I've been contemplating having a drastic cull on all the stuff in my kitchen cupboards. I am a fantastic accumulator, but when it comes down to it, I think I could actually live with only a handful of gadgets. Top of the list are obviously my knives which I don't consider gadgets, they are the tools of the trade, so I won't include them in my top 5. In case you are interested I use three sizes of knives, a medium chopping and slicing knife, a small serrated knife and a small paring knife. First item in the gadget category would have to be my kitchen scissors. I use these for everything, from the obvious, cutting open packets, chopping herbs and removing butcher's string on a roast, to the more unusual, cutting the children's spaghetti. You won't find a more efficient way of doing it. A lemon squeezer is also an absolute must and mine is a very straight forward glass pyrex one. My newest love is something called a garlic twist which I bought at the Garlic Farm in the Isle of Wight. I was extremely sceptical about this two part round box with a row of little teeth on the inside. I insisted the chap in the shop demonstrate how it worked. He obliged and now I am totally hooked. The benefits of this little gadget over a traditional garlic press is that it allows you to use all the garlic. It is much easier to clean then a press and it takes just a few twists to get coarse chopped garlic. A few more twists gets you a fine puree. In any case, it is very quick and the best thing about it is that your fingers won't end up smelling of garlic. You simply tap the contents on to a board or straight into the pot, using a knife to get out any remaining bits. Then put the little guy in the dishwasher. My other new love is a little plastic card spatula I purchased at The Bertinet Kitchen. Monsieur Bertinet, aka Richard, uses this for everything. I now know why, it's brilliant. You can use it to tame your bread dough or to cut your buckwheat cheese straws. It's perfect for clearing up all the sticky bits left on your chopping board and of course for getting that last little bit of cake batter out of the bowl and into the tin. It replaces the now very awkward flexible spatula with the long wooden handle which is always falling off and a pain to clean. I also rely heavily on my palette knife. The one I am using came with my first set of knives purchased when I started my training at Leith's15 years ago! It still has a few traces of finger nail polish which we were instructed to use, to write our initials on everything we used in the kitchen, It still does those jobs perfectly, flipping pancakes, icing cakes, turning burgers on the grill and lifting a delicate cake out of its tin. So these are my favourites. What are yours?
potato peeler