More holiday gifts for the home cook

As promised, here is the remainder of my holiday gift ideas for the home cook, just in time for those procrastinators out there. Like I previously mentioned, most all of these items are available on Amazon, so you can select that crucial next-day or second-day delivery option. For my fellow blind readers, Amazon has an accessible app; I just used it at 3 AM to order some stuff. (Yes, I tend to shop or read about food online when I have insomnia--don't judge.)

Some sous vide stuff

If you’ve been keeping up with my blog lately, you’d know that our household has become a sous vide factory. From steaks to short ribs to turkey, we’ve been cooking up a storm in that water bath. When we got our PolyScience immersion circulator (we have the mid-line Creative series), the hubs said the only thing he regretted was not having gotten it sooner. Amen to that.If the PolyScience price tag is beyond your comfort level, check out the Anova immersion circulator—originally discovered on Kickstarter, it has since hit the consumer markets and is available on Amazon. In fact, we sous vide so much in our house that the hubs picked up an Anova, too. (One cannot have too many water baths cooking in the house.)Sous vide means “under vacuum” in French. Obviously this means you will need a good vacuum sealer, too, to package all that flavor goodness tightly together. We started out with a FoodSaver (also available at Costco), but have picked up two additional vacuum sealers since, one being the chamber vacuum sealer we used on Four Senses season 2 which I took home with me after season's wrap, both from PolyScience. The beauty of the chamber vac is its ability to seal things even better with a hands-off approach: no more accidental spillage, etc. We’ve begun infusing liquors using the chamber vac, and this weekend, I plan to pickle some mustard greens with it.Before we got a blowtorch from Home Depot, we were searing our proteins post-sous vide on an iron skillet on the stove. Then the hubs got a Searzall from Kickstarter (yes, again), which helps with more even searing and minimizes the sometimes funky blowtorch taste.You can cook sous vide the neolithic way with a big ol’ pot on a burner and Ziplog bags, but if you’re ready for a life-changer, look into immersion circulators. I promise you, it will be the best chicken breast you’ve ever sunken your teeth into.

These miscellaneous food and cooking toys

At the beginning of my previous post, I mentioned how a chef’s knife is my most prized tool in the kitchen; therefore, I’m diligent with their care and storage. In college, I kept my knives all jumbled in a pile inside a drawer. I know now this is a big no-no, but my knives at the time were not so great, so that’s the excuse I tell myself. When I had the Henckels, I stored them in the wooden knife block that came with the set. However, I later learned mold can eventually build up inside if a damp knife ever went in a slot. I also discovered, as I lost my vision, that trying to get a blade into a very thin slot took more time than I was willing to spend on it. The best storage mechanism whether you’re sighted or not, I’ve found, is the magnetic knife bar. I personally got mine at Ikea, and back in June when I did the pop-up supper club series in Stockholm, I made sure Ikea affixed some magnetic strips somewhere in the custom-built kitchen. I love how my knives are literally at an arm’s reach and how the open design lets the blades breathe and fully dry. When my mama-in-law first visited our then new home and saw my knives hanging on the backsplash, she was concerned: what if a robber breaks in and easily grabs a knife? Such a mama-in-law thing to say. I laughed and said chances are I’m better than the robber with the knives. Besides, along with my trusty iron skillet, I’ll be primed for the zombie apocalypse.Chefs are taught the importance of miss en place, or “putting in place” in French, the act of prepping all your ingredients before firing. Cooking is much neater, smoother, and less stressful if you have all the food items needed for your dish laid out on the counter at the start of cooking; that way, you’re not scrambling to chop some shallots while your pork is sizzling towards its death on the stove. I currently have glass bowls in two different sizes that serve as my miss en place getup, but on >Four Senses, we used these nifty rubber pinch bowls. When my glass bowls eventually all break, I’ll purchase a set of these rubber bowls. I like that they’re colorful (making it easier to spot on the counter as opposed to the clear glass ones which are challenging for my bad eyes to spot). Their flexibility also makes for easier handling.Another tool I love and use every time I prep is the bench scraper, also called the dough scraper or dough cutter. As its name indicates, it can be used to cut balls of dough or scrape off dough stuck on the work surface, but I mostly use it to gather my chopped ingredients from the cutting board in to a bowl. This is an especially useful tool for the Blind Cook because it’s obviously hard to locate where all the minced garlic ran off to. The bench scraper helps pull all the chopped foods together into a neat, collective pile which can be quickly scooped on to the flat side of the blade and dumped into a bowl. I used to use the blade of my chef’s knife to do this until I’d sliced my thumb once when in a hurry. Never making that mistake again.Some other kitchen tools I use frequently if not daily: shears, a microplane, a chinois, squeeze bottles, and a salt pig. I use my Shun kitchen shears to trim green beans, cut scallion, even break down a chicken. I discovered the usefulness of a microplane while on MasterChef; it’s great for zesting citrus rinds, ginger, garlic, and anything that requires a very fine texture as to prevent overwhelming the tongue. A chinois is a fine mesh sieve used for straining sauces, stocks, ice cream bases, and more. You can probably make do with a fine mesh sieve, but the special conical shape of the chinois aids with flavor extraction when you use a pestle to push down on the solid remnants. Squeeze bottles are for sauces, condiments, and cooking oils; they can help make your plating pretty, or they’re quick and efficient at getting oil on to the hot pan. A salt pig is a little vessel that sits on your countertop holding salt, from which you can easily grab a pinch or two with your fingers to season your food as you cook. I read online that the salt pig got its name from the old Scottish term "pig" which referred to earthenware. I have a salt pig that's pink and actually in the shape of a pig, but nowadays, I rely more on my bamboo salt canister with swivel lid--it looks zen on my countertop, and the swivel lid keeps the salt clean and dry while offering easy access.Flour, sugar, legumes, and grains are conveniently stored in OXO storage containers in our pantry. Their square and rectangular shapes allow for maximum storage efficiency, and the pop-top lids seal ingredients airtight while being easy to open and close with a single hand. It’s much simpler and cleaner to measure dried goods from these containers than in the crumpled, half-torn paper bags flour and sugar come in.More smart storage solutions can be found in the Corningware French casserole dishes and Pyrex Snapware. Many of my Thanksgiving sides went straight from the oven to the table to the fridge all in the Corningware dishes. They’re designed for oven use, look attractive enough to set right on the dining table, and come with both airtight plastic and oven-safe glass lids for preserving and/or reheating foods. My mama-in-law gifted us the Pyrex Snapware last Christmas, and I don’t have to worry about toxic plastics leaking into my foods anymore when I reheat them in the microwave. I’ve also said goodbye to ugly tomato sauce stains. Certain lines are also oven-safe; just check the box to be sure.Last but not least, every home kitchen could use a fire extinguisher. Even the best chefs set a little food on fire sometimes. Don’t forget fire extinguishers do come with expiration dates, so if every year you find yourself coming up short when it comes to gastronomical gift ideas, you can always turn to the trustworthy and necessary fire extinguisher by default. The self-proclaimed chef in your life may proclaim he’s tired of the same ol’ gift, to which you can reply, “Hey, it can save your life one day.”Happy holidays, everyone!