Kitchen Gadgets

Yogurt is a favourite product always present in my refrigerator, not only because of its health qualities but also for its flavour. I love yogurt, and i prefer it plain. As natural as possible creamy without any added sugar or unnecessary additions. Yogurt is great taken as is as a refreshing drink but the truth is I usually use it in cooking. I am a fan of Indian cuisine which makes use of this product in the most amazing, surprising ways. It is also a dominant ingredient in Greek and Turkish recipes.

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If you own a high quality set of knives you must be aware of the hassel involved with sharpening them. High-quality chef knives, be they European brands such as Henkle’s or Japanese such as Global, are made with special steel alloys that require routine sharpening to maintain the knife’s edge. If you use your knives often you must have noticed how quickly they tend to lose their edge. Give them the good old tomato test (trying to smoothly slice through a ripe tomato straight trough the peel with no resistance) and see how gradually they start to loose their tune. If you are serious about cooking you know honing your knives is an almost daily routine task.

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The ancient art of tagine cooking developed in north Africa and is based on the principle of slow cooking. The special shape of the Tagine (traditional Beldi, or the more recent the berber Souss, or Rifi) makes sure that the precious cooking liquids remain in the dish, maintaining it moist throught the long cooking process. Moroccan Tajines often combine lamb or chicken with an assortment of ingredients and spices: olives, quinces, apples, pears, apricots, raisins, prunes, dates, nuts, with or without honey, with or without a complexity of spices. The types of meats used need not be of extremely high quality because the slow cooking process makes sure even tough cuts get so tender they fall off the bone. Also, the flavour of the meat is usually overpowered by the rich, strong spicing.

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The Presto 23- Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker is infact a double purpose appliance that can be used for both pressure cooking and food canning. Canning food at home is not only fun but also healthy since you can keep the cans fro long periods of time without the food spoiling.

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This is a special 30-Quart Stockpot that was specifically designed for frying whole turkeys outdoors. It features a circulation mechanism to make sure the oil cook the turkey evenly and a thermometer to ensure steady temperatures while cooking. The Bayou Turkey Fryer Kit is made of commercial-grade aluminium and cast iron which makes it particularly stable and safe to use.

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This amazing contraption allows you to enjoy the succulent flavour of woodsmoked fish, meat and vagetables indoors. No need to go outside of smoke your entire kitchen, just use this stainless steel smoker over open fire or electric stove. The tightly sealed lid makes sure the smoke stays within the compartment so that your kitchen remains clean and with no unpleasant smells while the smoked meat or fish gets all the delicious aroma from your choice of smoking wood.

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It doesn’t take a beer buff to properly appreciate the clear advantages of drought beer over bottled/canned beer. The smooth, carbon-hydrate pumped liquid coming out of drought tap is so much more refreshing and flavor-filled than the often blend, flat beer you get from a bottle. Drought beer is served straight out of properly cooled pipes and is kept pressurized using a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide (the relation between which is determined by the type of beer – the creamier the beer the more nitrogen in used). For years this has been the popular way of serving beer and one of the main reasons to hop down to the pub (pickup bars excluded).

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It is amazing how some incomprehensively complex problems have already been solved by mankind long ago while other apparently trivial issues are still left without an answer. Among the latter are the age old problem of peeling garlic (yes, I know, your grandmother has a great trick for that), an issue we will deal with on a later post, and the problem of chopping vegetables.

First, the motivation. In this case it is clear. Who doesn’t like a freshly chopped salad, or eggs with fried chopped onions or mushroom. The problem is we would all like the actual process of chopping to be done with as soon as possible. Vegetables are slippery, uneven creatures by nature and don’t lend themselves very easily to chopping. The thought of trying to hold down a torted cucumber trying to process it into even dice can drive the most serene people crazy.

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