You may already have all the essential equipment in your kitchen, but are you making the most of those tools? They’re taking up valuable space in your kitchen drawers and cabinets, so let them work for you in ways other than their intended purpose. Included here are many test-kitchen favorites and their secondary features.
It may seem like a single-use tool, but a press is also the easiest way to mince fresh ginger (peeled easily with a spoon); plus, you get the flavorful juice.
Freshly ground whole spices pack more punch than anything from a jar; toast them in a dry skillet until fragrant, shaking the pan, then let cool before grinding. Have a separate grinder for coffee beans, or use this neat trick: Grind uncooked rice in the grinder to clean out aromatic oils, so your coffee doesn’t taste like mustard seed, and vice versa.
Another way to grind those toasted spices by hand is in one of these devices, which are also excellent for muddling fresh herbs, mashing garlic and salt to a paste, or even making aioli.
This tool is better than a fork, two knives, or your fingertips for working cold butter into dough, and will help you make the flakiest biscuits and pie crusts around. It’s an efficient chopper, too, for softer foods such as boiled eggs (for egg salad), avocado (for chunky guacamole), and chickpeas (for hummus).
When making cutlets, a fast and great dinner any day of the week, use this tool to pound meat thinly—and to crush bread into crumbs, for coating, or cookies for press-in crusts, or chocolate for melting. Give texture to cookie-dough shapes with the mallet’s toothed side, or crack a bag of ice with the smooth side.
The tool of choice for all your flipping (meats and vegetables), tossing (salads), and twirling (pasta) tasks. Tongs can also get at hard-to-reach items in your upper cabinets (wrap the pinchers in rubber bands for extra grip).
Grab this when straining and draining, of course, but also for sifting flour with dry ingredients, dusting desserts with confectioners’ sugar, and removing bitter skins from toasted nuts. Metal ones can also stand in for a steamer basket—as well as a splatter guard (just turn the sieve upside down and rest the handle over the skillet’s).
This is a great multitasker: Besides brushing pastries with egg wash or melted butter, or cakes with flavorful syrups, it helps wash down the sides of the pan when making caramel, sweeps away excess flour from bread doughs, and bastes meat with glazes during cooking. Just be sure to designate brushes for either sweet or savory cooking.
A must for smoothies and shakes, margaritas and other frosty drinks—and also for no-churn frozen desserts (see page 307). Plus, you can whiz coffee beans in a blender for coarsely ground coffee (ideal for a French press).
Think beyond the stovetop and use the bottom of this essential to crack whole peppercorns (when your pepper mill would make too fine a powder), or to “chop” nuts (between parchment to keep them from flying). A heavy skillet is a handy weight when draining tofu (lined with paper towels) or other foods.
Besides keeping cakes and cookies (and roasted vegetables) from sticking to the pans, roll parchment up into a funnel for filling your pepper grinder; cut in a round and place atop fruit as it poaches, to keep it submerged; fold into a cone for piping melted-chocolate details; wrap around fish, chicken, or vegetables to cook “en papillote.” Also, sift flour or grate cheese or chocolate on a piece of parchment, then use paper as a sleeve for mess-free moving.
Those with a release mechanism do more than just form perfect balls of ice cream; they create uniform meatballs, dumplings, and cookies, and offer drip-free dispensing of muffin and cupcake batters into tins.
Not just for grating cheese, the tiny holes work wonders on garlic, fresh ginger or horseradish, chocolate, and whole nutmeg.
It’s got four sides and countless uses as a way to shred vegetables, cheese, bread (for breadcrumbs), and whole spices; use it, too, for grating chilled butter into pieces that will incorporate more quickly into pastry and biscuit doughs.
The preferred way to peel carrots and potatoes—and also to shave cheese, chocolate, or coconut.
Martha Must
Originally used in cheesemaking, cheesecloth is how I “baste” turkey (see page 343). I also line a sieve with cheesecloth for straining the solids from homemade stock, and when draining yogurt to make yogurt cheese.