Tool Uses

When I first saw this, I thought for sure it was a belated April Fool’s joke. Over-sized metal coffee beans that can keep your coffee at perfect temperature for hours without reheating? Yeah, right. But believe it or not, these magic beans are real.According to the product’s Kickstarter page, these beans will cool down your scalding hot coffee to an acceptable 140° Fahrenheit and then hold it around that temperature for as long as five hours.How is this possible?

As much as we love the waffles they make, it’s hard to deny that waffle makers are a first-class unitasker (ok, duo-tasker). And most of them hog precious cupboard space on top of that. Is there any way to justify buying one?How much do you love waffles? This is the question we must ask ourselves. My own personal rule when buying shiny new kitchen tools is that I need to plan on using it at least once a month.

I confess that I am not much of a waffle girl. Waffles seem a little too fussy for the morning; I prefer straightforward pancakes that require no more gadgetry than my trusty skillet. But I may have been swayed over to the waffle side by this new pan, which bakes up a crisp, honeycomb waffle quite unlike traditional American waffles.

Q: I’m trying to find a waffle iron that does both round Belgian-style waffles and pizzelles (or at least, thin enough waffles to make waffle cones).I’d rather have one appliance that does both than two for essentially the same purpose. Any ideas?Sent by CaraEditor: Cara, this is an obvious double-duty feature for a small appliance, right? Well, it’s proved surprisingly hard to find. Emeril’s brand had one, but it appears to be off the market.

If you’re like us, you have a mix of both (plus a wooden spoon or twostocking a kitchenOur bottom line advice: No one needs a full set of either nylon or stainless steel cooking tools. We’re not big fans of sets of anything (pots and pans, knives—buy those individually), but those already-stocked crocks of utensils are overkill. Here are our opinions on plastic vs. metal.

Do you love hot pink in the kitchen? Then the new KitchenAid stand mixer color, Raspberry Ice, is definitely for you. Read on to see more of it, and to see the other hot new color that honestly, I like even better.These photos were all taken at the International Home & Housewares Show this week, and it’s hard to get a sense for just how this color looks (those harsh convention lights!). This color is hot, hot pink.

If you find yourself craving popovers with some regularity, as we do, investing in a real popover pan eventually starts to feel quite justifiable. These tins are really only useful for making popovers, but oh, what beautiful popovers they make!Popover pans are distinguished from regular muffin tins by their deep, steep-sided wells. This forces the batter upwards and results in a popover with a puffy dome and crispy sides.Many popover pans have the cups welded to a wire rack.

Clay pot cooking seems to be all the rage these days. Earthenware pots are relatively inexpensive and beautiful to look at, as evidenced by the lovely productsChamba clay potWhat we’ve discovered makes us all the more curious to try cooking in one of these pots for ourselves. Two things make clay pots unique, both having to do with the fact that they are made from clay.• 1 The first is that clay is somewhat porous.

We’ve always felt annoyed by cheesecloth. All those gauzy layers and then the stuff isn’t even really reusable. And then we found flour sacks. They’re not really thick enough to be dish towels…but they’re definitely not cheesecloth. They’re perfect.Flour sacks are not really sacks at all, but sheets of fabric made of very thin cotton threads. The weave is tighter than cheesecloth, but loose enough that you can see through the cloth.

Whenever our food processor leaves chunks in a puréed soup or we don’t feel like hauling out the mixer to make whipped cream, we think about buying an immersion blender. We’ve viewed this handheld blender an unnecessary additional kitchen gadget for years, but now we’re starting to revise our opinion. The biggest thing an immersion blender has going for it is ease of use. It’s handheld, light, and easy to maneuver.

If you’ve read The Kitchn for any length of time, you know that I am a big fan of beans. But not just any old beans — fresh, heirloom dried beansWe are pretty big fans of Chamba, here at The Kitchn. What is La Chamba cookware? It’s a line of black clay pots, bowls, and other cookware made in Colombia using traditional methods. All the pottery is made in the village of La Chamba, and it is made from natural clay mined in the area.

