Question Of The Day #34

What piece of kitchen equipment over $100 do you get the least use out of? What did you think you would use it for when you bought it?

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Brendan_Lee_56950

I thought pretty hard on this and I'm pleased to report that I don't have an answer to this. I use most everything I own regularly and the few things that do sit around I either got a great deal on or weren't all that expensive to begin with.

Yehuda_Malka_64497

Definitely my huge roasting pan. I don't do large roasts anymore now that I low-temp, and for large searing, nothing beats my cast-iron skillet. I used to use it over two burners when sauteeing veggies for sauces etc., but my pressure cooker has become an all-in-one for that as well. I'd appreciate any ideas for how to repurpose this space-hog.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

I'm kind of bridging the gap between your reply and Brendan's. I purchased a large Mauviel roasting pan two years ago that I've used exactly one time..... but I got it at a closeout store and only paid $75 for it.

It came with a nice dish towel that I use all the time, however. My $75 white and red dish towel.

Nick_Valliquette_64114

My home ice machine .. I find it takes the same amount of time to simply make ice the old fashioned way

Manfred_18311

Only my specialized tools, like the sausage filler come to mind. I knew ahead I only would use it on a frequent basis but since quality is much a central aspect by investing into new tools, the $ 140,00 was well spend in the long run. Noodle machine isn’t in use that often lately, but certainly one tool of many I would miss if not at hand. And sure enough, if a special deal is around I can get my hands on I always find a way to make use of any tool or to build redundancy just in case.

michaelnatkin

I'll say Champion juicer. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but I just can't seem to bring myself to lug it out, buy a bunch of produce, make juice and clean up the mess. Maybe someday if I can figure out how it can live on the counter full time that would lower the barrier and I'd use it more.

ttpoker

My gas stove. I hardly ever use it now, it just sits there taking up space. Conversely the one tool I use the most is a Max Burton portable induction cooktop. Nearly everything is better with magnets, and the temperature control is far more accurate than flame can ever be. Especially when using a pressure cooker, its so easy to take down the temperature while maintaining pressure.

Eventually I plan on removing the gas stove, fitting a 240 Volt line and then installing an induction cooktop as a permanent feature, that would help me free up so much countertop space. Only thing holding us back from making this change is the headache that it would take to install 240 Volts... thats not an easy task!.

Samuel_68313

Probably my meat grinder, I was going to make burgers and sausages all the time and in the end it just never happened. Ultimately if I was making a lot of burgers it was more convenient to just ask the butcher and if I was making a small amount I just didn't find it worth it. That being said, I love it anyway, kitchen equipment can be a bit irrational like that I tend to find.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

The completely useless kitchen aid pasta extruder.

Jack_Mayer_85396

I agree Brendan, I'm in the same boat.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Check out the Thermador Masterpiece Freedom induction cooktops. They're spendy (~$5,000), but they coil magnets under the entire surface of the cooktop. So anywhere you place a pot becomes a 'burner'.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

That is really cool looking, too bad it is "only" 4 pans, I every now and then really do use 5 or 6.

Manfred_18311

I wouldn’t agree here, but probably personal preference and personal use is name of the game. I would always prefer gas, open flame, over electrical cooking. Temperatures can be adjusted with much more precision. I used to have a flask in oil bath on single plate induction cooker for distilling and switched to a gas burner as the effort with temperature +/- 1°-2° control appeared nearly impossible on the induction plate as heat source. Having high temperature in an instant, or switch it off is another feature I really prefer over electrical.

robert.c.brown15

Same here. I was and am very careful about all of my purchases and make sure nothing is there for the sake of being there and taking up space. I will say, the Kitchenaid Mixer for my fiancee may be the thing that gets used the least and is easily over $100. But I'm sure that will be changing soon with the holidays coming up.

tshewman

Now there's a great question....a few answers with qualifiers. :-)

24 Qt stock pot. Thought I would use it allot for stocks and I did..........until I bought a pressure cooker.

Roasting Pan.........thought I would use it for allot of roasting....discovered Sous vide and learned how to take things apart and now use it very little and usually not for roasting (like for the goose skin recently)

Thermomix......thought I would use it for a whole bunch of Rissoto etc.....which I get "good" (but not great use from it for rissoto.......I use it just not quite as much as I thought. I have recently found additional uses for it..........great for fluid gels (all in one), puree gels, paella (ok sort of a rissoto...;-)...). So I thought I would be using it "more" but at least getting decent use and that list is growing. Just thought I would be using it every day instead of 3-4 days a week.

ttpoker

Wow, this is a huge improvement over the last Thermador model, which was panned by critics for having a high failure rate.

This is pretty cool, but is it 5K cool? Some higher end competitive models have similar coil magnet flexibility features, but they all lack the auto-reprogram functionality which is fairly cutting edge.

Looks like we are seeing new innovation with induction, excited for the days when this new technology trickles down to the lower priced models. Within a matter of years I predict we will see a massive increase in induction adoption.

ttpoker

- "open flame, over electrical cooking. "

Are you confusing old-school electrical with induction? Induction is cooking with magnets, it is vastly different from electrical. - "Having high temperature in an instant, or switch it off is another feature I really prefer over electrical."

