What is your favorite kitchen gadget?
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I just can’t get with bread machines. The loaves are shaped weird and too wide. And honestly just using a pan hasn’t been bad for me. Though I do have a beefy stand mixer that does the kneading for me.
I couldn’t stand the bread machine, it was like Schrodinger’s box. Put in measured ingredients. Will it be a brick? Will it be a bread? No idea until you open it.
I have to see the dough, feel the dough, be able to adjust the timing, give it an extra stretch if needed or an extra hour rest or go faster if it’s ready ahead of schedule.
With bread machine, 35% success, ugly bread
Hands and a bowl, and a pan? 95% success (never gets to 100%) and gorgeous bread.
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I have a cheap rice cooker. Works great for steam veggies and cooking rice. Something i learned was rinsing the rice 3+ times. Really helps make the rice not gloopy.
What makes the Zojirushi a stand out?
I went through a few cheap ones before buying the Zojirushi, making it ultimately the more affordable option.
Cheap ones don’t make rice as well (especially in small quantities–bottom gets burnt, top gets mushy, rice is cooked unevenly, etc), don’t keep rice as long, typically don’t have as many features (different types of rice and other grains, timers, etc), and rarely last very long. Using it about three to five times per week, rice cookers which only cost 30 bucks or so had an average lifespan of 3 to 6 months for me. I’ve had my Zojirushi for 12 or 13 years now.
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My favorite is an immersion blender. I have a cord free model. I like to use it making sauces and eggs.
Sauces to hide veggies from my toddler who doesn’t realize the veggies are there for fortification and health.
Eggs I like to blend/whip air into the scramble. Cheese is an easy add too. They are super fluffy and delicious.
As far as cleaning it, I wipe any missed chunks off, put warm water plus soap in a cup, and blend til stiff peaks, JK.
What is your favorite kitchen gadget?
defenately not the mandolin slicer. Asshole appliance.
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I don’t know if I’d call it a gadget, but I absolutely LOVE the only round handled wooden spoon we have. Best. Utensil. Ever.
If we’re talking just electronic gadgets, I personally like using ( but Hate cleaning ) the food processor. That’s mostly my fault, though, since I almost never fully rinse it out because I’m usually busy doing a lot more cooking afterwards that takes away all my attention. Saves me from having to do things like chopping up onions.
Second in line would be a kitchen-aid stand mixer. Saves me time not having to shred chicken by hand.
I have a round handled wooden spoon. The left half of the head is a normal spoon and the right half tapers to a point like a spatula or turner. I use it in almost every meal I cook.
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Wait, they have a combo device doing both convection and pressure cooker? What black magic is this??
It is as good as it sounds.
I’m still on the lookout for a stainless steel internal pot, and a 4-tier rack, to make it the ultimate kitchen appliance.
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Literal Gadget, the big KitchenAid mixer. I got one that can handle my 2 kilo of sourdough dough, it’s glorious.
MVP? The iron skillets, hands down. If I had to build a kitchen out of fewer than 10 items the medium and oldest one would be first on that list.
Is it an older model? New ones have ludicrously short guidelines regarding how long they should be used to knead dough at slow speeds.
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Haven’t seen it mentioned yet so I’ll throw out a digital scale. Ours isn’t any special brand, but I picked it specifically because it measured to the tenth of a gram and not all scales will do that. I use it all the time, for baking, brewing coffee, portioning things out, making consistent sized burger patties/meatballs etc.
A scale is great for baking, too. Volume measuring cups are a hassle and inaccurate. Scale is easy.
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My favorite is an immersion blender. I have a cord free model. I like to use it making sauces and eggs.
Sauces to hide veggies from my toddler who doesn’t realize the veggies are there for fortification and health.
Eggs I like to blend/whip air into the scramble. Cheese is an easy add too. They are super fluffy and delicious.
As far as cleaning it, I wipe any missed chunks off, put warm water plus soap in a cup, and blend til stiff peaks, JK.
What is your favorite kitchen gadget?
A hot chocolate frother. They’re great for mixing any kind of powdered drink.
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I just posted a link to this sharpener which I love in another comment.
Some of the dull but high quality knives I had took a bit to get sharp first time (under ten minutes though).
Guh, I think I even have that sharpener. But it’s been in a box since I’ve moved house years ago an I’ve always assumed it was too late for it to save them. You’ve inspired me to find it and give it a go! Thanks!
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My favorite is an immersion blender. I have a cord free model. I like to use it making sauces and eggs.
Sauces to hide veggies from my toddler who doesn’t realize the veggies are there for fortification and health.
Eggs I like to blend/whip air into the scramble. Cheese is an easy add too. They are super fluffy and delicious.
As far as cleaning it, I wipe any missed chunks off, put warm water plus soap in a cup, and blend til stiff peaks, JK.
What is your favorite kitchen gadget?