Q: Last night my beloved vintage Le Creuset (a gift from my husband’s grandmother to a family friend in the 1960s, and then, 40 years later, from that friend to us as a wedding gift) jumped off the stove and onto the floor, chipping the enamel and cracking the pot.Because the chip is on the outside of the pot, it should still be fine to use, except for a (leaking) hairline fracture extending down from the rim of the pot almost two inches.

Q: I recently took a small studio apartment in order to save some money. It works pretty nicely, but I’m having issues with the apartment-sized oven: the heating elements are so large relative to the rest of the oven that everything I baked is sizzling to a crisp on the bottom way before it’s cooked through! In fact, my baking sheet is starting to get discolored on the bottom.

Q: I cooked rice in my cast iron pot the other night, and it stuck to the bottom and ripped up some of the enamel. What can I do with this pot? Recycle it? Repair it? Any ideas?Sent by ClaireEditor: Claire, the conventional wisdom is that if the enamel is chipping off the inside of your pot, it’s best not to use it. The enamel could chip off further and end up in your food. Some dispute this though; some cooks simply treat the exposed cast iron and continue using the pot.

The Mouli grater is a classic, old-school French kitchen tool. Its basic concept is a rotary grater that you turn with one hand whilst pressing the food to be grated (usually cheese) with the other using a hinged handle. The original model by Moulinex is no longer in production, although there are many new knock-off versions to be found in cookware shops. Or you could just pick up a lovely vintage model like the one above, either online or at your local flea market.

The molcajete is the Mexican version of a mortar, and its accompanying tejolote is the pestle. Use one to grind spices and grains, to mix salsas and guacamole, and even to serve. And when not in use, we think molcajetes have a beautiful, functional aesthetic that’s perfect for displaying in the kitchen: However, not all molcajetes are made equal. There is a cheap version out there that is a combination of concrete and basalt.

This morning, a total kitchen tragedy occurred. My professional Kitchenaid mixer wouldn’t turn on. It has seen me through countless recipes — cakes, cupcakes, icings, breakfast treats and more — but today it decided that enough is enough. Not being one to take things lying down, I put the internet to work and rounded up some links to help all of us get our mixers back up and running when they give us the proverbial appliance finger (you know, if they had fingers, that is).

Q: Last summer, we bought the KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment, with hopes to be churning out gourmet homemade ice creams like nobody’s business. Thing is — I’ve tried it a number of times with absolutely NO success. Last night, I gave it one last try on my own (following The Kitchn’s recipe for vanilla ice cream), and after 90 minutes, it hadn’t even started to thicken or become ice cream-like.

That Pyrex baking tubeAside from being perfectly symmetrical, loaves baked in these kinds of pans have a very thin crust and a soft, finely-textured crumb. In fact, these loaves are called pain de mie in French, which literally means “bread of the crumb.” These loaves are perfect for sandwiches.Many pumpernickel bread recipes also call for using a Pullman pan. It helps to get that dense, chewy crumb and to keep the loaf from drying out during the traditionally long baking time.

Have you ever used a glass bundt pan? We’ve been eyeing this one at Amazon, curious about whether it would make bundt cake baking easier, or devilishly difficult.It would be interesting to be able to watch a cake as it browns in the oven, and know just when it’s done on the bottom… err, top. But we also wonder if this kind of bakeware would make it very difficult to get the cake out intact.Have you ever used a glass bundt cake pan?

Professional quality! Blazing hot! Packed with BTUs!! These are some of the phrases that get tossed around when talking about dream kitchens and high-end cooktops. But what is a BTU, and how many should your stove have? Is bigger better, when it comes to BTUs? What’s a BTU? British thermal units (BTU or Btu) are the units that measure the heat given off by your gas burner. One BTU will raise the heat of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. What about electric stoves?

Q: I have a great old glazed pot with lid that I cannot find any significant information on. I was the beneficiary of this lovely item from my grandmother’s kitchen. It is stamped “Made in France”, some sort of logo with ‘vallauris’, and then the number 8.I know there is a long history of ceramics in that area of France but I know nothing else. I am guessing the 8 is the size. Any help or history would be great. Any great recipes for this would be even better.

What is a convection oven, and what does it do? Is it really that helpful in the kitchen? It’s very simple, really: It’s all about the fan.A convection oven deals with the problems of hot spots and uneven cooking like MaryWynn asked about yesterday by using a fan to circulate air and keep the temperature more steady. So, basically, a convection oven, in popular terminology, is an oven with a fan inside.

