Tools and Gadgets

Part of the fun of kitchen work has to be using the various objects used to make a meal.  To my mind these objects fall into the two categories of Tools and Gadgets.    Tools are those things that are typically used for multiple projects while Gadgets tend to focus on doing one particular task very well.  This distinction can get a bit gray for things like vegetable peelers when you start to wonder if each type of vegetable peeled should be considered a single task or does it do just one task, peeling vegetables.  My line in the sand is drawn on how often I reach for an object so to me a peeler is a tool.  While I find that tools are more useful, I think that gadgets have their place in the kitchen as well.  They make me feel like batman reaching for that Deus Ex Machina on his utility belt.  Gadgets, because of their focus, are great when you need to do one job A LOT.  A cherry pitter is an easy example of a gadget while a measuring cup is a tool.  As part of this blog I will occasionally focus on examples of these objects and today I will consider three.

The Mouli Julienne

I have come to realize that some objects do their jobs better than others.  Today, I am going to risk the ire of my wife by specifically mentioning her beloved Mouli Julienne as a tool that does not work for me.  The idea is to pack in the cheese or vegetables and use a rotary action cutting disk to quickly shred or slice the material.  Rotary slicers and shredders do this task very well and tend to keep delicate fingers away from the cutting action and a great many people use their salad shooters every day for these reasons.  The problem I have with the mouli is not in the function but in the design.  In an apparent effort to minimize the storage space taken up by the device, the legs fold into the body and the handle detaches also allowing the cutting disk to be changed.  The legs are simply to short.  As fast as the slicing and shredding goes, I find that I have to frequently move the mass of cut material or the mouli itself to continue working.  In terms of ratio, I have to do this 2 - 3 times for each filled top chamber because the cut material takes up more space than the solid bits.  The setup, breakdown and cleanup time is not insignificant when you compare it to a conventional box shredder which is ready the second you put your hand to it.  Also, the cutting disks are on the flimsy side and are easily bent which means they have to be re-bent back into shape or replaced to keep the device useful.

Probe Thermometer

One tool that I love is the probe thermometer.  I'm not yet good enough to look at a piece of meat and say its done.  The science of temperature cooking appeals to me as well.  When you follow recipes that tell you to put something in the oven for a period of time, there are a lot of assumptions.  What temperature was the food before being placed in the oven, what temperature was the oven (I'll go into oven temperatures in another post), and how much the mass and shape of the food affect the cooking process are some of these assumptions.  By shifting to using a probe approach and looking for the core temp. of the food to reach a defined limit, these assumptions are laid aside in favor of more concrete data.  The one that I use is on the cheaper side but does have various meat types programmed into it with their defined temperatures.  This does make me wonder who defined these temperatures and whether they take into account the concept of overcooking. (Yeah, that's going to be in another post to)  It has a probe that plugs into the device used to have a magnetic holder that you could attach to something nearby until I melted it on a grill.  The melting only killed the holder though so I would call this a word of warning to those who might make the same mistake.  Some of the newer probes that I am envious of have remote displays that allow you to work on other projects while the roast cooks instead of being tethered to the oven or grill.

Hamburger Press

The third device I want to talk about is my hamburger press.  This is a gadget since there is only one thing to do with it.  I have to confess that I got it from Harbor Freight on a whim and went home and made about 26 patties that I separated with freezer paper and froze for later grillings.  Frozen patties are great for impromptu meals and gatherings and the paper made it easy to extract the patties.  I wouldn't use the press for making patties to cook immediately since that can be done by hand just as well.  What the press does is make a uniform shape and thickness patty that can be cooked in batches all at the same time.  I don't have to test each one for how cooked it is.  By owning the patty making process I can also make the choices about what meat I want to use and can even chose to add extra seasoning.  If this is done, I have learned that it is important to mark the paper with a decipherable indication of what kind of patty it is because frozen ground meat tends to look very similar.