Best chopping tool/food prep gadget?

Sean said:
Can bake/roast some whole veggies like potato/sweet potato/pumpkin/ etc in a convection oven. Just put them on a baking tray, maybe with a light drizzle of oil and some salt and favourite herbs/spices. Also can wrap them in foil, which reduces tray and oven cleaning.
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I've taken to using baking paper with most oven cooking, it works pretty much as well as foil and is cheaper. I rather like soggy microwaved potatoes and sweet potatoes - topped with whatever is around. Maybe the variety makes a difference?

Ravn said:
I've tried various gadgets but found getting them out of the cupboard (don't have enough bench space to leave them out), scraping the food out then cleaning and putting everything away again was just as much effort as prepping by hand.
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I agree food processors are mostly too much effort. And I agree with Jonathan that a small thin bladed knife can do most cutting jobs. And a suck-on knife sharpener is great.
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The one chopping gadget I can be bothered getting out sometimes is a stick blender. I have a Kenwood. It has a detachable metal stem and cutting head that is easily rinsed under the tap at the end of the job. It's good for pureeing a pot full of veggies into a smooth soup. There's no extra container to wash, as the blender goes to the pot. (Though, most stick blenders come with various other cutting and whisking heads, including some containers for grinding nuts and the like, so, if you really do want to wash a container, you still can.)
 
I use pre chopped frozen veg quite a bit, onions, mushrooms, squash, and quite a bit of my plated (i.e. not in stews or other cooked things) veg is also from frozen.

Unless in a mix I do not use frozen carrots or cabbage, as they do things to 'em in freezing, or use varieties that are not to my taste.

So I still have to slice carrots and cabbage.

I use frozen chopped herbs, when I have them, otherwise my herbs are dried. Most UK supermarkets also sell frozen ginger/garlic cubes (handy for some cuisines - like curries).

I do not tend to use a food processor for the reasons others have given, yes it does the job, but it's also a fair amount of cleaning.

I do use a stick blender with attachments, although most of the time I only use two of them, a metal blender head, and a masher head (It came with various other options - the only other one that gets used occasionally is a small chopper attachment, which mainly get used to make breadcrumbs these days).

My kitchen abounds with gadgets (which get used), as does my loft (the home for stuff which ended up being more trouble than it was worth).

I have never bought a mandolin.

I could do with a decent knife sharpener (mine is a cheap one) but they are so expensive, and I've never really been any good with a steel.

Other than various hotplate type things (breville, george foreman - for cooking bread and burgers) my main other essential kitchen gadget is a kenwood chef.

ETA - and an instant pot, for batch cooking of some stuff (3 less successful electronic pressure cookers are in the loft)
 
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Haveyoutriedyoga said:
I was thinking about getting an air fryer, can anybody vouch for one?

Seems you can make a nice crispy baked potato very easily (I microwave mine at the moment... very soggy and unappealing)
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I have a "ninja foodi max ag551uk" - in fact I have 2! I bought one and the internal temperature probe stopped working - it's a metal probe you stick in your food and set the temperature ---- 74 degrees C for chicken or whatever. Anyway I wrote to them and they said here's a refund code bring it to the (local) retailer and I pointed out that I only needed a new probe --- hey presto a new complete unit arrived!

Anyway, I use it every day - last night fritta with potatoes & peppers cooked in the air fryer and eventually the frittata too. Mushrooms and onions I fry separately (to avoid drying them out) but let them "drain" (remove excess oil) in the airfryer.

So yea I would recommend the Ninja but someone mentioned that they definitely wouldn't recommend putting the food probe in the dishwasher - I'll be trying to apply that advice!
 
I cant manage any prep at all these days, so its all frozen or supermarket ready prepared done in microwave.

