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That's a work horse in every professional kitchen.

You can pick them up in Asian markets as well.

If you don't use the guard, try to use the palm of your hands and bend your fingers upward to avoid any major trauma to your digits. If you are trying to slice the last tiny bit of something, push it with a dish towel to protect yourself.

These stay sharp forever.

i have a mandoline that i received as a birthday present last year. it works great, but i don't find myself reaching for it very often. other than potatoes, i don't really know what else to slice with it. (and i really don't like fennel, so that's out for me too!)
am i just not being creative enough or tackling the right dishes?

My fiance and I had registered for a mandolin but now his parents bought us the slicing attachment for our kitchenaid and I don't know if it would be redundant to get the mandolin...

I can think of a couple of things you may want to try cassiopia.

You can use to make a fresh coleslaw that I learned from one of Alice Waters' cookbooks. It's made with savoy cabbage. You slice the cabbage on the mandoline. You can julienne some red onion on the mandoline as well. You do this by cutting the red onion in half and running the side of the onion over the mandoline. Toss the cabbage and onion with fresh lime juice, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, chopped cilantro, salt and white pepper. It's best when it sits for a half an hour or so.

You can also use the julienne attachment (fine teeth) to make julienne carrots and daikon which are great for a Vietnamese salad.

I have a cheap plastic mandoline that I rarely use. However, when I do need to use it, it's brilliant. It more than paid for itself when I needed to process an insane amount of summer squash to freeze and store away.

I have this exact mandoline and can't ever get the plastic guard to hold onto anything, so I use my fingers and go s l o w l y once I'm past about halfway.

Great for radishes in salad (paper thin!) and for julienne, as mentioned above.

My mom brought a benriner with her when she immigrated to Canada. It does not have a finger guard thing-y. My retired father was helping my mother in the kitchen a few weeks ago, slicing some cucumbers with the benriner for a sonomono salad. Guess what happened? ;)

By the way, the "benri" part of "benriner" apparently comes from the Japanese word for "useful".

(Oops. "Sunomono" salad, I mean.)

I plan on using mine for pretty much any slicing task - big onions for curry, cucumbers for salad, even herbs. Has anyone ever tried mincing a lot of herbs for a salad in this?

badhuman - definitely redundant if you've already got a slicer or food processor.

i sliced the tip off my thumb a few weeks ago with one of these. use a lot of caution. seriously!!! you never think it'd happen to you but it does.

The Mandoline is the perfect device for slicing any fruit or vegetable thinly. My favorite use is tomatoes or cucumbers for sandwiches.

Also great for slicing fruit for drying - apple chips, banana chips, etc...

I have an older version of this and love it with one exception! My Benriner has metal adjusting screws which has rusted badly and I see that the new version has plastic (or plastic coated) ones so that problem has been eliminated. Yes it is VERY sharp though it is at least 10 years old and rather abused. Note that if you watch those chef competition shows carefully you will see that this is the mandoline of choice for chefs!

I have the same one! Whenever I make Japanese dishes I want to have those perfect little rectangular carrot shards... it's all about presentation. :)

i'd be down with kicking mine to the curb -- everytime i use it, with the finger guard no less, i slice a piece off my thumb.

never, ever again.

Definitely not redundant if you have a kitchen aid slicer.

The mandoline produces a fine slice and julienne that cannot be duplicated with a food processor or blender slicing attachment.

I use it on potatoes for breakfast, cucumbers for salad, or in my pimm's cup (maybe someday making scales on poached fish) zuchinni for stir fry, cooks so fast! Onions are fantastic esp if they are destined to be carmelized.

I got a better one recently and i'm using it all the time. I ended up pitching my adjustable one in favor of a fixed blade that hooks onto a bowl.

Love.

I got a kyocera mondoline with a ceramic blade as a wedding gift. It's wonderful.

Great tool for any cook, but more importantly, The North Market is a great resource for any foody.

<3 for Columbus.

I love mine, totally worth the pretty low price - I keep mine hanging in my kitchen on a safety hook.

Also, I bough a pair of kevlar-coated gloves - which are cut resistant - to use with it. They're also useful to have for other applications and it means that I can use it without the guard...

wow, branny - that's a great idea.

Corvuskorax - ha! I was wondering if anyone would notice that bag...

Badhuman, I stopped using my food processor for slicing when i got a mandoline. SO much easier -- lighter, less counter space, no electricity used, and cleanup is a breeze. Better slices as well.