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.
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I sometimes find these two in a box in my kitchen, does that make them utensils?
The top one is obviously tech support for your appliances. Why else would they be wearing a headset?
True, but she doesn’t always give the best advice…
Yep, that’s why she has to live here with Tech Support Kitty and me in stead of the mansion she used to have 😁
A coffee grinder. Freshly grinded beans taste so different from normal preground coffee.
What kind do you have?
I have the cheapest manual grinder I could find in my local supermarket. It does the job
I’ve got a Fellow Opus so I can make espresso, as well as less fine ground coffee. It’s quieter than other grinders I’ve used. I’ve also used a 1zpresso hand grinder and found it effective. Both are overkill for pour over or drip coffee
I mainly do drip and pour overs and have this Mr. Coffee blade grinder. It’s not the most consistent grind but it’s pretty good considering the price
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.
But that’s not unconventional, is it? Everyone has one.
I haven’t got one.
Weirdly, a dough scraper. It’s not because of the measurement conversions, I don’t think I’d ever noticed them up until now actually. It’s just a really solid dough scraper. I use it for dough, but I’ve also used it for so many other things, like assembling/disassembling furniture, patching holes in the wall, wrapping furniture in a vinyl sheet. Loads of various tasks.
Every so often you find that you need a solid, flat, steel thing, and this comes in handy every single time.
Yep! Great for so many things, though I don’t think I’ve ever used the measurements on mine.
I find it very useful for cleaning as well, scraping off stuck on stuff
Yes!
That doesn’t sound very food-safe…
Do you not clean your utensils?
I do, but not to clean drywall putty off it
I don’t think drywall is a thing in apartments here. Growing up I always thought that “punching through the wall” was something they put in for comedic effect, because here you’d just crush your hand.
Where I’m from, the walls are mostly made of either brick & mortar, or straight up concrete. Some would be from particle boards and drywalls for less critical stuff, but most if not all would have reinforced concrete as their foundation.
However, I’ve stayed where construction’s made out of wood, and would use drywall. I’ve seen people comically punch thru walls and doors when they’re emotional.
Edit: Most of the time, they wouldn’t punch thru. You can easily leave a hole witha single hit, but to get to the other side, you’d need to be really angry.
To be fair, some of our walls are a bit more hollow, and can be easily drilled into. I wonder if they’re more or less drywall. Though I don’t think you could punch through them without hurting yourself. There’s this part of me that now wishes to try, but it’s like as best we don’t find out. 😅
Small set of whetstones so I can keep my kitchen knives absurdly sharp. Sharp vs “meh” vs dull knives make a huge difference in speed, comfort and safety. I’ve scuffed my knives a bit getting into things, but at least they’re sharp as hell and touching them up only takes a few minutes.
Also it’s hardly unconventional, but a quick read thermometer (fold-out type) is almost a must.
I haven’t figured out how to get a good edge with stones. “it’s all in the angle” but without some kind of guide I can’t find the right angle. I tried marking the edge with sharpie, it helped a little bit still not as good of an edge as I get with other means.
On the flip side, I am a professional metallographer so I am extremely experienced in progressive polishing to insanely fine grits. I just don’t have a good feel or control of the angle. Metallography has to be perfectly flat.
Quick read thermometer is essential. Do you not cook pork chops because they come out as dry, flavorless pucks? Thermometer fixes that. No more guessing how many minutes per inch of thickness at whatever temp, just look up what “doness” you want, and check them every few minutes.
Also, digital kitchen scale, and onion goggles.
For the onion googles:
Get a USB fan and a powerbank and aim it over your cutting surface.
Unconventional in what sense? For westerners? A wok probably
I used to hate wok because it is so big to wash, but then I started understanding its versatility. I still hate washing it tho.
I feel this. I use my wok for everything. Would like to upgrade to a carbon steel one.
aren’t woks usually carbon steel? what’s yours?
IKEA. It’s stainless steel with non-stick. It’s the only non-stick thing I have, and I’m desperate to be rid of it.
Having a non-stick wok is incredibly frustrating because it doesn’t handle high temperatures, and a lot of recipes I’d like to do require high temperatures. Like good luck trying to make chili oil in this thing, I have to use a regular stainless steel pot for that - which works fine. I like making Cantonese style scrambled eggs which isn’t really possible in a pot and it doesn’t come out right in the wok since you can’t heat it enough, meaning the egg doesn’t set fast enough.
We have both and I can confirm the non-stick one is so unsatisfying. Wok cooking should be so hot it’s crackly and firey.
