recommend the kitchen section of Cool Tools. They've turned me on to a bunch of great items.

It's interesting about the Zoji. Certainly in the UK the price makes it a great leap of faith. Non-owners often have an opinion about them ..... but only when you own one are you completely blown away by them. To be able to get your curry in the slow cooker and the rice in the Zoji and then simply eat a perfect meal later in the day is a great thing. It's one of the few meals I cook where I can have a break between prep and eating.

Also a great convertee to Nespresso. Having had big industrial strength Gaggias and gone through the whole roasting from green bean and blending to our own taste and then discovered with some doubts these little machines - if you are just an espresso drinker then these are stunning machines. And the pods last forever. Ignore the dates.

The other thing I'd add to my own list is cigar humidors (it's a bloke thing ....) and those nice cigar exporters in the Swiss airport free zones that export in perfectly legal smallish quantities ...... and save us a packet on the tax on quality cigars ....;)

The Nespresso is a splurge I personally can't justify (love my French press coffee), but I'm always thrilled to find that I'm staying in a hotel room with a Nespresso machine...I go to town.

I think they are ideal for those that love their coffee but don't drink it all the time. I use to waste so much coffee. Now the pods are always fresh. We often have offers where you get a large initial free supply which makes the machines great value.

I had forgotten to tell you about a relatively new development that might be a better alternative to the traditional pizza stone.

Some years ago some home pizza enthusiasts were looking for an alternative to the traditional stone in the domestic lower temperature oven environment and found that thick stainless steel was superior. This was particularly true for New York style (which is the US closest equivalent to Neapolitan) but it also improved Neapolitan as well. This has now become a commercially available product and if I were restricted to domestic oven temperatures this would be what I'd look at. Google pizza stainless steel.

Look at the "crumb" on this Neapolitan style .... something I'd say nearly impossible on traditional stone at less than 900f'ish.

http://slice.seriouseats.com/images/...-testing-7.jpg

.... and some more info at ..

The Pizza Lab: The Baking Steel Delivers

Kuhn Rikon Kochblume Spill Stopper

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...L._SL1000_.jpg

Sorry, I meant to mention that, too. I'm not a pizza cooker, but I know a number of people who have switched from a stone to a steel and rave about it.

I have a good knife, a good coffee maker, a sandwich maker (basically a little grilled cheese thing), a good toaster over (with a pizza setting!) and that's about it. I make do though.

I am in awe of some of the kitchen gadgets here. My own list is:
Kitchen aid mixer
Magimix food processor
Magimix blender
Panasonic bread maker
Rice cooker
Weber kettle BBQ + Mr Flyingbee to set it up and cook on it (does that count as a kitchen gadget or is it a garden gadget?)
Mini cupcake maker
Crumb catcher bread board
Salad spinner
Fat separating jug for making gravy

I'm loving the idea of the fancy rice cookers and pizza ovens.

Fancy rice cookers and catering pizza ovens are two things that you know in your heart are probably over the top when you are sweating about buying them but when you get them become central to your life. I know this is sad but it is true. :)

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...112A0FB145.jpg

I have had an Instant Pot for a few months and love it. I am a total kitchen gadget devotee.

Wish I'd logged in earlier today, but Amazon had the Instant Pot marked down to $99.99, which is as low as I've seen it.

get a pizza steel. stones break at high temps

A good knife, coffee grinder, and a moka pot.

Living life without a microwave oven was weird but I got used to it.

These are the kitchen stuff that I will have a hard time living without:

Nespresso (currently have 2 in the house, a built-in and a stand-alone)
Global Knives
Cuisinart Spice/Nut Grinder
Wok
Silicone Ice Mold
Wine Aerator

Stuff that I probably will love to have:

Deep fryer
Indoor grill

Amazon has a great deal today on the .

Things I didn't think I needed, but now LOVE:

Kitchenaid Ice Cream attachment. We're really happy with the results and I like the idea of using a single appliance in multiple ways. Only hassle is remembering to put the bowl in the freezer several days before you're ready to churn.

Ditto on Kitchenaid meat grinder. Use it all the time, and not only for meat - my mother has an amazing gelatin recipe where you mostly use ground up entire oranges and apples. 2 minutes work with the Kitchenaid.

