I think we started the fermentation/hot sauce journey at about the same time. I blended and jarred mine into the fridge on Sunday - I'll have to send you some pictures. When I tried it fresh out of the food processor, it was nose-runningly hot, but I've read that it will hopefully mellow a bit in the fridge.
I got Lemon a molcajete and pestle that she loves, but we don't use very often, for Christmas one year.
Personally, I prefer woozy bottles for hot sauces rather than squeeze bottles. The squeeze bottles are reserved for different oils and BBQ sauces.
This reminds we. I have several jars of pepper mash in the outside fridge which need to be blended and bottled. This weekend is pickling week and I need to make room in the fridge for all my fermentation experiments.
I’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole on hot sauce fermentation that my brother made me custom labels for my woozie bottles
I started with Leone’s recipe a few years back and have changed so much that it barely resembles the starting point anymore. I’m also on my third different fermentation vessel- it’s designed for kimchi but does really well for hot sauce.
I also entered a local brewery’s hot sauce contest. I don’t even know what the prize is, I just wanted to make more hot sauce.
My kitchen blow torch is a straight up Benzomatic trigger attached to a propane tank, maybe I missed the kitchen part. Wonderful for searing meat after using the immersion circulator or steam oven because you should have two gadgets capable of sous vide cooking. I may also have a problem. Get a garlic press though, it's amazing.
Listen, Cookbook, just because you're storing the one infomercial purchase of the combination children's hair comb (give them wavy locks, like you see on TV!), paint scraper (for when you want that lovely zebra look!), and bread pan divider(wheat on the left, rye on the right!) in the kitchen gadget closet doesn't mean it ONLY counts as that.
Anyway, my favorite kitchen gadget is a relatively simple choice, and one I'd suggest for all my left-handed brethren out there - the left-handed wooden spatula. The point is on the other side of the slightly-cupped head, and it makes SO MUCH MORE difference than you'd think. One time, we were out of other clean spatulae, and my wife wanted to cook something, so she used it. She is right-handed, and the complaining and moaning about it were constant for about ten minutes, until I said, "now you know why I bought it - that's how I had to deal with things for decades."
I'm actually fairly ambidextrous - I can use the right-handed spatula if I need to, no problem.
But it definitely looks like the equivalent of someone who knows a foreign language, but doesn't think in that foreign language, as opposed to the LH spat, which very much appears as "native speaker"
"Slide those aside, and we’ll find the meat grinder and the ice cream maker, both of which get used a couple times a year. (Usually not at the same time.)
My second-favorite kitchen gadget is my sous-vide stick. As an apartment-dweller, it's a great way to make a steak without filling up the entire place with smoke. Plus there are so many other great low-effort, high return recipes you can make using a sous-vide stick; it's not just for steak.
My favorite kitchen gadget though is my vacuum sealer. It's obviously essential for the sous-vide, but it makes freezing meat, soups, and sauces so much easier, especially since I have a small freezer (deli containers take up a lot of space that I don't necessarily have). Other favorite gadgets are my instant-read thermometer and microplane grater.
Most underrated gadget: a sharpie. I think I have more sharpies in my kitchen than I do at my desk.
Back in the early days of the ACBN, I ran a discussion thread on favorite pens, and I was somewhat surprised to find out how strongly everyone feels about their pens. (For me, it's the Pentel Sign Pen, which is just a better version of a Sharpie, I can't explain it.)
i wish i could upvote this harder, or more often. my sous vide / vacuum sealer tandem has *literally* changed my life. period, full stop. i’ve never had better proteins, of almost all sorts, up to and including fine restaurant meals.
the key is in the sear. season it before you sous vide it, then just enough time on the grill or cast-iron pan to get a “crust” on it. burgers for an hour at 148 or so, then four minutes a side on the grill. best homemade burger you will ever have.
Timing in the sous-vide as well. If you leave your food in the bath for too long, it'll start to disintegrate. The time suggestions on SeriousEats are pretty good for that.
