Cooking and Gadgets

One for the Table's Favorite Kitchen Tools & Gadgets

We asked our regular contributors what's the one cooking utensil or gadget they just couldn't or wouldn't want to live without. We were suprised to find there was one clear winner...

My favorite kitchen tool is our Microplane Grater/Zester. Peter and I took a basic cooking class right before we got married, and on the first day we both accidentally sliced our hands open and had to wear giant Band-aids. At the end of the class series, we got a little gift certificate to Surfas restaurant supply, and we bought the lemon zester, and now when I use it I think about how hard we laughed when we both sustained consecutive ridiculous kitchen injuries on Day One of cooking school. It was pretty embarrassing; no one else in the class shed a drop of blood the whole time. — Emily Fox

Okay, don't laugh. For several years I've had a Microplane Grater/Zester that I just would never be without. Can't be beat for grating chocolate, parmesan, citrus. I was shopping at Target recently and noticed this foot buffer (made for TV commercials) that looked a lot like a food grater. So, I went home and tried my Microplane on my calloused feet. Yep – worked great. So, now I have two of my favorite graters – one in the kitchen drawer and one in the bathroom drawer. I'm not sure what the people at Microplane would think of this!
— Sue Doeden

My favorite kitchen tool is the Microplane grater, it works for cheese, chocolate, garlic, ginger, nutmeg, etc. I recommend all the different size graters that the company makes. I use it daily. — Brenda Athanus

This is the desert island question: what kitchen tool I can't live without. Without a doubt, that would have to be a freshly sharpened chef's knife. Beyond that it would be a Microplane Grater/Zester, possibly one of the smartest, coolest tools ever adapted to the kitchen. Mine makes fluffy grated cheese for pasta and fantasy-small shavings of chocolate to top ice cream and cakes. — David Latt

My favorite kitchen utensil is the oft ignored chef's knife. It is essential to have a very sharp and versatile knife in the kitchen in order to ensure efficient and in fact safer preparation. It has been proven that a sharper knife minimizes the risk of cutting hands and fingers because of the sureness of the blade which reduces the risk of overexertion, slippage, etc. The chef's knife is hands down my favorite kitchen tool. — Jackson Malle

My Kyocera Ceramic Nakiri Vegetable Cleaver, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love how you never ever get dull - never and when you do (about 1 or 2 times a year) I send you off to some strange little shop in Irvine along with $10 and you come back resharpened with all the nicks honed out. I love how you can slice a garlic clove as thin as Ray Liotta was able to in that great jail cell scene in Goodfellas. I love how I can cut perfect geometric squares out of diamond hard celeriac. But most of all I love how easy you make every single cutting job known to man. You, my black Kyocera vegetable cleaver, are even more dear to me than my 33-year-old ginsu knife. — Paul Mones

I would personally like to kiss the ring of the genius who thought of the
Oxo Angled Measuring Cup. No longer do I have to execute a Grand Plié every time I need an exact 2/3 - cup liquid. Now, you just pour, look down into the cup from a standing position and watch the liquid rise to the desired line. A revelation. — Katherine Reback

I have to call this a thingamajig. It is a device that has a jar lid on it, a crank and hook on the bottom. Can you guess what it's for? Peanut Butter. You know how the oil is separated on the top and how much work it is to mix it together. It's messy, too. Well, with my thingamajig, I simply replace the jar top with my thingy, screw it on, turn the crank and voila....less of a mess. I used to have one of those apple peelers that gives you perfect round slices in an accordion, along with the peel in a single strip, but it broke, and THAT was my favorite.
— Laraine Newman

I have a countertop book stand that keeps my cookbooks clean... and open to the right page. It makes me feel like a professor with a lectern, which is a good way to feel when you're cooking.
— Agatha French

An antique herbal appetite stimulator grinder. The one that looks like a metal pill box. Perfect for chopping basil, tarragon, and other legal substances. — Michael Elias

My favorite kitchen tool is my phone because I can order in, tell Len what to pick up, find out what Emily wants to eat for dinner after she is done playing soccer and seek out recipes from friends all over. — Betsy Sherman

I cannot live without a salad spinner. There is nothing worse than watery, wilted lettuce and since I eat salads nearly every day it is essential to my well-being. — Nancy Mehagian

My favorite kitchen gadget is my red KitchenAid stand mixer. My husband bought her for me for Christmas several years ago, and her name is Mildred, after the woman who “did for” my grandmother. I love Mildred more than words can say; she kneads my bread dough, whips my cream and looks impossibly cheerful on the coldest, darkest days. I also love my chef’s knife, but it’s hard to get all sentimental and cozy about a knife.
— Ann Nichols

