The turning vegetable slicer can be described as a “rotating mandoline.” It is a tool that looks like a lathe. On the fixed end is a short holding shaft and one fixed knife blade and one toothed blade. On the moveable end, which rides on a track, is a crank that turns another short holding shaft. Aligning a veggie between the holding shafts and turning the crank results in a spiral cut of the veggie—curly strands of cucumber, potato, sweet potato, daikon, radish, carrot, jícama, cabbage, onion and the like—as the veggie is cranked and pushed through the blades. The result is a double cut veggie, sliced and shredded.
The Japanese came up with this machine to produce spaghetti-like strands of veggies for use as decorative garnish, delicate steamed veggies and fine textured raw vegetable side dishes. Here at home, the machine is used for all of the above, for carrots to add to coleslaw, and to make “potato mats.”
Here’s how to make potato mats:
· Peel a potato and hold in cold water to prevent discoloration
· Dry off the potato and crank it through the slicer using the medium tooth blade
· Place the potato strands on paper toweling and dry again
· Shape and press the strands into a mat and sauté in butter or EVOO until nicely brown
· Place the sauté pan in the oven and bake the potato mat until done
Serve the mats as a nicely textured breakfast side of potatoes or put eggs on top. For lunch, if made small and thin, the mats can be “stacked” with layers of seasoned and dressed roasted or grilled veggies. Like—mat/roasted red peppers/mat/grilled mushrooms/mat/zucchini/mat/egg plant—you get the idea. Of course, the whole stack collapses when attacked with a fork. Great fun for lunch or as an appetizer if made smaller.
There are two vegetable slicer machines available. The “green machine” (shown above) imported from Japan by Benriner Co Ltd, and the “Le Rouet” from Bron-Couke. The Benriner (photo above) and the Le Rouet are available in some specialty kitchenware shops. The Benriner sells for $60 to $100, depending on where you find it. The Le Rouet goes for an astronomical $190. I bought the Benriner while at cooking school and use it now and then on potatoes when we make breakfast for overnight guests. I have also made the “vegetable stack,” a school recipe, as a special lunch dish.
Frankly, this is a specialist’s tool. Nice to have when you want to show off or are in the mood to “go fancy.”
When I saw an advertisement for a cream whipper, by iSi, that had an insulated bottle for hot savory products, I had to have it. The idea here is that this thing not only makes light and fluffy whipped cream in seconds but hot mousses as well, and keeps a mixture cold in the bottle for eight hours or hot for three hours. It’s called an iSi Thermo Whip and is available at Williams Sonoma (who, by the way, are finally offering a discount to culinary professionals).
It has four stainless steel parts: the pan where proprietary “wood chips” (in the white plastic container) are placed by the tablespoon; a drip tray that rests over the wood chips; a rack that holds the product to be smoked; and a cover that slides tightly over the pan to seal in the smoke. The smoker comes with a sampling of wood chips and the company, Camerons, makes nine varieties—from Alder (for salmon) to Oak (for sausage). Very little smoke escapes the pan when fired on top of the stove due to the special cut of the wood chips, which are so fine that they should be called wood dust.
The Cuisipro people have come out with a roasting rack that does tricks. It is hinged with a removable pin. Empty, it is high in the center so, when loaded with a bird or large roast, the arms close in to hold it. But if, for example, you wish to wrap the outside of a turkey with cheese cloth and then brush on melted butter, the arms can be held open so you can work around the bird. It has handles to facilitate lifting. Once lifted out of the roasting pan and placed on a serving plate, the hinge pin can be removed and the arms will fall away. Neato! But wait, there’s more: When finished with the rack, the arms can be folded together and the hinge pin reinstalled to store the rack in half of the space it takes when the arms are open and opposed. It fits a 16″X13″ roasting pan. The Little Woman placed a 22 pound turkey in the rack and it looked like it could hold a 24-26 pound bird. It is not surprising that the rack was the winner of a 2006 Houseware’s Design Award. About $20 at most kitchen shops.
Now there is a better peppermill out there or, at least, a new peppermill of choice. Cooks Illustrated did a review of kitchen peppermills awhile back and found the Unicorn’s Magnum Plus was the clear winner with a superior range of grinds, large capacity and “blinding speed.”
Over the years, an annoying design problem with the housing has surfaced. Namely, the door collar that opens and closes the peppercorn refill and storage tank, opens clockwise. So, while turning the top clockwise to grind pepper, the door collar beneath it works itself open with the annoying result that pepper corns spill out into your sauce, stew or the floor. Why the Unicorn people can’t redesign the collar to open counterclockwise remains a mystery. There is a plastic détente that adds friction to the collar, but it wears smooth over a short period of use.
Is the mandoline worth $150, plus $25 for a glove? Maybe yes, if you like les crudités -raw vegetables, if you prepare a variety of potato dishes, if you have always wanted to deep fry your own pommes de terre soufflees – puffed potato chips and French fries, if you make county-class apple pies and tarts, and if slicing all that product with your chef’s knife has become a chore.
It seems that every time we’re on the road, I have need of a cooking knife. Friend’s kitchens all have them, our favorite summer place in Duck, NC has one in each mini-kitchen, even hotel room wet bars often have a knife. All have one thing in common: they’re dull. Still, I always fail to pack a knife from my kitchen. I’d have to wrap it up, put it in a suitcase, check it as baggage and hope that the TSA won’t pull the bag off the belt when it sees a nine inch knife in it.