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A giant metal wok spatula is an absolute must-have also.
You gotta be careful with that purchase as wok cooking is usually meant for very high heat which a lot of kitchen stoves can’t provide—those folks would be better off with a tradition pan & a lower, slower heat when trying to make a stir fry. Here, most woks at attached directly to a propane tank to generate that level of heat.
You can buy portable camping stoves that use propane as well. If your kitchen cant heat enough, then that is a useful tool to have. Honestly I’d say it’s decently useful overall in case of a blackout or something.
Osthyvel (a cheese slicer). I kinda miss it every time I’m on vacation and I have no means to get the expected thickness of a cheese slice.
This is the epitome of first world problems.
Yesss! I grew up with one of these and didn’t realize it was unconventional until I lived on my own and tried to find one in a store. Had to buy it online. I use it nearly every day.
It blows my mind that the ostehøvvel is not a common utensil in most countries. How else would you enjoy brødskive with brunost?
I was in Oslo yesterday, and brunost is fucking amazing 🤤
I just hack off a chunk with a pocket knife. Also relevant,
The grater usually has the same deal on the side. Vegetable peelers do the same job also.
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.
I’m not as confident with chopsticks so I use a long set of stainless tongs and find them quite useful
Best way to get confident with chopsticks is to use them more! They’re much easier to clean than any tongs. Nothing beats an egg better than a pair of chopsticks.
Made Tamagoyaki yesterday in a round pan with chop sticks. Not easy but tasty :p
Cooking chopsticks are the best!
Bamboo pot scraper. Not a brush, but an actual small wedge of wood that you can use to scrape cast iron, stainless, etc pots & pans.
Great for heavy duty scraping, but usually just use it lightly to get crispy residue off of stuff (well cooked rice, beans, etc).
I like how much easier it is to rinse off, compared to a brush or sponge, that you really have to clean after using
Did I miss it or did no one say Rice Cooker yet? A good rice cooker makes rice texture so much better while simplifying the whole process.
Someone gifted me a Le Creuset rice cooker. I use it at least once but often twice a week. At $200+ it’s truly something I never would have bought myself.
Oh my partner’s been trying to convince me to accept one because I make so much stovetop rice, but don’t want a digital rice cooker with plastic and circuits and all that.
How does it do?
If you make a lot of rice then spring for a zojirushi neuro fuzzy. Expensive, yes, gamechanger, yes. Buy once, cry once.
That company makes the best damn coffee maker ever
Get a good pressure rice cooker. These are meant to let you leave the rice warm inside for about up to a week. Game changer and always have rice on hand.
Not sure any food can safely be kept warm that long, they keep your rice warm and edible for quite awhile but even 12-24hrs is pushing it.
It depends on the brand. Western rice cookers have a keep warm feature that I wouldn’t trust.
Zorushi and Cuckoo that keep the rice under pressure at around 140F will keep for 2-3 days. https://kitchencuddle.com/rice-cookers-that-keep-rice-warm-for-days/
Yeah, a week is really pushing it, I think I just remembered wrong.
If it keeps rice above the “danger zone”, dont see why not, but that’s hot, not warm. And a week is pushing it.
It’s great! It only makes 4-6 servings of rice at a time but I prefer that because it means there’s less leftovers
A pot is IMO sufficient for single use cooking (maybe once every 1-2 weeks of cooking) if you are not a primary rice household.
I mean I eat rice more days than I don’t and I use a pot. 15 minutes + mostly unattended, while I’m prepping some protein or whatever.
My problem is the cleaning after with starchy stuff.
Especially sticky rice variants are annoying to clean (read: throw in the dishwasher)With a rigid bamboo pot scraper (and, yes, a little soaking if really stuck on there), I’ve found it’s actually not worth the bother of the dishwasher when it’s so easy to do by hand.
But I’m into a real rice rythme these days lol
Is that just a small piece of bamboo that you cut or something transformed. I can’t seem to find much information searching for bamboo pot scra
I just bought mine at a retail outlet. Here’s an old and unused one for comparison. This is after a couple years’ use.
Oh I found it online: https://www.bambuhome.com/products/pot-scrapers-set-of-4
Thank you for the link! Kinda want to try that seems so different than what I use…
I have a tiny whisk instead of a regular-size one, and I have convinced myself it is objectively superior in every way
If you hold your pinky finger out when you use it, then it definitely is
I second the tiny whisk especially for sauces.
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 shaped whisks. It can be cleaned easy by hand. It’s pretty large though.
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.
My tiny 1" silicone spatula is one of the handiest utensils I own.
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