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What's New in Kitchen Gadgets?


Kerry Beal

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48 minutes ago, rotuts said:

butter in your coffee ?

 

:S

 Apparently it’s a thing.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

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1 hour ago, rotuts said:

butter in your coffee ?

 

:S

 

32 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 Apparently it’s a thing.

 

Butter tea has been a "thing" in Tibet and neighboring countries since pretty much forever. Butter coffee has become part of the ketogenic diet trend -- and you know it's a thing when Nestlé gets involved.

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"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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6 hours ago, Lisa Shock said:

The stirring mugs are primarily for people adding a lot of butter or oil to their coffee, in order to temporarily distribute it. There's also usefulness there for people who drink those commercial protein powder drinks or diet shakes, or whatever.

 

Given they are Chinese, that seems somewhat unlikely. I think they were just meant to be a joke novelty item.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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12 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Spotted these today in a Japanese store in Vietnam. 

 

20180501_150424.thumb.jpg.e1c356847532771e8048821c3acdf1a4.jpg

 

They are plastic cases to hold eggs while you boil them. Perhaps they hadn't noticed eggs come in shells.

 

But now you can get rid of those pesky shells ahead of time... after all, that's the hardest part of a boiled egg,  peeling it!:P 

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And this old porch is like a steaming greasy plate of enchiladas,With lots of cheese and onions and a guacamole salad ...This Old Porch...Lyle Lovett

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14 hours ago, rotuts said:

butter in your coffee ?

 

:S

 

Yeah, that or coconut oil. It's to make what some people call 'bulletproof coffee'. I hate coffee in general, so, I don't follow these fads very closely. It's somehow related to those ketogenic diets.

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1 hour ago, helenjp said:

NO no no no! Those "cases" are to hold PEELED hardboiled eggs for your lunchbox! I mean! What else could they be for?!!!!

 

No.they are not. I read the instructions. They are for holding the eggs while they are being boiled. You can see one being lowered into or being lifted out of the water on my picture.

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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47 minutes ago, IowaDee said:

Look like hand grenade molds to me.  Something leftover from a G.I. Joe accessory kit.xD

 

Same thing crossed my mind. I suppose you could stick an egg in one and microwave it for the grenade effect.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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The fact that you can boil them in the cases is just a handy extra - the selling point is that you put the egg in the case, boil it, and then you can put it straight in your lunchbox, where the case stops the shell from getting crushed in transit (those commuter trains...). I can't find any claim that boiling the eggs in cases makes it any easier to boil eggs, but you never know.

P.S. There is a separate kind of case for microwaving eggs!

Edited by helenjp (log)
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1 hour ago, helenjp said:

The fact that you can boil them in the cases is just a handy extra - the selling point is that you put the egg in the case, boil it, and then you can put it straight in your lunchbox, where the case stops the shell from getting crushed in transit (those commuter trains...). I can't find any claim that boiling the eggs in cases makes it any easier to boil eggs, but you never know.

P.S. There is a separate kind of case for microwaving eggs!

 

 

There was no mention of anything other than what you call "just a handy extra" on the packaging.  Wouldn't it be an odd kind of selling tactic not to mention the selling point? The instructions were on the back of the pack in four languages, three of which I know. Not one word about eggs being crushed in transit. Maybe that was hidden away in the 4th.

 

In my experience, the lunch box prevents lunch being crushed. Otherwise I'd just stick it in a paper bag. Are Japanese lunch boxes so crushable? Perhaps they should improve them instead!

 

Yes egg microwaving containers have been around for decades. Not for boiling them, though.

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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1 hour ago, helenjp said:

You can use it to carry a raw egg and then remove it from the case to cook lunch for enterprising cyclist . But in that case, the ordinary kind of fully-enclosed egg case seems like a better choice!

 

Quite seriously I'd use them for cooking eggs sous vide.

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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  • 2 months later...

As a person don’t enjoy too much spending my time in the kitchen experimenting with new recipes, I need something that could help me have some more fun while trying to cook my dinner. Anyone can introduce me some fun and creative kitchen gadgets?

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Cooking for the sake of the tools (well, toys) is always going to last for exactly as long as they are interesting to you.

 

If you don't have any intrinsic motivation to keep you in the kitchen – and beyond whatever your domestic situation requires, you don't have to – perhaps tools that will make your time spent in the kitchen shorter, while still possibly improving your output?