Look, I got that third grill in the most Midwestern way possible: I took it because otherwise my in-laws would have thrown it away. (Have I ever used it? Well, it certainly makes a nice stand for the grill covers for either of the charcoal grills I actually use.)
I'm not sure my Dutch oven counts as a gadget, but it is certainly my favorite kitchen tool (okay, favorite behind the chefs knife). Most ridiculous is the set of pottery lids so I can turn ramekins into pot-de-crème pots.
I feel like a good knife is the tool likely to improve your willingness to cook the most--it may not make you better, but it certainly makes it easier to do almost everything in the kitchen.
I reject Alton Brown’s opinion on unitaskers. I love my garlic press and will continue to use it until it breaks. I don’t keep my knives sharp enough nor do I have the knife skills to get a fine dice with garlic. Meanwhile, with the garlic press I don’t even need to peel the clove before pressing it!
To be fair I think even in his most zealous anti-unitasker days, Alton was all for finding ways to turn unitaskers into multitaskers. If you could figure out another use for a garlic press (uhhh, cherry tomato juicer? homemade olive oil extractor?) then it had a place in the kitchen. I also admit I have a soft spot for Alton because Good Eats basically taught me how to cook in my early-20s.
I also treat those cooking shows kinda like wrestling. He is playing a character. He might have an opinion on unitaskers but plays it up for the entertainment.
aside from the cast iron pan, which is not necessarily a gadget as much as it is "the goddamn lifeblood of my kitchen," I'm gonna go with the non-branded, sword-shaped grater that looks curiously like The Master Sword from the Zelda series. half is for the novelty of Zelda-pilling my entire apartment, half of it is because I use it to grate cloves of fresh garlic all the time.
My go to is a vacuum sealer that goes nice with my little deep freezer. I may be on the East Coast, but still Midwestern at heart (and prep). For cooking definitely my grill plates and baskets, I love skewers but not the whole skewing part.
I'd like to hear other people's opinions on this, but I would recommend against getting a vacuum sealer that requires proprietary bags. I *love* vacuum sealing to freeze, and it's made a huge difference in my ability to save things, but a few years back I bought an Oliso sealer that uses re-usable bags (off a Serious Eats recommendation) and it probably wasn't the best choice. I absolutely *hate* cleaning the bags for re-use, and the sealing process can be finicky.
Our vacuum sealer said you could re-use (most of) the bags--cut the top off, wash them, and re-seal them slightly smaller--but we're doing a case-by-case choice of wash and refill or toss. Do I like generating single-use plastic? Not especially. Do I believe that the food waste reduction that can come from a two-person household being able to effective freeze food for later will outweigh this in aggregate? Yes.
I have a Cabella brand sealer and just for ease of use use their pre sealed bags. I figured if hunters were going to use it for their meat (and the effort to get it), it’s good enough for me. I’ve used cut your own size from another brand with it, and they have worked.
I agree about the wanting some sort of reusable dependable bag, but the whole cleaning and sanitizing is beyond my time wishes.
The real explanation is that I have a nice gas grill and a Big Green Egg, the latter of which should negate the need for my old charcoal kettle, but I've got a sentimental attachment to it and haven't brought myself to get rid of, despite my wife's repeated (and, to be fair, correct) requests to do so.
Bonus question: it’s for cutting potatoes or other root vegetables so that they have a pleasing wavy line to them, or alternatively putting a child to work as a sous chef without giving them an actual knife. If this is wrong, I’m blaming my wife, but since she’s the cook in the house I trust her judgement.
This is essentially the correct answer. It's for cutting potatoes into either a ruffle shape or--theoretically--a waffle fry, which should be achieved by slicing the potato with it once, rotating 90 degrees, then slicing again.
It is incredibly difficult to use and I did not achieve a satisfying waffle fry by doing it, so now I'm going to collect all of the wrong answers and see if any of those work better.
