Kitchen Gadgets

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.

Fortunately, man kind’s creativity has not been completely useless in this field and over the years some pretty clever solutions were introduced. None is perfect, but some of these solutions are actually quite useful and can save a lot of kitchen hassle. In this post I’ll try to lay down the existing options with pros and con of each.

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First, our top choice which is also the latest comer on the scene:

Slap Chop

Slap chop is based on a new idea currently employed by several brands. The beauty of the idea is in its simplicity: simply place the food pieces on a cutting board, cover them with the Slap Chop and press down the handle several times. The more you press, the finer the chopping. You get some real fine chopping done with just a few presses and you don’t even have to hold down the vegetables. All the mess in kept in the closed compartment at the bottom of the Slap Chop and is easily cleaned when done. We’ve tested it for onions, cucumbers, tomatoes (even very ripe ones), nuts, vegetables, pickles and more.

Progressive GPC 4000 Fruit & Vegetable Chopper FREESHIP

This gadget was introduced to the market about 3-4 years ago and took the world by storm, mainly because is was the best solution of its time. Is combines a plastic container with a square cutting grid and a cover that forces the vegetables through the knife grid.

The main advantage this instrument has over the Slap Chop is the fact that it holds larger quantities. However, it is a lot harder to use, especially with hard materials (my mother actually got her wrist fractured trying to chop up something hard). Another disadvantage is that you cannot control how finely it chops. Still, you can get a decent vegetable salad up and running with this gadget fairly easy and cleaning is also a no brainer.

Bethany Mezzaluna Vegetable Chopper

You can hardly call a Mezzaluna a new gadget as this is a solution that has been used by Italians for ages. The Mezzeluna is probably the simplest and easiest to clean of all solutions and it gives you the best level of control over chopping size. The only problem with it is that it requires a bit of skill and effort. This is a professional chef’s instrument and you need to get the motions right. Otherwise the chopping is uneven and takes too much time and effort. I’d also mention show-off aas an advantage here. If you are entertaining, chopping parsly with a Mezzaluna in front of the guests is bound to leave an impression (providing you do it the right way).

There are many more brands and tricks on the market but the three mentioned above are my top choice for chopping solutions, in terms of ease of use, simplicity, easy cleaning, quality of the chopping and versatility in use.

Here is a small table to sum up how these three compare:

Product	ease of use	ease of cleaning	size control	hard material handling	Where to buy online
Slap Chop	very easy	modular (quit easy)	Determined my number of slaps (good)	great (chops nuts as easily as vegetables)	Get It Here
Progressive GPC 4000 Fruit & Vegetable Chopper FREESHIP	fairly easy	very easy	fixed (not good)	medium (requires strength)	Get it here
Bethany Mezzaluna Vegetable Chopper	requires skill	one piece (extremely easy)	good but requires skill	poor (hard to chop)	Get it here