Q: How do you calibrate an oven? We got a new one when we moved into our apartment, and when I got an oven thermometer, it turned out it was about 50 degrees off.Thoughts on the best way to address this? It’s TINY, but it also significantly hotter at the back than the front. I’m not sure how to deal with this either.Sent by MaryWynnEditor: MaryWynn, this is going to vary quite a bit from oven to oven.

Pie birds (also known as pie funnels, pie chimneys, and pie whistles) are hollow ceramic devices used to keep pies from bubbling over in the oven by providing ventilation from the hot filling through the crust. They originated in Europe and historians often argue over whether they came about in the 1500’s or during Victorian times.The nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence” which has the lyrics “Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie” is based on pie birds.

Q: I bought a bag of mixed kitchen item to get the Tupperware measuring cups in it. Included with the measuring cups were these pieces that I am guessing go together. I have no idea if I am assembling it correctly or what it is used for.Sent by MarieEditor: Oooh it’s our favorite kind of Good Question: A mystery gadget!Unfortunately, we are completely stumped by this one. Readers, any clues?Next question?Related: Mystery Gadget!

I’ve been writing a lot of posts lately on various sushi-related items, such as how to make temaki hand rolls and DIY spicy tuna. In this post I’ll go over the essential sushi-making tools and ingredients. If you have a sushi lover on your holiday gift list, consider putting together a few of these items in a gift basket! Sushi Oke/Hangiri – optional, but recommended.

Given how much oven temperature can fluctuate, it’s no wonder that one of our most repeated bits of kitchen advice is “Buy an oven thermometer!” But constantly compensating for an oven that runs hot or cold gets very tiresome, especially as we get into prime baking season. Here’s what you can do:A disclaimer before we get into it: this solution is really just bringing the numbers on the oven dial into alignment with the temperature inside the oven.

Q: I recently decided to upgrade from an ailing frying pan to a 9″ All-Clad French skillet, and felt really excited about making a purchase that made me feel both grown-up and self-indulgent at the same time. As someone who has never been fond of “no-stick” pans I opted for the regular finish.

We’ve spent more time than we care to admit gushing over the lighting and copper pans in Michael Chiarello’s Napa Pantry store. Although beautiful, they’re not exactly in our budget, so instead we’ve rounded up 7 colorful picks from Michael himself, that are a little more in reach for home cooks! He loves them and so do we!These picks are a great way to bring in a little color in some unexpected places (who would have thought a griddle could have been colorful?!).

Q: I’m shopping for a KitchenAid stand mixer and I’d like know The Kitchn community’s opinion of the tilt-head models versus the bowl-lift models.KitchenAid doesn’t seem to offer any information on the differences between them other than what’s obvious: one of them is taller with arms to hold the bowl, and one of them is shorter with a hinged head that tilts back.

We’ve been cooking with a cast iron skillet for years now and we absolutely love it. We take care to clean it properly and are religious about keeping it seasoned. But in all these years, we’ve always wondered: what is the seasoning on cast-iron? How does it work?Left on its own, iron will gradually corrode and rust due to the oxygen and moisture in the air. Luckily, the same properties that cause iron to corrode allow it to be protected!

One of the best things my partner’s mother ever handed down to us was her large ddukbaegi, or Korean earthenware pot. (She was downgrading to a smaller one for herself.) When I think of the pot, I imagine sounds: bubbling stews, sizzing rice, and the satisfying clunk of the heavy lid. Much of Korean cuisine is down to earth, and the traditional cooking pots – ddukbaegi and dolsot – share this unpretentious, robust aesthetic.

Although they held a strange fascination for us as children, melon ballers certainly aren’t the first thing that come to mind when we think about essential kitchen equipment these days. But if you’ve unearthed one during your kitchen de-cluttering and are on the fence about tossing it in the give-away pile, we think you should keep it.

If you’re starting to make pasta at home and don’t already have a pasta maker, you’re going to start pining for one soon, we guarantee! With price tags often over the $100 mark, basic pasta makers can feel like a pretty big investment to most of us. Here are a few thoughts and bits of advice for when you (inevitably) start looking…The vast majority of pasta makers on the market are hand-crank models that clamp onto your table or counter top with a vice.