Yes, but it works great for sweet potatoes which when roasted are perfect. My son used to eat so many when he was little that we thought he was going to turn orange.
I refuse to go a meal without my Pampered Chef garlic press. I have tried other brands, none compare. Some days you just need to mince 4-10 cloves of garlic as quickly as possible.
Listen. Am I getting glass fermentation weights delivered today to complete my transformation into Hot Sauce Man?
MIND YOUR BUSINESS.
Did I get a 6 pack of plastic squeeze bottles also?
YOUR BUSINESS, MIND IT.
Favorite gadget? I love my giant mortar and pestle.
I think we started the fermentation/hot sauce journey at about the same time. I blended and jarred mine into the fridge on Sunday - I'll have to send you some pictures. When I tried it fresh out of the food processor, it was nose-runningly hot, but I've read that it will hopefully mellow a bit in the fridge.
I got Lemon a molcajete and pestle that she loves, but we don't use very often, for Christmas one year.
Is our next stupid family project learning how to make vinegar? Maybe.
Also, plastic squeeze bottles are great and I need some for the assorted cocktail syrups currently living in old jam jars.
Plastic squeeze bottles are perfect for everything bar related. I use mine mostly for simple syrup.
Even better is you can use them to make shapes with pancake batter. Trick is to make the outside of the shape and fill it in.
I have been following your hot sauce fermentation journey with great interest.
Personally, I prefer woozy bottles for hot sauces rather than squeeze bottles. The squeeze bottles are reserved for different oils and BBQ sauces.
This reminds we. I have several jars of pepper mash in the outside fridge which need to be blended and bottled. This weekend is pickling week and I need to make room in the fridge for all my fermentation experiments.
I’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole on hot sauce fermentation that my brother made me custom labels for my woozie bottles
I started with Leone’s recipe a few years back and have changed so much that it barely resembles the starting point anymore. I’m also on my third different fermentation vessel- it’s designed for kimchi but does really well for hot sauce.
I also entered a local brewery’s hot sauce contest. I don’t even know what the prize is, I just wanted to make more hot sauce.
i don't think i have once used our mortar and pestle. it is purely aesthetic at this point. can rock expire?
Do this- make the Peruvian chicken with it. Mortar and pestle the garlic.
https://www.seriouseats.com/peruvian-style-grilled-chicken-with-green-sauce-recipe
I know you just had a great idea for the blowtorch, but burning down the gadget closet isn’t the best way to clean it.
[sighs] [puts blowtorch down] FINE.
My kitchen blow torch is a straight up Benzomatic trigger attached to a propane tank, maybe I missed the kitchen part. Wonderful for searing meat after using the immersion circulator or steam oven because you should have two gadgets capable of sous vide cooking. I may also have a problem. Get a garlic press though, it's amazing.
Probably could be used to kickstart the charcoal grill.
Listen, Cookbook, just because you're storing the one infomercial purchase of the combination children's hair comb (give them wavy locks, like you see on TV!), paint scraper (for when you want that lovely zebra look!), and bread pan divider(wheat on the left, rye on the right!) in the kitchen gadget closet doesn't mean it ONLY counts as that.
Anyway, my favorite kitchen gadget is a relatively simple choice, and one I'd suggest for all my left-handed brethren out there - the left-handed wooden spatula. The point is on the other side of the slightly-cupped head, and it makes SO MUCH MORE difference than you'd think. One time, we were out of other clean spatulae, and my wife wanted to cook something, so she used it. She is right-handed, and the complaining and moaning about it were constant for about ten minutes, until I said, "now you know why I bought it - that's how I had to deal with things for decades."
Also, for you: https://i.postimg.cc/htFp0P8s/IMG-2269.jpg
The Turfman's Child's Hair Comb and Paint Scraper, free with any purchase of Turfman's Leisure-Time Scotch and Paint Remover.
TIL, people are not ambidextrous when it comes to spatuling.
I'm actually fairly ambidextrous - I can use the right-handed spatula if I need to, no problem.
