Jan 28

Jan 28 5 great kitchen gadgets that have helped me in lockdown

The room where I seem to spend most of my time - looking unusually tidy!

Like all of us, I’m spending a lot more time in my kitchen than I have for a long time. I’m mostly enjoying the discipline of making myself cook as many of my meals from scratch as possible (a process greatly helped by the delicious Mindful Chef deliveries I get every other week) and eating as healthily as I can (chocolate counts as one of your five a day, right? Phew. Then I’m definitely staying well on track).

One of the things that all this meal prep has highlighted are the hero gadgets in my collection that help to make all the dicing, slicing, grating, squeezing and subsequent cleaning that much easier and more efficient. So, in one of my less photogenic, but hopefully nonetheless useful, blogs, I thought I’d share the top five with you.

Hero gadget number 1

Clearly the most critical food preparation items in any kitchen are your kitchen knives. Second only to those, then, is a decent knife sharpener. I’ve tried many different sorts over the years and am currently loving this one.

You hold the The Pro Sharpener block in place with the hand bar on the left, draw your knife blade through the slot nearest to the bar 4-5 times, then through the second slot 2-3 times. And voila, a beautifully sharpened blade.

Whilst I’m not saying this is necessarily the best knife sharpener on the market (I know the very best way to sharpen knives is with a knife block, but I just couldn’t get the hang of the one I bought), I find it really effective and easy to use. And better still, it’s made by a family run business.

Pro Sharpener Knife Block £12.95

Hero gadget number 2

The health and taste giving properties of garlic make it a key ingredient in pretty much any savoury dish in my book. Garlic squeezers are another of the gadgets I’ve tried multiple variations of. This I can therefore say. with some confidence, is one of the best ways I’ve found to get the most out of every clove. As well as being by a long shot the most attractive.

I picked up this little hand made and painted grater plate with its accompanying brush at a food fair a few years ago. Rubbing the garlic cloves over the serrated ridges reduces them to an aromatic pulp which you remove and add to your dish using the stiff stubbles of the brush.

Of course you can also use it for grating other things, like ginger or nutmeg and for zesting too.

They come in lots of lovely colours and designs and can be bought separately, the plates are £7-£8, the brush £3.50, or as a set here

Hero gadget number 3

Whilst we’re on the subject of grating, for larger items, or things that require more coarse grating, you need something more substantial than a pretty little plate. I have a couple of hand-held graters, which are perfectly workmanlike, but the game-changer for me was this rather clever box grater.

I fully appreciate there’s nothing very obviously ingenious about this six-sided grater with its hardly revolutionary, though comfortably sturdy, handle and non-slip base. But that’s because the clever bit is hidden inside it.

Neatly tucked inside the base is a measuring container that slots snugly onto the base of the grater, so that whatever you’re grating is collected in it, saving both mess and storage space. Well I think that’s clever, so humour me. It’s certainly bloody useful.

Six-sided grater with container £12.99

Hero gadget number 4

Another ingredient that makes an appearance in many of the dishes I prepare is lemon. And this reamer (nope, I had no idea that’s what they were called either) is not only the most efficient and effective way of squeezing the juice whilst removing the pips and pith that I’ve found, it’s also one of the most funkily designed.

The flexible silicone collar catches all the pips and pith (obviously it can be used for other fruits as well as lemons), whist the sturdy reamer ensures you get every last bit of juice. And better still, that juice goes directly into whatever you’re adding it to. No need for a middle-man bowl.

Jospeh Joseph Catcher (TM) Citrus Reamer £12

Hero gadget number 5

These last heroes aren’t gadgets at all, and they’re not used for food preparation either. But what they have done is saved my washing up bacon, and sanity, on more occasions than I can possibly count. As you can see from how well-worn they are.

It may say rather too much about my food cooking skills that these pan-scrapers have been so frequently used, but I couldn’t possibly comment on that. What I can comment on, is that they are far and away the best way to remove, well, let’s just say sticky cooking remnants, from pots and pans, and leave it at that.

These faithful fellows are pretty old now, but you can get this set of 4 for £2.95

What are your go-to kitchen gadgets? I’d love to know!