Holiday Shopping: Small Ticket Items

 

This is a revised post from last year with one key difference being that my mandoline, above, is in need of replacing and so I am hoping that the photographer of the image can take a hint.

Continuing holiday shopping week, here are my recommendations for modestly priced kitchen tools that are essentials in my kitchen. (All but one of the following links is to Amazon; I'm a part of its affiliate program—when you shop at Amazon via this site, it helps to support this site.) I own and love everything mentioned below.

The above Benriner mandoline ($25) is one of my most valued kitchen tools for uniform slicing, julienning, and making brunoise (a julienne turned into a dice). By far my most valuable electric device in my kitchen is the hand blender—I use Braun that seems no longer unavailable, but I bought this Cuisinart version for my mom  ($60) and it works well—these devices all do the job of pureeing soups and sauces, easy whisking, quick mayonnaise, and I make vinaigrettes in the cup attachment, which will even emulsify a great Caesar dressing will pureeing the garlic. The hand blender is one of my most-used electrically powered tools.

Every kitchen needs a scale: this My Weigh KD8000 ($36) has been my go-to scale for years. Using a scale is the most reliable way of measuring, especially if you're baking (which is why more cookbooks are including, if not leading with, metric weights, as does the ground-breaking Bouchon Bakery cookbook ($33)—another lovely gift, come to think of it!). I use two, the KD8000 for pounds of flour, say, and this pocket scale ($9) for small amounts, such as 3 grams of yeast.

An instant-read digital thermometer is a must. The professionals go for the Thermapen ($96), but there are less expensive one, such as this from my friends at Le Creeuset ($24).

For measuring temps of roasts in the oven or on the grill, a cable thermometer is a great asset. I've been using this RediCheck cable thermometer ($24) for years and love it. When I cook the roast beast this Christmas, the meat will have a cable thermometer in it and an alarm will go off when it reaches 120˚F to tell me I need to pay attention.

People often ask for knife sharpening recommendations. I get my knives sharpened professionally a couple times a year, and I maintain their edges with DMT sharpening "stone," actually a diamond coated perforated metal sheet. At more than $100 depending on your needs, it's more in the higher price range but I wanted to mention it.

Every kitchen needs a good pepper grinder for freshly ground pepper that, importantly, doesn't grind too coarsely; you need a mill for fine grinding, and Peugeot’s are excellent ($55), the usual choice in the professional kitchen.

Can't forget the Microplane, a real game changer when the company (which originally created them for woodworking) introduced models for the kitchen, for all manner of zesting and grating.

I love my fluted pastry wheel for making decorative edges to pastries, and lattice pies. Disposable pastry bags are a great inexpensive gift.

And last but not least, while I'm wary of what Alton Brown calls the unitasker, the kitchen tool that does only one thing, I would be very sad to lose this lemon juicer. Fresh lemon and lime juice are always in play in my kitchen and this baby makes juicing the work of a moment. Worth the $10? Yeah.

For stocking stuffers, a plastic bench scraper ($4). Seriously. It's one of my most reached for tools in the kitchen, mainly for transferring chopped food into hot pans. It's one Michael Symon's favorite tools. When I did The Chew last week, there it was on his cutting board. Another stocking stuffer, for those literary cooks and aspiring food writers, my Kindle Single, about how I accidentally wound up writing about food and cooking, a short memoir called The Main Dish ($2).

Cooking is a craft, and good tools are a must with any craft.

© 2013 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2013 Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.