But it definitely looks like the equivalent of someone who knows a foreign language, but doesn't think in that foreign language, as opposed to the LH spat, which very much appears as "native speaker"
"Slide those aside, and we’ll find the meat grinder and the ice cream maker, both of which get used a couple times a year. (Usually not at the same time.)
(Although, hmm. Note to self?)"
Spilly, nooooooooo
Country ham ice cream might not be terrible.
we can make avgolemono soup ice cream! more refreshing than gazpacho and with more protein per serving too.
My second-favorite kitchen gadget is my sous-vide stick. As an apartment-dweller, it's a great way to make a steak without filling up the entire place with smoke. Plus there are so many other great low-effort, high return recipes you can make using a sous-vide stick; it's not just for steak.
My favorite kitchen gadget though is my vacuum sealer. It's obviously essential for the sous-vide, but it makes freezing meat, soups, and sauces so much easier, especially since I have a small freezer (deli containers take up a lot of space that I don't necessarily have). Other favorite gadgets are my instant-read thermometer and microplane grater.
Most underrated gadget: a sharpie. I think I have more sharpies in my kitchen than I do at my desk.
I just want to get on the record saying I had the sharpie/blue tape/razor for straight cuts thing going on before watching The Bear this summer.
I just use regular masking tape, but same.
Back in the early days of the ACBN, I ran a discussion thread on favorite pens, and I was somewhat surprised to find out how strongly everyone feels about their pens. (For me, it's the Pentel Sign Pen, which is just a better version of a Sharpie, I can't explain it.)
I've never even thought to spice up my food with a little sharpie juice. interesting.
i wish i could upvote this harder, or more often. my sous vide / vacuum sealer tandem has *literally* changed my life. period, full stop. i’ve never had better proteins, of almost all sorts, up to and including fine restaurant meals.
Do you have any sous-vide tips? I got one for my birthday a few years ago and have used it twice, both times with unimpressive results.
the key is in the sear. season it before you sous vide it, then just enough time on the grill or cast-iron pan to get a “crust” on it. burgers for an hour at 148 or so, then four minutes a side on the grill. best homemade burger you will ever have.
Timing in the sous-vide as well. If you leave your food in the bath for too long, it'll start to disintegrate. The time suggestions on SeriousEats are pretty good for that.
Look, I got that third grill in the most Midwestern way possible: I took it because otherwise my in-laws would have thrown it away. (Have I ever used it? Well, it certainly makes a nice stand for the grill covers for either of the charcoal grills I actually use.)
I'm not sure my Dutch oven counts as a gadget, but it is certainly my favorite kitchen tool (okay, favorite behind the chefs knife). Most ridiculous is the set of pottery lids so I can turn ramekins into pot-de-crème pots.
keep it simple, favorite kitchen tool is probably a knife.
That, or the slicer/shredder attachment for our kitchenaid.
I feel like a good knife is the tool likely to improve your willingness to cook the most--it may not make you better, but it certainly makes it easier to do almost everything in the kitchen.
I reject Alton Brown’s opinion on unitaskers. I love my garlic press and will continue to use it until it breaks. I don’t keep my knives sharp enough nor do I have the knife skills to get a fine dice with garlic. Meanwhile, with the garlic press I don’t even need to peel the clove before pressing it!
If I recall correctly, he’s softened his stance in recent years.
To be fair I think even in his most zealous anti-unitasker days, Alton was all for finding ways to turn unitaskers into multitaskers. If you could figure out another use for a garlic press (uhhh, cherry tomato juicer? homemade olive oil extractor?) then it had a place in the kitchen. I also admit I have a soft spot for Alton because Good Eats basically taught me how to cook in my early-20s.
I also treat those cooking shows kinda like wrestling. He is playing a character. He might have an opinion on unitaskers but plays it up for the entertainment.
I personally would never play up an opinion on food just for entertainment! Certainly not one on a specific regional food…
nooooo neverrrrrrr
They'll pull my garlic press from my cold dead hands.
