Spoon Rests! What A Totally Superflous Kitchen Item!

[icyfroth]

I often see them in the op shops and think pffft, what a useless item. As if you couldn't use a saucer or whatever you have at hand while you're cooking. Making bolognese tonight I just rested the spoon on the side of the can.

[lloydslights]

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@*crikey*mate* wrote:

ROFL

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I soooo love all the useless gadgets they make and sell to the housewife contingent, who buy it all up thinking it will make them better cooks.

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Crikey, sometimes these superfluous kitchen items are given as gifts from husbands, etc for the woman who says she doesn't want anything for Xmas, Mother's Day.

Maybe the givers are the ones who think they will get a better meal at home?  As was the case when 3 young children bought a doughnut "thingey" for their mummy.

DEB

[*crikey*mate*]

I was just thinking Sin,

I don't know what the rest of the world does or what people do in their own homes, but I wash out my sink in between uses.

Over here we don't use bleaches or other chemicals for cleaning food related equipment, not allowed to. Hot water and steam is the way to go. For pastry equipment we are not even allowed to use basic detergent - just straight hot water. but anything being washed in a detergent has to then go through the hot water bath or wet steamer.

For a while there it was even fashionable (about 2004?) to use santizer on stainless steel benchtops every 2 hours, sanitize knioves with the same stuff etc - a whole heap of hoops we had to jump back then (including wearing plastic gloves when working with the wood fired pizza oven, or over the wok burners etc and the regular gas burners)

True! They had one KP whose entire job was to go around the hotel and change every chef's sterilizing water and wipe down his benches every 2 hours - even had to keep a log book!

But that was later abolished as it was shown that sanitizer solutions didn't do anything to sterilize stainless steel/metals - they worked fine for things like baby bottles (allegedly - I don't know) but not on benchtops and other hard surfaces...

Hot water and steam is what we have ended up with now.

[amber-eyed-girl]

To prevent any traces of bleach or rinse-off in your strainers over the sink, use a stand. 

Simple, effective and comes with your chinois. You are already paying for it. Use it.

[cherry*135]

"People in that situation don't worry about spoon rests."

Obviously

"fashionable? trendy? not here. every home ec. class and culinary school in america teaches their students to add a small amount of oil and salt to pasta water,if using dried pasta. it has nothing to do with fashion,or trends,it's a basic rule of cooking."

The key word there is DRIED. A lot of people, myself included use fresh pasta, no oil, no salt.

[cherry*135]

If posters here have been cooking in their own home kitchen for decades and haven't poisoned anyone they fed, they must know and be doing the right things re food safety/hygiene

Commercial food hygiene standard are not something they need to know or follow for a non-commercial kitchen.

[amber-eyed-girl]

a useless gadget, is the purchase of a chinois for straining rice when a simple strainer would do, and it would not collect impurities.

everyone has their own method of successfully cooking rice.

a chinois, is intended for making purees, sauces, etc.

the pestle, will also come with a standard chinois set.

To press, and strain fruit, for example.

If anyone here has purchased one for the preparation of their rice, I hope that it will come in useful for its true purpose.

enjoy cooking, everyone, it doesn't need to be overcomplicated.

[cherry*135]

a chinois, is intended for making purees, sauces, etc.

That is what I thought. Mesh can be varying degress of fine or coarse.

[*pepe]

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@am*3 wrote:
"People in that situation don't worry about spoon rests."

Obviously

"fashionable? trendy? not here. every home ec. class and culinary school in america teaches their students to add a small amount of oil and salt to pasta water,if using dried pasta. it has nothing to do with fashion,or trends,it's a basic rule of cooking."

The key word there is DRIED. A lot of people, myself included use fresh pasta, no oil, no salt.

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i never add oil or salt to dried pasta - thats right, I wilfully break the basic rules of cooking.

I'm such a rebel.

[imastawka]

 I must be really old school,   I use one of these

  

It's a lot easier to clean than a sieve

[amber-eyed-girl]

"Secrets of the chef's kitchen for a home cook

You need, for God's sake, a decent chef's knife. ONE good chef's knife, as large as is comfortable for your hand. Like a pro, you should use the tip of the knife for the small stuff, the area nearer the heel for the larger.

The indispensable object in most chefs' shtick is the simple plastic squeeze bottle, essentially the same objects you see at hot-dog stands loaded with mustard. Mask a bottom of a plate with, say, an emulsified butter sauce, then run a couple of concentric rings of darker sauce - demi-glace, or roast pepper purée - around the plate. Now drag a toothpick through the rings or lines.

Gaufrette wha'? That's French for waffle-cut. You can do that. All you need is a mandolin, a vertically held slicer with various blade settings. Dauphinois potatoes cut to identical thickness? No sweat. You didn't think they actually cut those with a knife, did you?

Let me stress: heavyweight pans. A thin- bottomed saucepan is useless for anything."

Anthony Bourdain. Just out of interest.