Unconventional kitchen utensil you can't live without?
What are your unconventional kitchen tools/utensils you were skeptical of at first but feel you can’t live without?
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What are your unconventional kitchen tools/utensils you were skeptical of at first but feel you can’t live without?
A garlic press - saves so much time and effort over mincing garlic with a knife because I'm not a pro chef, and can be used in about 95% of situations where you need garlic. I don't use it when I want the garlic texture, but otherwise I just adjust the amount or the cooking time versus minced garlic. There's some hate floating around from professional chefs, but I bought one a few years ago to try it and haven't looked back.
I bought one and hated it. How do you even clean it? The garlic gets everywhere except the dish I want it in. Maybe I'm using it wrong.
Do you peel the garlic first? I peel by squashing the garlic with the side of the knife to crack the skin and let it peel off, so I'm half done by that point.
I use a toothbrush to clean it
Seems like so much work! I'm still not conviced a toothbrush would help that much with getting all the bits out from inside it. I do wonder if the one I got isn't a very good one.
Odd, I just push the bristles through the other way and all the gunk gets pushed out
Maybe I'll have to try again some time.
Mine goes in the dishwasher after you reverse-press the fibers into the trash. I do peel the garlic first.
Now to be fair, I hate chunks of garlic, I just want some garlic flavor in the food if it's supposed to be there. So I'm never going to just smash or coarsely chop it. I'm also a garlic-sweater so I don't use garlic at all if it isn't necessary for the dish. But some delicious foods require it, and I just have to try to plan them so I don't have something important the next day.
Does yours have some function to bend it the other way and push the bits out? I always ended up having to scoop out the stuck bits and it is so much more work than squishing the garlic with the side of a knife. But I admit it may have small lumps. I normally squish, peel off the skin, slice against the grain, and squish again.
Takes about 10 or 20 seconds, nothing extra to clean, and the biggest bits are still pretty small.
Ours does.
Interesting! Everyone is raving over theirs and I can't imagine mine ever being useful, so it must be that I got the wrong one!
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Farberware-Soft-Grips-0-86-lb-Stainless-Steel-Garlic-Press-with-Black-Handle-and-Red-Accent/609458009?
This is not exactly mine but it's a good example because you can easily see the reverse-push part with the nubbins. I have had ones where that's metal rather than silicone and they were fine, and you don't need fat handles unless you have grip problems. In the olden days (pre 1980?) I had the kind where you have to dig out the shreds with a knife and I can definitely see why you'd switch to just using the knife!
I've just gone down a rabbit hole of garlic presses and I struggle to find any that look as poorly designed as mine!
Oh honey, time to recycle that sucker! Don't donate it, that would only bring misery to someone else. Go on chopping or squashing your garlic if you prefer, though. I respect it even though I prefer to press mine.
Some of those are so crappy it drives you crazy, but some are sturdy with tight tolerances and works wonders IMO.
Just crush it with the peel.
The taste you get is radically different though. A press vs chopping is not a convenience issue as much as a recipe one.
I actually stopped using my garlic press because I felt it was more work than finely chopping with the knife. It'd be great if it was just "press and done", but there's always heaps left in the press itself that refuses to go through, which then has to be dealt with by hand anyway.
You just flip the handle over and press the little nubbins backwards through the holes to push out the woody gunk into the trash. If it doesn't fall completely out a gentle whack on the side of the can knocks it out. It's all fibrous and doesn't have much flavor.
But that's not unconventional, is it? Everyone has one.
I haven't got one.