Kitchen scales. Now that I have one I use it all the time, especially for things where the recipe calls for something impossible to measure, like 2 cups bread cubes, but also gives the amount in ounces/grams.

Slow cooker. I remember when they were called "crock pots" and looked stupid, wouldn't have one in my house. The new cookers are amazing and do some things better than I could possibly do any other way. We have a recipe for slow cooked pork shoulder for pulled pork, perfection in the slow cooker.

Panini maker. Use it all the time for many things including open faced toasties, but also for things like reheating pizza.

Egg cooker. We've had this discussion before. I know how to boil an egg, but with the cooker I can just put them in and forget about them until the buzzer goes off, and they're perfect every time.

Silicone baking mats.

Hand cranked pasta machine. Ignoring the resting time, it takes less time to make and cook the pasta than it does to start with the dried stuff.

High quality metal measuring cups and spoons.

Now, what I really want is a wood-fired pizza oven, but I think the condo board would object.

Mistakes from the past:

Hand operated nut chopper thing - hard to use and bad results.

Kitchenaid pasta extruder. Hard to use and not good results.

Fancy corkscrews. In the time it takes to get the rabbit set up I can just grab old faithful.

This is why I lust after an ice cream / dessert machine with internal refrigeration. Like most pro-kitchen gadgets, consumer models are actually getting fairly affordable... now to clear some counter space. :D


Yep, this is a very useful attachment--of the various ones I have for my KitchenAid mixer, the meat grinder is the most frequently used. I've gotten to where i just buy Costco ground sirloin frozen burger patties rather than grinding my own burgers, but we make a ton of other ground meat with it. And, as you say, it works for other things, too.

2nd-most used is the pasta roller attachment, though I'd love to get one at least 24" wide instead of the piddly 6" one for the KitchenAid. (I think I posted about this in OMNI a long time back and got some good suggestions I've just never followed through on, FWIW.)


Absolute necessity if you use any pro baking recipes (and I cook a lot from The Professional Pastry Chef).


. :D


Agreed. I used it ... once or twice. The pasta roller I use quite often, but the extruder just doesn't work well.


What's the "set up" for the Rabbit? I do find higher-quality Rabbit-style ones work far, far better than el cheapo models, FWIW (we have a decent one; my parents have the cheap one). I can open a wine in ~5 seconds, from grabbing the bottle and Rabbit to tossing the cork into the basket for recycling...

The rabbit is too big to fit in the kitchen drawer so I need to fish it out of a cabinet. I have a really easy European opener that's sort of a lever ratchet. 2 seconds and the cork is out. Not to mention that is makes me look like a nerd.

I'm a waiter's corkscrew fan and also have one (Screwpull, I think) with a two-step lever. A Rabbit requires me to find a separate foil cutter and I'm just too short to use it comfortably if the wine bottle's on the countertop. Plus I don't like the fact that the Rabbit requires me to have two hands on the Rabbit with no free hand to stabilize the bottle. With the waiter's corkscrew, I can grab the neck of the bottle in the same hand that holds the lever (fulcrum? physics was a long time ago). I always worry I'm going to spill the bottle when using the Rabbit.

Blindpilot - The Miele built in Nespresso - oh how I love. Unfortunately not an option as I'm renting in Singapore.

But we too have two Nespresso machines in the house and also a Delonghi fully automatic (which we now hardly use).

Of all the lists here two things are on my wish list - anything Pizza (a stone or a oven) and what is missing is a Thermomix (there is a separate thread on this so no need to argue its pros and cons :p ) - I still havent made it back to Paris, but its on my wish list for our next trip there.

We have three KitchenAid mixers at home as my wife is a home baker and a industrial chiller to place all her bakes (with a nice glass front so I can drool).
I have always toyed with the idea of getting the ice cream attachment - may do that now.

Pressure cooker is a must here too; as we cook a lot of Malay food the meat needs to be really tender and what used to be 3 hours of cooking has now come down to 30mins.

Sous Vide cooker from Anova! They got a few competitors already and suddenly sous-vide cuisine has become available for everybody.
#PerfectMediumSteak :D

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.

:)

The latest generation of cookers is really straight forward to use and extremely convenient. Especially in a diet it's a great way to prepare chicken breast without drying it out.