When convection ovens were first introduced to the home market, they were heralded as the ultimate time saver: “Perfect roast chicken in a third of the time!” But Evan Kleiman’s guest Russ Parsons cautions us that convection ovens aren’t always great for everything…A convection oven comes equipped with a fan and exhaust system that actually pulls the hot oven air across the food and then vents it back out.

Perhaps you’ve seen these ubiquitous all-purpose knives with hollowed-out indentations on the edge of the blade. What is a santoku knife, and why should you have one? When should you use one, and what’s the deal with those scalloped edges? Read on … Those scalloped granton edges add air between the knife blade and the material being cut, making it easier to remove the material from the blade. So, if you were slicing something thinly, you’d want to use this knife.

We use these words (ok, maybe not chinois so much) interchangeably to describe something, usually metal, that holds solid ingredients while liquid passes through it. It’s a strainer, a colander, a mesh thingy, whatever. In reality, there are differences, especially when it comes to that chinois… A strainer is really a catchall name for any type of, well, strainer. It is usually fine mesh and bowl-shaped, good for rinsing a pint of berries or draining pasta.

Has AT ever addressed the “blades up” or “blades down” question? This photo is from an IKEA photo you had on your site. I’ve seen it in other homes as well. Is this a feng shui issue? Thanks,SaraSara, this is a good question. We have no idea about the feng shui implications, as we do not practice feng shui – at least in the kitchen. Any more knowledgeable readers have the scoop on that?

For those of us without separate, large capacity ice machines in our homes, bags like this are a necessity at times — any time you need to fill a bucket or re-fill drinks for a crowd. And without fail, the store-bought bag of ice becomes a rock-hard, solid block if left to its own devices in the freezer.We always pull it out and heave it on the floor in big thumps, disturbing the neighbors, and usually breaking the bag so that newly separated cubes go flying across the kitchen.

We usually leave the oyster shucking to the professionals. We’ve watched rubber-gloved guys behind the counter at Casamento’s in New Orleans open and loosen hundreds of raw oysters, jamming their blunt oyster knives into each shell with expert precision.But we’ve had the occasional pleasure of opening our own oysters, thanks to a family member who likes to smoke big batches tucked in wet towels on his grill.

So you’ve invested in a pizza stone–or dusted it off from where it was hiding at the bottom of the cupboard!You’re loving it when you bake your pizzas, artisan loaves, and various baked goodies.Now it’s collected a few spills and stains. Lovingly gained, but spills and stains none the less.How should you be cleaning your pizza stone and what kind of wear is normal? Read on!First off, always heat the stone with the oven.

We’ve talked a lot recentlyWooden utensils do have one downside: they quickly lose their attractive glossy finish, are prone to cracking, and are generally a little fussy to take care of. Here are a few simple steps to help you avoid replacing them every few months.Always hand wash wood utensils with soap and warm water. Unfortunately, the harsh detergent and heat in the dishwasher will wreck the wood in just a few cycles.Dry wooden spoons with a towel instead of letting them air dry.

Here’s a question from reader artichoke queen. How do you keep your knives sharp? Looking for a good, manual knife sharpener that will work on Global knives and others. The Furi has been recommended. Any suggestions?(To All Good Questions) We confess right now that we are not as diligent as wes should be at sharpening our knives, so this is a learning point for us as well. Sara Kate initially suggested just getting a steel and stone.

Like cast iron, woks need to be seasoned as well. Properly seasoned woks have a caramel-colored patina on the inside. Seasoning a wok not only helps to impart flavor into your food, but also helps the inside of the wok build up over time to a smooth, non-stick surface. Since I loaded up on all manners of Asian vegetables and crab at the Alemany Farmer’s Market on Saturday, I’ve been stir frying a lot this week.

Persnickety stoves can seem like they have just two settings: off or devilishly hot. That’s no good for braising. But don’t get all hot and bothered if you can’t find a low, slow heat source to finish your braise. There is a solution — the stove top heat diffuser. We asked Norman Kornbleuth, owner of Broadway Panhandler and Taylor Erkkinen from The Brooklyn Kitchen, to tell us more about stove top diffusers.