What are your unconventional kitchen tools/utensils you were skeptical of at first but feel you can’t live without?
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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’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
I have the cheapest manual grinder I could find in my local supermarket. It does the job
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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Wok is pretty standard here in the UK.
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.
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!
I use it to scrape up all the stuff once I’ve chopped it. Chop onion, use spine of blade to scrape onto this, dump in pot. Saves lifting heavy chopping board, or scraping onto thin knife.
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. 😅
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 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 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.
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.
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.
My tiny 1" silicone spatula is one of the handiest utensils I own.
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.
Strawberry cutter. That stupid looking plastic strawberry with the little blades in it? Turns out it can do basically evening I don’t like cutting, mushrooms, berries, olives, all in tiny perfectly uniform cuts.
Egg slicer.
Can’t get medium eggs in nice slices on sandwiches so well with a single point of pressure on the egg. That is even with a really sharp knife cutting soft-ish eggs is annoying and just not as good.
Everything else, knife.
That’s considered unconventional where you are? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kitchen without one here in the Nordics.
As lemmy crashes for me when i try to dm you (idk why you are the only one i have this issue with) may i ask why you speak a minimalistic language natively ?
That’s not my native one, there were ones even before that one.
I’ve got two - a potato ricer, basically a big garlic press you put a boiled potato in, instant perfect mash.
And one of those spiral apple peeler/corer/slicers, makes cooking anything with apple in so much faster (it’s a fiddle to clean though unfortunately)
Those rotary slicers are great. I make apple pie and those make it a breeze.