 

To that end:

  • A precise kitchen scale. Try to formalise what you are currently doing with the recipes you are cooking, and figure out how you can start changing variables to improve the end result. If you don't know what you're testing for, you're not experimenting, just riffing.
  • A pressure cooker. This will make short work of many dishes that have traditionally required many hours to complete, like (particularly) stocks, soups, (to a certain extent) braises, stews, browning onions, etc. It will also allow for bulk preparations.
  • If your domestic situation is < 4 people, the CSO steam toaster oven – you'll see the thread in this forum. It's a small oven with a huge amount of potential, and a loud timer to let you know when stuff is done (and out of the kitchen).
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How are your knife skills? Mastering precise cuts is a fundamental skill that many home cooks don't really have but would serve them well in the long run. Almost all of your food will look better, and, with practice, you will gain speed. Speed is one of the hallmarks of a restaurant cook and will free up time for other tasks in the kitchen. And, when company comes over, they will marvel at the fluted mushrooms and the brunoise celery.

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  • 3 months later...

Today I had my new CO2 tank filled and tried my hand at home carbonation. It took me a bit to figure out the directions that were so peppered with warnings and notes, that it was difficult to understand. As a precaution I conducted my first few tests out on the deck. First up: carbonating some cold Chablis. (while on a recent trip to Italy, we both developed a fondness for aperol spritzes, which call for a small amount of Prosecco, cheap in Italy, but not here).IMG_2242.thumb.JPG.ee042fa31532608373140c635ab7266f.JPGIMG_2235.thumb.JPG.f2716ccdfa45cebfac8ad5e8cd2c79d3.JPG

Overall, I am pretty happy with this setup. I bought a few stopper top bottles and transferring to them is a snap, we'll see how well the fizz lasts in them.

IMG_2248.thumb.JPG.e813ab1f25b8ae2cfc2f09c7486f09c0.JPG

I celebrated with a mortadella sandwich and a tall glass of homemade acqua frizzante!

HC

IMG_2239.thumb.JPG.67a2726d0ffc7c873abc3320cad344b1.JPG

Edited by HungryChris (log)
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  • 4 weeks later...

Anyone have a Ninja Foodi? I tried searching here but my search foo is apparently not working today.

 

One of these things: https://direct.ninjakitchen.com/16/products/ninja-foodi-pressure-cooker-op302/14/microsite/ogxvpp/?utm_source=GOOGLE&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=Brand+-+Foodi+-+Crock+Pot+-+Exact&amp;utm_adgroup=Foodi+Cooker+-+General&amp;utm_term=ninja+foodi&amp;gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgfr_6-S83gIVDNbACh1ZQQLnEAAYASAAEgKMJfD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds

 

I have a friend who has one who gets a lot of use out of it, and my mom is quite intrigued. But I'm not sure as we already have an Instant Pot we don't use nearly as much as we should.

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7 hours ago, quiet1 said:

Anyone have a Ninja Foodi? I tried searching here but my search foo is apparently not working today.

 

One of these things: https://direct.ninjakitchen.com/16/products/ninja-foodi-pressure-cooker-op302/14/microsite/ogxvpp/?utm_source=GOOGLE&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=Brand+-+Foodi+-+Crock+Pot+-+Exact&amp;utm_adgroup=Foodi+Cooker+-+General&amp;utm_term=ninja+foodi&amp;gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgfr_6-S83gIVDNbACh1ZQQLnEAAYASAAEgKMJfD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds

 

I have a friend who has one who gets a lot of use out of it, and my mom is quite intrigued. But I'm not sure as we already have an Instant Pot we don't use nearly as much as we should.

I saw a commercial for one of these last week and did a search here and didn't find any mention of it either.

 

I use the heck out of my Instant Pots.  

 

I'm very intrigued by the claim that it crisps......

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8 hours ago, quiet1 said:

Anyone have a Ninja Foodi? I tried searching here but my search foo is apparently not working today.

 

One of these things: https://direct.ninjakitchen.com/16/products/ninja-foodi-pressure-cooker-op302/14/microsite/ogxvpp/?utm_source=GOOGLE&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=Brand+-+Foodi+-+Crock+Pot+-+Exact&amp;utm_adgroup=Foodi+Cooker+-+General&amp;utm_term=ninja+foodi&amp;gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgfr_6-S83gIVDNbACh1ZQQLnEAAYASAAEgKMJfD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds

 

I have a friend who has one who gets a lot of use out of it, and my mom is quite intrigued. But I'm not sure as we already have an Instant Pot we don't use nearly as much as we should.

 

There's a topic devoted to discussion of this over here with a link to a video review.  I haven't seen anyone in the group actually reporting that they've used one yet. 

 

Edited to add that I don't have any counter area with access to an outlet that also has enough headspace to use this since the "fryer" lid is hinged and needs to stand up in the open position when you are using the pressure cooker so it's a no-go for me.

Edited by blue_dolphin (log)
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