Mandolines

[Jinmyo]

jaybee, my V slicer has gone untouched in a back drawer for years. Never looked back.

[coolranch]

Just a tip, buy the Benriner at an Asian market.  I got mine for $16.00, and also got a grater w/three different blades for $4.  I've seen the Benriner going for $25-30 at "gourmet" shops like Williams Sonoma, etc.

[B Edulis]

I use mine to make potato chips that I roll and skewer. Slather 'em with flavored oil and herbs and hit the grill! Yum!

I think calling the guard the "chariot" makes it seem much more fun and exciting. When I was in a pinch for one once, I used a spiked floral frog!

[Jinmyo]

I use mine to make potato chips that I roll and skewer. Slather 'em with flavored oil and herbs and hit the grill! Yum!

Maria, rolling and skewering is a nice touch. But you grill rather than deep-fry? Nice as well. But aren't the insides a bit soft for them to be chips? Unless you mean chips (fries, frites) rather than chips (crisps)?

[Richard Kilgore]

I recall Jinmyo posting that the only piece of equipment you need beyond good knives is a mandoline. I see a variety of them in catalogues --- ones with synthetic frames for less than $100 to all ss ones for almost $200. Help me choose. Why would you pick one over another? Anything to stay away from? Differences in what they will do?

And what will a madoline do that a food processor will not do? My use is for cooking at home, but additional discussion of ones for professional use in commercial kitchens is fine with me.

[Suzanne F]

Benriner benriner benriner benriner benriner.

And did I mention Benriner? Available for under $30 in Asian markets, a little more for the extra-wide version. For slicing and three sizes of julienne. Blades are replaceable. Or you can just toss it and get a new one, it's that inexpensive. You can put it in the dishwasher. There is almost no assembly, almost no setup, and it takes up very little storage room.

What can I do with it that I can't with a fp? Control the food. Put an onion or a potato or a clove of garlic in the fp, and you get weird angles and shapes as the cutting proceeds and the food slips. With a mandoline, you are the one holding the food, and can keep it the way you want it. Also, with a mandoline I can cut infinitely adjustable thicknesses, up to the max when I remove the adjusting screw, and down to see-through thin (see comment on control). My knife skills are not good enough to do that with any consistency. Ditto the juliennes.

With the big, complicated, expensive ss mandolines (Bron, for example), you can cut waffle potatoes -- which you can't do on a Benriner. If that's important to you, go with the bigger $$$ version. Otherwise, Benriner rules!

[Oreganought]

I have both of the ones Suzanne mentioned and I'm sure the SS will last a lifetime,had mine 12 years.The benriner gets more use though,lighter,easier

to lay over a bowl and slice away.I will say the benriner seems to be sharper

than my SS one.I use to do alot of veg in long strands like lingini and the SS

was better. I would probably recommend the benriner because of it's ease of

use and price.Stay away from the TV models (cheap),I don't know how many I've been given that fell apart after 2 potatoes.

[MatthewB]

I like the V-Slicer.

Edit: Search for "Swissmar Borner V-Slicer Plus" on Amazon. I think it's a tad "safer" than the Benriner. The only downside--at least for me--of the V-Slicer is the inability to manually adjust blade height.

Edited September 2, 2003 by MatthewB (log)

[Jinmyo]

Matthew, and that's why a v-slicer is just another useless kitchen gadget.

Benriner. About $30.

Unless you really must make waffle cuts.

[MatthewB]

I'll cede to Suzanne & Jin.

[Richard Kilgore]

Thanks Suzanne, Oreganought and Jinmyo. I have no need for a wafflecut. Glad to hear that $30 is all it will take. Are these available on-line, or only at Asian markets?

Matthew --- I've got a mushroom brush and slicer you may be interested in.

[Jinmyo]

Richard, a quick Google search for "Benriner" will yield many results. I see prices from $37 to $39. But I often see them at Japanese and Korean grocers for around $25 Canadian. Which adjusting to US currency means they're just about free.

[MatthewB]

Matthew --- I've got a mushroom brush and slicer you may be interested in. 

The V-Slicer isn't *that* bad.

[torakris]

I still remember the first benriner I bought, I was a 20 year old college student on my first trip to Japan. I was walking through Takashimaya department store and there was a man demonstrating one of these things, think live infomercial. I was fascinated, I watched this man for close to 30 minutes and thought "if only I had one of these, I could cook too!" and I begged my boyfriend to buy me one. I took it back to the US with me and I have been cooking ever since!

Now that my knife skills have gotten better I pull it out less and less, but I did use it last night to make these wonderful fine shreds of daikon (picture should be on the dinner thread later today) that I never could have done with a knife!

They only cost about $10 to $15 in Japan!