Induction cooking typically heats faster, and cools faster as well because there is no radiant heat; all of the heat come from the cooking vessel, not the cooktop. The induction cooktop I am looking at 3.6 kW/hour, this is equivalent to almost 26,000 BTU. A high end home gas range might have one burner that exceeds 12,000 BTU - which means Induction can get over 2x "hotter" theoretically (actually it can make the cooking vessel hotter, thats a better way of describing). Perhaps someone else can elaborate better than I can on the scientific basis on the difference between BTU and kW/hour as it pertains to induction cooking? For more details see these two excellent articles on the benefits of Induction. There is a very good reason why many of the worlds best restaurants have switched to induction, for most purposes the control is more precisely reproducible, especially in a kitchen that uses modernist techniques. Case in point, most of the videos here on ChefSteps use induction, as do all of the videos at ModernistCuisine.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/dining/07induction.html?pagewanted=all

http://theinductionsite.com/proandcon.shtml

Gas ranges certainly still have their place, but as time marches on and more people are educated on the benefits of induction cooking, we will slowly see the beloved love of gas wane. Plus its good for the environment, but thats another topic for a different forum; I just care about what works best ;-)

Tim_Sutherland_52834

I wish it was a true cook top with the controls not on the horizontal cooking surface but the front vertical face. It become very annoying when the control panel is covered and it starts talking to you. A boil over or a spill turning the unit off becomes old very fast too.

DiggingDogFarm_65362

I don't have anything in the kitchen that's worth more than $100. : )

Actually, the Kuhn-RIkon 12 quart pressure cooker sits idle more than anything...I bought it about a year ago and I've only used it once. I use the smaller pressure cookers most of the time.

michaelnatkin

Oh, yeah, that thing is really junky. The pasta roller is great, the extruder not so much.

tshewman

I would tend to agree here (but Manfred does make some good points) The Max Burton I have is excellent but I can get much more delicate changes in temperature on the gas stove. Keeping in mind it's a single Max Burton and does not have the finer adjustments of the larger cooktops. If I were to do it over again (bought the gas stove 6.5 years ago) , I would probably go with induction,

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I had an old school hand roller, saw this one and thought that's great. Not so much.

The thing is a killer to clean too....

Manfred_18311

Actually I was under the impression Induction runs by electrical power, I’m well aware of the concept. But thanks for the head up.

Time flies like an arrow, cooktops like the Thermator.

reck.harm

propably my excalibur dehydrator, but that's entirely my fault. I had all those ideas of what to do with it when i bought it, but i just don't get around to it

ttpoker

I think we should differentiate between control and reproducibility. For small amounts of control in a vacuum, gas wins; I would agree with that. But if you really need that fine level of control, perhaps there are better options such as sous vide or a combi oven (not in all situations of course). In my day to day scenarios where tiny levels of control between temperature changes are necessary for short periods of time do come up, but as I become more and more advanced as a cook these scenarios are becoming more and more infrequent. I have learned how to manipulate induction controls to mimic these scenarios, or I will use an alternative method more often than I choose to return to gas.

When we move on the the other topics such as stability and reproducibility then induction wins hands down, and its not even close. If you have a line full of cooks, would you rather tell them lower the flame to medium high, or tell them lower the cooktop to a power level # 3?

It is certainly counter intuitive, but as time marches on I really do believe we are seeing the tail end of the love for gas. If you're in a kitchen that has thousands invested in expensive copper pots then I would assume your going to stick with gas. But thats the nice thing about induction - the expensive investment in pots is not longer necessary to radiate heat evenly, the magnets do this job for us. The exception to this rule will always be when cooking in pots that require heat over a curved surface, such as a wok. For the time being the best option for wok frying remains gas.

PS: Todd, if it's not obvious yet, I think your posts are generally great. They make me think, and induce me into responding. Keep up the great work!

Karen_Taylor_Quinn_36329

Cuisinart ice cream maker. It just... doesn't really work that well. And it takes up a lot of space in my tiny kitchen. I always think I must be doing something wrong when I get crappy ice cream out of it. I still wonder if I am...

tshewman

Nicely composed! The lower levels (for me) are often during lower levels of either warming or reducing. For instance, reducing balsamic mixed with port. I find my max burton doesn't go low enough and tends to burn the vinegar unless I stand over it.......not sure how I would reduce that in a water bath efficiently. I could do without it I suppose, but there are definitely some things I would have to work around but by far, the minority and I would definitely agree, for the majority induction wins hands down (IMHO). I thought I saw an induction for woks recently, but don't recall where........

ttpoker

I've considered getting a Thermomix, but I cannot think of too many scenarios where it would be necessary over my current workflow. Sure it would be nice to have, but needed? I'm not so sure... can it blend better than my current immersion blender + Vitamix? Doubtful... and I get heat from the Vitamix through friction or the stove top through induction while using an immersion blender so I cannot seem to justify the expense. Now if it could mix while chilling, then I would snap-buy :-)

ttpoker

I have a love/hate relationship with my juicer. I'm with ya.

tshewman

Definitely not a "must" have but it does many things really well and can be very hands off. Doing the soups, rissotos are really nice as there's not much babysitting (or clean up) and for fluid gels, it will stir and heat (so again, not quite as much babysitting) as well as blends well. I have a vitamix and like it, but I find with the additional features of the Thermomix, I don't get it out as much (it also fits under my counter where the vitamix does not). I've still got BL pudding on the back of my mind as well which takes constant stirring for hours. Did an ice cream custard (I love the stir while heating possibility) and it worked well. So, it's a buncha things in one which does make things convenient, but not an absolute must. Oh, and I got mine on ebay from Spain so paid much less than 1/2 the price (yes I was nervous while waiting for it).

ttpoker

Everything is better in Espain!

Matthew_Snyder_68770

My wife won one of those 'warehouse dash' things with her sales team five or six years ago. We got a lot of cool stuff, including one of those ice cream makers. I've used it to make exactly two batches of ice cream (brown butter and blood orange) and they came out with the texture of granita. Which is fine, if you're making a granita.

michaelnatkin

What form of crappy is it? Icy? Buttery on the palate?

Karen_Taylor_Quinn_36329

Yes, exactly, Matthew. Grainy. Super icy and grainy. I think it just cannot freeze the base fast enough?

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Pretty sure that's the problem. Not really a big fan of crunchy ice cream.