Ooh, I do love gadgets! A lot enter my kitchen, get used once or twice and then sulk for years at the back of a cupboard because they're too complicated to assemble or simply don't work. But there are some which have stood the test of time and this is my list of the best....in no particular order.
Zyliss garlic press. We eat a LOT of garlic in my family (could this be why we have no friends?) and this super little press cunningly crushes unpeeled cloves leaving the peel behind in the press whilst you scrape the goodness into the pan.
Silicone bristled oil and pastry brushes - I got mine from Lakeland (www.lakelandlimited.com) but other places have them too. They work, they don't shed, and you can put them in the dishwasher.
Moulinex Ovatio food processor. Lots of accessories (most of which store inside the bowl), cheap, and works as well as the Magimix I used to have which cost 4 times as much and broke.
Moulinex mill and liquidiser. The liquidiser does all that I want a liquidiser to do (chiefly Yorkshire pudding batter and gazpacho), and I use the mill for grinding whole spices - freshly ground spice tastes so much better and I love to make my own blends. Try grinding nutmeg, black pepper and rosemary together to sprinkle over parboiled potatoes before roasting. I buy spices in bulk from www.spiceworld.co.uk.
A Kenwood Chef mixer. The Chef is a British copy of the original Kitchenmaid mixer and like that other great copy (Land Rover / Jeep) it improves on the original - mostly by having far fewer cunning crevices for food debris to fester in. It comes with a "K" beater for cakes and pastry, a whisk for cream and meringues, and a dough hook for bread. Modern ones include a perspex lid to keep the flour contained - my kitchen needs a lot less dusting than my mother's did. You can get lots of attachments but the only one I use is the icecream maker as I prefer to have dedicated machines.
Moulinex mincer. I like to know what's in my mince - so I'll buy a lump of toproast or silverside and have a mincing session before freezing down packages of approximately 1lb each. This way I can also mince on a coarse setting rather than the fine one preferred by the supermarkets. On mincing days (it's VERY NOISY) I also do hamburgers - sirloin steak with the fat trimmed off and minced together with pre-fried onion, then formed by hand into burgers and grilled. Delicious.
Dualit coffee grinder. The best performing and least messy of the various ones we've tried. Freshly ground coffee is just so very much nicer. We buy Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from www.hasbean.co.uk, and brew it in a....
Krups Aromacontrol filter coffee maker. Which was chosen chiefly because the jug pours without too much spillage - unlike practically all others. It makes good coffee too. We threw away the permanent filter and use Melitta filter papers which do a good job, I think because they are microperforated and seem less prone to block than other brands.
Moulinex Multitrio mini processor (I ought to have shares in Moulinex). This little processor is great for making salad dressings. It's powerful enough to smash the whole black peppercorns I start with, then blends in the other dry ingredients (English mustard powder, sugar and salt), then pulverises the garlic, and finally blends in the olive oil and wine vinegar. Incidentally, I use only extra virgin olive oil for all cooking - it's so much healthier because it doesn't degrade at high temperatures unlike other vegetable oils.
Tefal electric fondue pot. We love fondue bourguignonne, where you cook the lumps of meat in hot oil. Traditionally the meat is fillet steak, but I usually serve a mixture of beef, lamb and king prawns. The cooked food is then dunked in very garlicky homemade mayonnaise before eating. Messy but ambrosial. Most fondue sets with methylated spirit burners run out of fuel before we run out of appetite, but the electric pot goes on as long as we do. As mentioned above, I only use extra virgin olive oil.
Baking parchment. This silicone coated paper is completely non stick and hence invaluable for lining baking trays. Meringues are a particular joy as they can be destroyed by grease.
Tefal Imagination saute pan. A superb lidded pan (from Lakeland as above) which is used almost every day. It's coated in several layers of non-stick so I can stir-fry with minimal oil, makes superb sauté potatoes (my son described them as the best he'd ever eaten - pre-cooked unpeeled new potatoes, cut into smallish pieces when cool and then sautéed in about an inch of very hot olive oil until golden brown), browns mince and cooks chillis, curries and half the other dishes in my repetoire.
Anyone got any other happy gadget stories?
