A Marijuana grinder. I like foraging for foods, so I tend to use the grinder on things like Staghorn Sumac, or Spice Bush to make a course grind. It allows a lot of control on how much you want to use and how fine, unlike a blender.
Before it's asked, I actually have never smoked weed. It was listed as a "spice grinder" and I never thought it was for weed when I got it.
What? It in no way works better. It's faster, and takes less attention, but the edges they give are crap, and don't last well.
Even the workshop belt systems aren't better than stones.
Hell, if you want to factor in damage to the knife, any of the motorised home sharpeners are horrible. Until you get into stuff like a tormek, you're heating the edge as you work, and that means you have to sharpen sooner, which can reduce the life of the knife by years over time.
I'm not saying you can't do what you want with your knives, but there's too much actual data on the various sharpening methods to call any of the available electric sharpeners better by any criteria other than speed.
People who buy electric sharpeners also buy cheap shit knives and store them loosely in a drawer with all the other kitchen stuff so it all balances out in the end.
Yeah, the way I see it; if you buy a fancy kitchen knife or two, you better also buy whetstones and learn how to sharpen properly. Those knives can be great, but they also need good care.
If you buy the cheapo IKEA knife set of 3 for $12, you might as well use a rubbish sharpener. It'll do the job, and the knives are borderline disposable. The lifetime of them won't really matter much in the grand scheme of things.
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.
I bought one and hated it. How do you even clean it? The garlic gets everywhere except the dish I want it in. Maybe I'm using it wrong.
Do you peel the garlic first? I peel by squashing the garlic with the side of the knife to crack the skin and let it peel off, so I'm half done by that point.
Seems like so much work! I'm still not conviced a toothbrush would help that much with getting all the bits out from inside it. I do wonder if the one I got isn't a very good one.
Mine goes in the dishwasher after you reverse-press the fibers into the trash. I do peel the garlic first.
Now to be fair, I hate chunks of garlic, I just want some garlic flavor in the food if it's supposed to be there. So I'm never going to just smash or coarsely chop it. I'm also a garlic-sweater so I don't use garlic at all if it isn't necessary for the dish. But some delicious foods require it, and I just have to try to plan them so I don't have something important the next day.
Does yours have some function to bend it the other way and push the bits out? I always ended up having to scoop out the stuck bits and it is so much more work than squishing the garlic with the side of a knife. But I admit it may have small lumps. I normally squish, peel off the skin, slice against the grain, and squish again.
Takes about 10 or 20 seconds, nothing extra to clean, and the biggest bits are still pretty small.
This is not exactly mine but it's a good example because you can easily see the reverse-push part with the nubbins. I have had ones where that's metal rather than silicone and they were fine, and you don't need fat handles unless you have grip problems. In the olden days (pre 1980?) I had the kind where you have to dig out the shreds with a knife and I can definitely see why you'd switch to just using the knife!
Oh honey, time to recycle that sucker! Don't donate it, that would only bring misery to someone else. Go on chopping or squashing your garlic if you prefer, though. I respect it even though I prefer to press mine.
I actually stopped using my garlic press because I felt it was more work than finely chopping with the knife. It'd be great if it was just "press and done", but there's always heaps left in the press itself that refuses to go through, which then has to be dealt with by hand anyway.
You just flip the handle over and press the little nubbins backwards through the holes to push out the woody gunk into the trash. If it doesn't fall completely out a gentle whack on the side of the can knocks it out. It's all fibrous and doesn't have much flavor.
Probably unconventional now, but one of those old can openers. Not the turning ones, the manual single-piece ones. Every can opener I have had dies after a year or two, but this one has been going strong for like.. 50+ years.
Boy oh boy have I been waiting for the opportunity to plug my favorite can opener. It’s a “turning one” as you call it, from a company called OhSay. American made, and built like a brick shit house, I have no doubts it’ll outlast me. Google it, I think they’re like $15-20
Hell yeah, I’ll give it a look. I’ve almost made it a hobby to research the shit out of the most durable and long lasting items I can buy, and things that are capable of being maintained or repaired since I’m kind of a tinkerer. I also buy American or union made whenever it’s an option.
Ordinary wheel-cutting can openers get used wrong - they should be cutting the side of the can and not the lid, with the knurled wheel flat and pressed against the rim of the can.
No sharp lip, and you don’t need to fish a lid out of the can. Downside is you can’t use a lid cover to “save” the contents if you don’t use them all.
Like gramathy said, safety openers are just to make it difficult to use the tool wrong. Regular can openers are designed to do the same thing, but it isn't as obvious and limited in the design.
Box cutter for removing can labels. That way, they don't get soggy and awful when you have to rinse the can before recycling. Or before opening, if you store your cans in a semi-outdoor environment like me.
A danish dough whisk. Somehow it’s easier to mix dough and it won’t have so much gunk sticking between the wires like in the balloon shaped whisks. It can be cleaned easy by hand. It’s pretty large though.
A microplane grater - it's been really great for dealing with ginger, and even garlic (although for garlic I mostly prefer to just squish it with the flat side of my knife). I've also used the slicer end to make chips out of baby potatoes and turnips.
Another go-to for me is a conventional pressure cooker - I use it when I'm feeling lazy, I just chuck everything in it - lentils/beans + rice + veggies + condiments, and it's all done in one go, only takes 15-20 minutes and there's no need to soak stuff beforehand. The best part is that I put all my ingredients in just a single ceramic bowl, so cleaning the cooker is super easy (just rinse it with water), and I can eat directly off the bowl, which saves me from having to use a separate dish.
This was going to be my pick since I have used it quite a lot & needed to import one. I asked around at some local shops but was told it “looks too Western” & was pointed to these tiny, dinky local versions.
They're very different, in fact. A fish spatula is almost completely flat, somewhat curved, and has a thin, slotted metal body. It's fantastic for picking up delicate or stuck-on foods, not just fish.
Best way to get confident with chopsticks is to use them more! They're much easier to clean than any tongs. Nothing beats an egg better than a pair of chopsticks.
I use a mandoline. It used to take me easily 5+ minutes per onion to dice. Now I can get 2 onions diced in about 2 minutes. Less dramatic time savings are available for other veggies too, depending on how finely I want them chopped up.
I know you're not supposed to, but I just stick mine in the dishwasher, and it seems to work fine.
Funnily enough, cabbage is one of the few things I don't use it for. It never really even occured to me.
I'm quite proficient with a knife
Yeah, I really, really am not. You think you're proficient, then compare yourself to what you'd consider "normal". Then there's me, worse than that normal by a much bigger margin than the margin between you and normal.
My boiled egg slicer. It seemed really frivolous when I bought it, and I probably only use it five or six times a year at best but man if it doesn't cut down prep time for any salad with boiled egg in it, it also works with avocados!
Two things, yes. I can't be trusted to time anything by myself just by looking at the clock, and you often have multiple things cooking at the same time.