Though it has nothing to do with cooking – unless you consider wine essential to food – my favorite and most used "kitchen gadget" is my Legacy Corkscrew. Sure, it takes up some counter space and seems a bit over the top, but it looks fancy, can pull the cork out through the foil (which is cool, but not classy and not recommended) and also allows you to re-cork the bottle as well. All it takes is one simple pull. Receiving this item as a "gift" from someone who didn't want it cluttering their kitchen, only made me cherish it more. In fact, when I broke it (a dark day and not easy to do), I loved it so much I spent the money to get another one. I could certainly live without it – though my regular corkscrew skills have dulled over the years since its arrival – but I'm glad I don't have to.
— Lisa Dinsmore

Cooking Sous Vide

I don't know about you but I've got five extremely angry über chefs glaring at me from their cookbook bookflaps on my kitchen shelf and it's making me nervous: England's Heston Blumenthal's "The Big Fat Duck Cookbook", Thomas Keller's "Under Pressure", Grant Achatz's "Alinea", and a couple of chefs from Spain – Ferran Adrià's "El Bulli Volumes 2003-2004", and Joan Roca's "Sous Vide". It sounded like a good idea at the time – assembling courtesy of Amazon.com the modern greats for a holiday feast using the latest sci-fi techniques of sous vide (cooking food in a vacuum packed pouch) – and then having at it.

What these chefs failed to take into account – and the cause of their ire – was that I now see I don't possess any of the tools required to cook any of their recipes. They want to know why they are in my kitchen. I don't have a Polyscience Minipack-torre Model MVS31 Vacuum Sealer ($2025.00), a 8306C Model Thermal Circulating Bath ($1799.00), or even a functional spatula. I do have, however, from a previously deranged buying spree – The Smoking Gun™ ($79.00), which runs on 4 AA batteries and helps infuse dishes with a smoky flavor. An excellent Christmas present for your foodie friends. But I'm crushed to learn from their website that the gun is now being touted as "Excellent for finishing products that are cooked Sous Vide". Back to the beginning. I won't be dining in.

Cooking Duck

The first time I cooked duck, I was completely freaked out. "Duck!" seemed way too exotic, too odd, too French for me to deal with. Duck had too much tradition behind it. Chicken was my safe-zone fowl.

Anyway, I took the plunge and cooked a whole duck. It turned out...ok. There's all that fat to deal with and the fact that the whole bird is dark meat. After dozens of outings, I figured out how to cook duck, and, I have to say, duck is great. Taste-wise it's midway between chicken and beef, but better than either.

To the point: cooking a whole duck is an obligation. Cooking duck legs and thighs is a lot more normal. Think "chicken" and it won't seem so special, but the end result will be.

A Red Sauce Rich With Flavor

It’s funny how years ago when I made an easy baked Italian rigatoni dish, a jar of Ragu seemed to work just fine. Now, I can’t even remember the last time I purchased a jar of pasta sauce.

There must have been a time when I was inspired to try making a sauce from scratch. Once I discovered how easy it was to produce a fine tasting red sauce to spoon over pasta, I began experimenting until finally, Rich Red Sauce for Pasta was the recipe I wrote in a little book that holds my recipe collection.

As you read the recipe you'll probably stop when you get to the garlic. Sixteen cloves of garlic? That’s right. You'll be so surprised as you eat the sauce – you’d never guess it holds that much garlic.

It's Better Than Sex

Hey, I’m not the one who shouted it out…they did, but I did consider the concept once before. You see, I have this group of tremendous and passionate foodie friends; they inhabit my supper club and like me, live their lives, loving and adoring food. They are the ones who said it, proclaiming raucously this particular Lobster Bisque was better than sex. Before I knew it, the terms orgasmic and seductive were thrown out there. I unexpectedly felt exposed at the dinner table. Had I really created something better than sex? I guess that depends upon the state of your sex life but I will say this, this bisque is incredibly sexy.

It all started in the late 90’s when my husband and I would frequent “The Grill”, a restaurant at the Ritz Carlton-Laguna Niguel. Our friend Jim was the head chef and we were in love with his version of Lobster Bisque. We would sit at our table, almost giddy with excitement until our waiter delivered the empty, shallow bowls except for the two prawns placed strategically in the center. He then artfully ladled in the velvety goodness until only the prawn’s tails were visible. He quickly left us to privately slurp the exquisite bounty present before us.

We desperately wanted to replicate the amazing bisque in the confines of our own kitchen. Every visit to the restaurant, every taste, brought us a little closer to bringing its luscious taste to fruition in our own home.

Cooking Techniques and Kitchen Gadgets