But just as an aside, frozen brussels, roasted, coated in a drizzle mix of equal amounts oil, balsamic, honey & a bit salt pepper, are delish :)

Also supermarket versions of frozen ratatouille or 'meditteranean roasted vegetables' are usually very nice, ready seasoned & everything
 
Hutan said:
The one chopping gadget I can be bothered getting out sometimes is a stick blender. I have a Kenwood. It has a detachable metal stem and cutting head that is easily rinsed under the tap at the end of the job. It's good for pureeing a pot full of veggies into a smooth soup. There's no extra container to wash, as the blender goes to the pot. (Though, most stick blenders come with various other cutting and whisking heads, including some containers for grinding nuts and the like, so, if you really do want to wash a container, you still can.)
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Well, amen! I love my stick blender because I make a lot of pureed soups. I never used to because in the olden days before the advent of stick blenders, you had to transfer the hot vegetables and stock to a regular blender, blend, and then transfer the pureed soup back to the pot to do the final seasoning. This is something I only did a couple of times before abandoning making pureed soups. These days I regularly make soups such as black bean, sweet potato, butternut squash, and asparagus soups with my stick blender.

I prefer thin knives, but my husband is a big guy, so heavier knives are more comfortable for him. I use Global, a Japanese brand, and he uses Wusthof, a German brand.
 
I mainly use a sabatier mid sized knife, one of a set of 3 but the other 2 don't get used, bought, probably from argos, in the late 80s.

I have other knives, supposedly higher quality, but they tend to stay in the knife block.

General purpose knife, is what I generally use, for most purposes.
 
I have knife blocks, too, but I only use 3 knives, so didn't actually need the blocks: a chef's knife, paring knife, and serrated knife.

This sounds so obvious, but one thing I learned in culinary school was to use a cutting board that is plenty big enough. We'd get yelled at if our instructor saw us restricting our movements because we had selected too small of a cutting board.

My life became much easier once I learned the proper way to hold a knife. I had been putting my forefinger on the top of the knife, but when I learned the pinch grip, I saw how much more control it gave me. However, my BIL is a great cook, and he holds a knife with his forefinger on the top, so it works for him.

On medical TV dramas, it seems surgeons hold knives with their forefingers on top of the blade. That may be inaccurate, of course (along with depiction of medical staff having so much sex at the hospital that it would seem a miracle that any patient actually gets medical care), but if that's really how surgeons hold knives, I wonder why that technique is better for surgery, but in cooking, the pinch grip is standard.
 
perchance dreamer said:
Well, amen! I love my stick blender because I make a lot of pureed soups. I never used to because in the olden days before the advent of stick blenders, you had to transfer the hot vegetables and stock to a regular blender, blend, and then transfer the pureed soup back to the pot to do the final seasoning.
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I'm having a head thump moment. :banghead::banghead::banghead: I own a stick blender. Why do I never think to use this when I'm making pureed soups?!?!?!? I always transfer the soup to the food processor, buzz, and then back to the pan. And I've done this for years. :banghead::banghead::banghead:
 
@perchance dreamer

I think maybe surgeons cut like for control? when you have a small implement, you are not pressing down very hard or as repetitively to cut flesh with a scalpel, as when you are chopping a carrot.

I had 2 dodgy moles removed in recent yrs & i watched the surgeon working... (i am weird like that! The 1st one necessitated the removal of a small chicken breast sized piece of skin - she held the scalpel overhand with finger on top, but for the other one which was only about a cm square, she held it like a pencil. It made me laugh cos i'm a major Grey's Anatomy fan, & she looked just like Meredith holding it lol.

But maybe in chopping food you need power/force so chefss would be at risk to strain finger tendons if they were cutting all day like that in a prof kitchen?

Totally off topic now but... It is weird/interesting how professionals hold things - ever noticed that hairdressers holds scissors with thumb & 3rd finger - not thumb & middle finger?

edited - re read it to check something & realised the way it was worded sounded really patronising! :oops::speechless::rolleyes:
 
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Yes @JemPD frozen med veg are my favourites they go with any type of meat, fish or beans to make something tasty. A bit of garlic passata and herbs thrown in its pretty easy to put together a one pot meal.


I have a stick blender for soup too
 
Well I like it. If you have ready chopped items it really is a very easy way to make a nice, hot meal *quickly*. I even had some chopped potatoes for lunch and lunch is something I really struggle to organise.

I think the main advantage is that it heats up and cooks much faster than an oven, 'fries' things nicely, and does it in one light weight compartment so no faffing around with various oven dishes and so on.