Gotta give both rice cooker and cast iron skillets, because they were part of a huge change in what and how I cook. They’ve also both become central to cooking
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This was one of the first things I bought as a single person. Buying meet in bulk was economical. I use to make salsa an freeze it in “pages”. I still use it for all sorts of food
Upvote for freezing as “pages”. It’s good to see someone else thinking that way
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Is it an older model? New ones have ludicrously short guidelines regarding how long they should be used to knead dough at slow speeds.
It is newer, with a terrifying metal dough hook that looks like a sadist’s implement and a 1/2 speed setting. I do sourdough not dry yeast breads, and usually let it run on the slow speed for a couple minutes, rest, then on 2 for about 5 minutes or so, longer if all whole grain. (Then dump into a bowl, rest, stretch, evaluate if it needs another round or two of stretch and rest before bulk rise.) What I like is that or doesn’t struggle at all with that mass of dough. I have run it for over 10 minutes making brioche (it takes time to incorporate the butter) and it stays cool and comfortable.
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We got a Kevlar glove for just that reason. Still has most of its fingertips
Plus one for the glove. I always lived in fear of the mandolin but I got a microplaner that included the glove. Now I use it for the mandolin, the grater and the microplaner. Life changing.
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I feel like cleaning a food processor takes longer than dicing with a knife. I use mine for softer tough foods like dried apples or making graham cracker crust but I can’t justify busting it out of the pantry and cleaning it otherwise, what are you using it for?
Let me blow your mind: mini food processor/chopper! Fewer moving parts, much easier to use and clean, and it completes 90% of the tasks I used to use a food processor for.
You want to chop an onion: skin it, quarter, shove it in, brief pulse. Done, put everything in the dishwasher. Perfect size and So much more convenient
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I just can’t get with bread machines. The loaves are shaped weird and too wide. And honestly just using a pan hasn’t been bad for me. Though I do have a beefy stand mixer that does the kneading for me.
Opposite for me, maybe because I never make bread by hand. Throw in the ingredients, press a button, four hours later fresh hot amazing bread. The only real limitation is a i never figured out a recipe that could hold up for sandwiches
Got the machine during pandemic and it was an instant hit. Our weekend tradition became starting the machine after dinner, sitting down with my teens to play video games. When the machine beeped, we needed a break anyway. It was like six months before there was ever any leftover to put away.
I stopped using the machine when I got my cholesterol numbers back
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My favorite is an immersion blender. I have a cord free model. I like to use it making sauces and eggs.
Sauces to hide veggies from my toddler who doesn’t realize the veggies are there for fortification and health.
Eggs I like to blend/whip air into the scramble. Cheese is an easy add too. They are super fluffy and delicious.
As far as cleaning it, I wipe any missed chunks off, put warm water plus soap in a cup, and blend til stiff peaks, JK.
What is your favorite kitchen gadget?
Just got a sous vide circulator and vacuum sealer, they go hand in hand. Game changer. Chicken is perfect every time. No more weird chicken.
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Guh, I think I even have that sharpener. But it’s been in a box since I’ve moved house years ago an I’ve always assumed it was too late for it to save them. You’ve inspired me to find it and give it a go! Thanks!
Hopefully you find it. Make sure you watch the video that’s linked in the instructions. Some of it is a bit of a self-glaze but the correct pressure and direction etc. are shown in the vid.
If you don’t find it, definitely worth buying another one IMO given how cheap they are. Love a good sharp knife.
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I don’t own a mandoline for this reason. The finger tips are he arguably the worst cut to have.
Finger webbing is the worst IMO
Corner of the mouth is terrible as far as tiny cuts go.
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Highly underrated, but a good thermometer can help a lot with cooking meats. Getting the right temp is much more accurate than cooking by sight or feel, and having one that reads in under a second is super convenient.Typhur makes some quality ones that I like to use
Meat is an obvious good use case, but i also use my thermometer to check the doneness of bread. Recipes often tell you a time/temperature, but it’s going to really depend on your oven/pans/the rise/etc, which is why recipes will tell you to insert a toothpick or something like that. It’s way easier to just stick a thermometer in.
I’ve found that you need to use an instant read for this, though, not a leave-in thermometer because bread has much less thermal mass and thermal conductivity than meat (which is mostly water), and the probe of a leave in thermometer will conduct heat into the bread, giving an arbitrarily high reading.
I also use my thermometer for checking the temp of leftovers because I hate when something is cold on the inside, and I don’t like jamming my finger into like 5 different spots to test to see if I heated something up enough.
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not at the same time (that would fucking rule though)! basically it has 2 lids, a pressure cooking one, and one with a heating element and fan in the top for convection. between those two lids it also has fermentation incubation, broiling, dehydrating, slow cooking, steaming, air frying (convection baking but it runs the fan fastest), and sear/sautéing (no lid) functions
Pressure ovens are a thing; I know someone with one. I think it has potential to really do some interesting stuff, but since they aren’t common, I figure it’s a lot of trial and error.
