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| Gizmos, Gadgets, Tools and Tongs By Emily Kaiser
Looking for the perfect gift for the cook in your life? Or a stocking stuffer for the culinary-minded colleague in your office? Wherever you turn, there are racks of tools and gadgets, perfect devices to whip up a sauce or zest a lemon. Which are the best? Which are the handiest? Which are the most fun to use? And who would be better authorities to answer these questions than some of our local chefs? While most chefs readily responded that it's their knives they use most, we were in search of a more specialized answer: the gadgets, tools or gizmos that they love. Morou Ouattara from Signatures understood the importance of this distinction right away. He laughed at the question and said right off the bat, "Besides my knife, right?" He and six other chefs, in the midst of their busy kitchen days, stopped to share with us some of their favorite tools. Emily Kaiser is a Washington writer.
Zester "I found a great zester at Williams-Sonoma. It's stainless steel. It's got a comfortable grip on it. And it's got a very fine plane meant just for getting off the zest, not the pith. We do a lot of zesting here. We use it with anything that needs a citrus flavor -- sauces, salsas and our drink mixes."
Glen Adams
Zest is the outermost portion of the peel of citrus fruit, used for its intense flavor. When removing zest from fruit, it is important to leave behind the pith, the bitter white layer of the peel between the zest and the fruit. Zest can be removed in strips and then used whole (as in candied zest) or minced with a knife. Or finely grated zest can be removed by rubbing the fruit against a grater and stopping when the pith becomes visible. Zesters tend to remove the peel in long strips, while graters are used to obtain finer pieces of the rind, with the Microplane zester being one of the most popular for this chore.
The tool Adams refers to is the Accutec flat grater, available at Williams-Sonoma for $16.50. Cherry pitter "I've just gotten this wonderful German tool. It's called a Kirschomat, which means 'cherry automat' in German. You stick a bunch of cherries in it, they slide down through a little shoot and you pit them by pushing down. We just love it, the convenience of it. We use it all the time. It's just fabulous."
Ann Amernick
For the home cook, a simple cherry stoner or pitter is ideal for preparing fruit for pies, ice creams or other desserts; it can also be used to remove the pit from medium-size olives. Place the cherry in the circular hole and squeeze the arms together. The plunger pushes through the fruit and removes the stone. A basic stoner or pitter for the home cook can be purchased for about $10. For cooks, such as Amernick, with large-scale projects the heavy-duty Westmark Cherry Stoner is available at many online sites for about $50. (Search for "Westmark" and "cherry stoner." We found one at www.fantes.com) Salad spinner "My girlfriend and I just bought this little domestic lettuce spinner. It's about 10 inches in diameter. It's not pump action, it's got a little pull string in the lid that moves back and forth. It really removes the water. It certainly does a better job than my five-gallon spinner at work."
David Craig
Salad spinners consist of an inner bowl that is mesh or perforated plastic and an outer bowl that catches the water from the freshly dried greens. The spinner is powered by either a cord, a crank or a pump, with each method having its advocates. When selecting a salad spinner, choose one that is the right size for your needs. If possible, give it a dry run to be sure the lid fits tightly and the mechanism spins easily. Look for a model with a lid that fits over the outer bowl and that allows you to convert that bowl to a storage container so that you can keep the greens covered until you are ready to use them. Craig's favorite is the Emsa salad spinner, which is at Sur La Table for about $25. Stockpot "I like my stock container. We cook beans in it: black beans and pinto beans, early in the morning to get them ready. You need a big container, and mine is a nice size."
Rigoberto Guiterrez
Stockpots begin at about four quarts in size and go up, up, up from there, but choose one that holds at least eight quarts. What will the pot be used for? Making stock, black beans or boiling water for pasta? Or steaming lobsters and canning preserves? Or all of the above? Think about its uses when you choose its size. What should the pot be made of? In general, avoid cheap, thin pots, since ingredients within them can often burn if the pot is on the burner for an extended visit. Aluminum pots are lightweight but can discolor and also interact unfavorably with tomatoes and other high-acid foods. Many prefer stainless steel; those with aluminum cores are well regarded. Remember too that a stockpot, when full or even half full, can be heavy. So choose wisely, with the strength of the chef in mind. Good-quality stockpots of every size are available in department and kitchen stores everywhere.
Scale
"I like my scales. I have a little ounce scale with a circular dial. It's very important especially for baking and breads, when you have to be very precise. You have to get within fractions of an ounce with every measurement. It's also good for portioning meat and fish, to give you an idea of the sizes of things, and to make sure you don't give anyone too big a piece."
Kevin Hubble
Hubble's choice of scale is mechanical, as opposed to electronic. Ingredients are placed on a stainless steel platform and the spring scale registers the weight on an easy-to-read dial. Many home cooks prefer the smaller electronic versions (battery powered), some of which are so small and streamlined they can be put in a spoon drawer. Look for scales that will convert from American to metric and vice versa and that will hold the amount of food you want to weigh (if you are likely to measure four ounces of Parmesan you'll need one version, four pounds of flour or potatoes another). It is also helpful to choose a scale with the "tare" feature, which allows you, for example, to put a measuring cup on the platform then bring the scale back to zero. You can then add your four ounces of Parmesan accurately, without having to take into account the weight of the empty measuring cup. Hubble uses a scale sold by local restaurant-supply wholesaler Adams Burch. Edlund & Pelouze produces similar 32-ounce portion control scales (prices start at $45). To see that scale and others, visit www.scaleworld.com. Tongs
"One of our premier instruments is a pair of six-inch tongs. You see, we pull meat. Some meat we slice, but with the hog we literally pull it. The hog, it cooks in its skin, the skin is a shell in which the meat is cooked. Below the skin there's a layer of fat that drips through. So it's self-basted. When you take the meat out, you can just shake the fat right off with the tongs. With a good hog, what you really need is a pair of tongs."
Ben Morris
You don't have to cook a pig to go whole hog with a pair of tongs. They're particularly good for turning meat without piercing it. Most cooks prefer the control they get with spring-loaded versions, which keep the tool open until you pinch it closed. Also look for tongs with locks, so you can slide the lock over the arms and store the tool easily in a shallow drawer. Cushioned handles will help improve the grip. Any cook will appreciate tongs in a variety of sizes; the longer models are even good for reaching ingredients on the top cabinet shelf. Tongs are available everywhere that kitchen supplies are sold. Immersion mixer
"I love the burr mixer because you can do so much with it. You can do all kinds of purees; it also makes nice foams. It lets you fold flavors into your sauces, to emulsify butter in a reduction at the last minute or to fold seared foie gras into a chestnut soup at the last minute."
Morou Ouattara
The burr mixer was once a heavy and somewhat awkward tool seen in professional kitchens and rarely in homes. But now the mixer, also known as an immersion mixer or blender or a stick mixer, is more lightweight and compact and a favorite tool of many home cooks. Think of it as a blender on a stick. Make a soup. Instead of pouring it from the stockpot into a bowl, allowing it to cool and then parceling it out into the blender to puree it, you can take the immersion mixer and put it right in the pot. Cream of carrot soup in an instant! These mixers are cordless or not. The cordless versions give the cook more flexibility in working in a pot, but they have their drawbacks: They are often less powerful and if they are not plugged into the charging base it can take hours for them to be powered up. Choose a cord version where the cord juts out, away from the base, and look for one with a shaft that can extend to reach the bottom of a tall pot and that will detach so you can wash it easily. Ouattara uses a Cuisinart immersion mixer, sold at many housewares and kitchen stores. The Smart Stick with a cord and extendable shaft, costs about $60. |
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© 2001 - 2008 Emily Kaiser |
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