If you decide to get an air fryer get a 3/4l size for one person so that you can do extra portions for yourself to have cold or microwave, and get pre-chopped veg/meat, or veg that doesn't need chopping (such as mini sweetcorn).
 
Consumer is a New Zealand not-for-profit consumer advocacy organisation. Some of their articles are free to non-members.
I thought of you as I read this one Haveyoutriedyoga.

https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/i-spent-a-week-with-an-air-fryer-are-they-worth-all-the-hype

There's also an air fryer buying guide that is open access.
Today’s meal was to be what we call crispy chicken wraps in the Wall household. Breaded chicken that is usually shallow-fried to perfection by myself, and then wrapped with salad and veges. Today it changed to air-fried crispy chicken wraps. I kept the recipe the same (flour, eggs and breadcrumbs), sprayed with some oil, and into the basket went the carefully prepared morsels. Cooked at 200°C for about 15 minutes with a few shakes along the way. What came out was somewhat disappointing and prompted my eldest son to ban me from ever using the air fryer again. It was dry and nowhere near as crispy as the shallow-fried version, and nowhere near as tasty. Clearly I had overcooked it, but it was also lacking any kind of fried flavour. Just like doing it in the normal oven.
Crispy chicken = FAIL
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Tuesday is sausage day in my house, and what’s good with sausages? Yep, eggs and chips (well I am English, after all). You can’t air-fry an egg, surprisingly (it would drip through the basket perforations), but you can do the chips. Normally I make home-made chips by cutting up spuds, soaking in water to get rid of the starch, and then tossing in a teaspoon of oil and some salt before baking in the oven for 30-40 minutes. The process was the same for the air fryer, apart from the time, which was less – about 20 minutes. The result? Really good, crunchy chips but not overcooked, and far better than in the oven. Kids happy, too, which is the main test. Fryer ban temporarily lifted.
So good we ate them all and I forgot to take a photo…
Chips = BIG WIN
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I was on a roll so thought I’d give another snack a go – this one being crispy pasta chips. This recipe involved boiling pasta normally, then adding a little oil and spices/herbs along with some parmesan. Then into the air fryer for about 12 minutes.

The result? Well they were certainly crispy, but tasted like eating dried pasta straight out of the bag. I then realised all I had done was boil the pasta to make if soft, only then to dry it out in the air fryer. I felt like an evil energy waster.

Crispy pasta chips = ENVIRONMENTALLY UNFRIENDLY FAIL
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The main disadvantage with air fryers, IMO, is that they dry stuff out.

By which I mean that a 1.5Kg bag of frozen chips made 3-4 portions in the air fryer, but the same 1.5Kg of the same type of frozen chips makes 6-8 portions, of the same visual size when cooked, in a deep fat fryer. The taste, and obviously texture, are also different.

As is the cooking time (3 times longer in the air fryer).

Weighed against that is the convenience and safety. My old air fryer was just preheat (not strictly necessary but did improve results), dump stuff in, set timer and turn on, and it beeped and stopped when the timer was up. Very convenient and quite safe with no intervention required by me. Absolutely no safety issues if I forgot about it, fell asleep, or didn't understand what the beeping was, just cold food when I found it.

They can also cook many things not possible in a deep fat fryer.

For many years I wouldn't have been able to safely manage a deep fat fryer, due to the hot oil and their requiring active supervision, which ruled one out for me for many years, and I would imagine the same would be true for many pwME. Major safety issues if I forget about it, or fall asleep.

They can also cook many things not possible in an air fryer.

Completely different devices just with 'fryer' in the name, that only really overlap at chips
 
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Hutan said:
Consumer is a New Zealand not-for-profit consumer advocacy organisation. Some of their articles are free to non-members.
I thought of you as I read this one Haveyoutriedyoga.

https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/i-spent-a-week-with-an-air-fryer-are-they-worth-all-the-hype

There's also an air fryer buying guide that is open access.
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I am coeliac so struggle with quick carb options, your post prompted me to realise that's probably a part of why having the air fryer option helps me! Can't just boil some pasta and mix it with pesto (gluten free pasta is awful) and boiled potatoes are rubbish
 
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