[mudbug]

Another vote here for Benriner, again, for the same reasons Suzanne mentioned: ease of use, adjustability, control, made of that "they don't make 'um like they used to really hard plastic", replaceable blades - incredibly sharp too! It also came with three "toothed blades" (fine, medium, and coarse) to jullienne at different thicknesses, fine, medium, and coarse.

I found mine within the last six months at a local Japanese Grocery for $19.99.

[Richard Kilgore]

Thanks everyone. I am sold!

[babyluck]

Me too! It's been an ongoing debate inside my head & with my husband, who is now well-versed with the pros and cons of different types of mandolines against his will. I have the Hoffritz quasi-mandoline now and I love how it slices right into a big bowl and it is sturdy, but the attachments are bulky and clumsy and are never where they're supposed to be. It was $40 at Villagers a few years ago -- now it's 19.99 on Amazon. At the time, I thought it was a choice between infinitely adjustable thickness and paying less than $160 -- guess I was wrong! I also have a problem being full well careful of my finger, but perhaps I should learn to thrust more slowly?

Han Ah Reum, here I come!

[Suzanne F]

Benriners come with a food-guide thingy. That's the purplish part in the upper right of the picture. Not foolproof (sometimes we're all fools ) but quite helpful.

[enthusiast]

Richard, be careful. these things are wonderful but lethal. the beauty of translucently thin evenly sliced potatoes is compromised if they're streaked with blood.

my technique (and it's usually potatoes) is to hold the potato in the hand and make a few slices. then turn it over and apply the guard (Suzanne's "food-guide thingy") to the flat surface. that way it gets a proper grip (it has a series of quite sallow spikes to hold the food). then slice the rest of the potato holding the guard. it works every time. what doesn't work is getting lazy and using unprotected hands. or maybe i'm just more than averagely careless...

[Mottmott]

Has anyone used the protective glove I've seen advertised? Does it work? I've been tempted to buy one, then think, "one more useless gadget?"

[kjohn]

The benriner rules so much, I put up an appreciation page several years ago at http://www.jillyboel.com/members/kjohn/mis...sc/benriner.htm

My favorite bit is the note to their customers, and I quote: "The most excellent keen-edge is our pride."

"Benriner: Let's have daily crisp vegetables, a Fast cheerful and beautiful way of cooking."

Indeed.

[Mottmott]

Fess up. How many of us really use them? Which ones do you use, not use? How many finger tips have you lost? Oh, really, none, then how do you keep all them tips?

There's a guard on some mandolines. And I understand there are safety gloves out there. Do you use any of these? For those who still have fingertips, what do you do to keep them?

(If you use a glove please comment at length. Are they clumsy, for example? Which sort of glove is it, etc.

[Busboy]

I've only lost one fingertip, in the process of making pommes Anna. It grew back, mostly. I was literally in the process slicing potatoes and telling someone that I was too careful and expereinced to hurt myself when I felt what seemed at first to be a surprisingly mild pain (sharp blade!) and noticed that I was bleeding profusely on the 'taters. Well, the pain started accelerating, but fortunately, there were many bottles of wine with which to anaesthetize myself and salve the wound. I drafted my friend Jim to finish the potatoes -- "a valuable cooking lesson," I told him, "a classic dish" while I applied direct pressure to stop the bleeding. eventally, we got the potatoes in the over, got the bleeding stopped and got dinner for ten on the table.

Now I use the guard, a somewhat awkward device. It's shaped kind of like a drain stopper, with a plunger inside and spikes to hold whatever you're cutting in place. I've seen old school French chefs use one without a guard. Rather than holding the food with their finger tips, they cup it in their palms and slide the food back and forth -- fingertips up and out of the way -- as though they're gently polishing something.

I have a Swiss version, can't remember the name, with four sets of blades for julienning, making gaufrettes and just slicing. It's remarkably helpful, and I wouldn't be without it. But it is still the only kitchen tool I have that scares me.

[Oreganought]

I own a bron and a berringer.I've used them most of my cooking life...25 years,

and have no visable scars left...well, maybe one. Personally I consider them

invaluable.

I think I might have used the guards for about 10 minutes> I know the gloves have gotten alot better over the years,but I still go bareback.

My personal favorite is the berringer.

The secret to low personal injury is common sense,concentration and direct

eye contact for the task at hand.Of course you must develop a technique that

is pretty much fool proof as well. It seems common sense is the tough one most

people have trouble with.

[Busboy]

My personal favorite is the berringer.

The secret to low personal injury is common sense,concentration and direct

eye contact for the task at hand.Of course you must develop a technique that

is pretty much fool proof as well. It seems common sense is the tough one most

people have trouble with.

In my case, staying fully sober throughout the cooking process is the defining problem.