Can't remember the last time I minced garlic - I press or grate only at this point
BONUS QUESTION: Can you guess what this is?
BONUS ANSWER: I'm not going to dignify that question with an answer.
aside from the cast iron pan, which is not necessarily a gadget as much as it is "the goddamn lifeblood of my kitchen," I'm gonna go with the non-branded, sword-shaped grater that looks curiously like The Master Sword from the Zelda series. half is for the novelty of Zelda-pilling my entire apartment, half of it is because I use it to grate cloves of fresh garlic all the time.
ACBN Christmas Kitchen Wish List in August.
My go to is a vacuum sealer that goes nice with my little deep freezer. I may be on the East Coast, but still Midwestern at heart (and prep). For cooking definitely my grill plates and baskets, I love skewers but not the whole skewing part.
I'd like to hear other people's opinions on this, but I would recommend against getting a vacuum sealer that requires proprietary bags. I *love* vacuum sealing to freeze, and it's made a huge difference in my ability to save things, but a few years back I bought an Oliso sealer that uses re-usable bags (off a Serious Eats recommendation) and it probably wasn't the best choice. I absolutely *hate* cleaning the bags for re-use, and the sealing process can be finicky.
Our vacuum sealer said you could re-use (most of) the bags--cut the top off, wash them, and re-seal them slightly smaller--but we're doing a case-by-case choice of wash and refill or toss. Do I like generating single-use plastic? Not especially. Do I believe that the food waste reduction that can come from a two-person household being able to effective freeze food for later will outweigh this in aggregate? Yes.
I have a Cabella brand sealer and just for ease of use use their pre sealed bags. I figured if hunters were going to use it for their meat (and the effort to get it), it’s good enough for me. I’ve used cut your own size from another brand with it, and they have worked.
I agree about the wanting some sort of reusable dependable bag, but the whole cleaning and sanitizing is beyond my time wishes.
it's a soprano washboard so your jug band can harmonize
Also, re: your three grills: we don’t have one, so all you need is a couple more weirdos to help with your average 😂
The real explanation is that I have a nice gas grill and a Big Green Egg, the latter of which should negate the need for my old charcoal kettle, but I've got a sentimental attachment to it and haven't brought myself to get rid of, despite my wife's repeated (and, to be fair, correct) requests to do so.
You can turn the charcoal kettle into a pizza oven…you just need to buy one more gadget. But really it’s an outdoor gadget, amirite?
Ooooh good point! I *knew* I was justified!
You never know when you might need it though
Bonus question: it’s for cutting potatoes or other root vegetables so that they have a pleasing wavy line to them, or alternatively putting a child to work as a sous chef without giving them an actual knife. If this is wrong, I’m blaming my wife, but since she’s the cook in the house I trust her judgement.
the tater chipper! good answer
This is essentially the correct answer. It's for cutting potatoes into either a ruffle shape or--theoretically--a waffle fry, which should be achieved by slicing the potato with it once, rotating 90 degrees, then slicing again.
It is incredibly difficult to use and I did not achieve a satisfying waffle fry by doing it, so now I'm going to collect all of the wrong answers and see if any of those work better.
Does it work for cutting potatoes into crinkle-cut fries?
Yes, but it works great for sweet potatoes which when roasted are perfect. My son used to eat so many when he was little that we thought he was going to turn orange.
The mystery tool is used when you need to get rows of flour/powdered sugar lined up *just right*
As for the favorite kitchen tool, it resides outside. The flat top insert for the gas grill.
Oh that thing is a do-it-yourself cardboard corrugator.
Tired of paying store prices for corrugated cardboard? Those days are over!
Try the new Mondo Flexo for sheet metal and become unstoppable!
I refuse to go a meal without my Pampered Chef garlic press. I have tried other brands, none compare. Some days you just need to mince 4-10 cloves of garlic as quickly as possible.