I have been curious about Japanese knives for a long time. The opinions are generally fairly polarized – people either love them or they’re not a fan.  After years of wondering if they were worth the investment, I decided it was time to take the plunge and see for myself:

This is a HOCHO knife.  It’s a form of Santoko and is an all-purpose kitchen knife.

Most Japanese knives have a very different edge than others.  I am used to a symmetrical edge – if you looked at most of my blades, you’d see that the edge is like a peak of a mountain and but sides of the knife curl towards the blade to create the edge.  These knives are different – one side is flat while the other curves into it.  To explain as a ration, most knives have an edge that comes from 50% of the left side of the knife and 50% of the right while most Japanese Knives change that balance and go as far as 0% on one side with 100% of the curve coming from the other. I suppose this is why the first question that Eugene (from Knife, Toronto) asked me if I was left-handed or right.

The Zanmai Pro is close (but not perfectly) to being a 50-50 ratio but does have a slight bias.  Using an automated sharpener on this knife (or a person who doesn’t know that) will likely destroy it’s intent in a single sharpening.  I’ll be heading back to Knife for one of their workshops where they teach you to use a stone to properly sharpen your own blade (they will also sharpen it for you).  I am told that this blade will get even better after a few sharpening sessions.

Japanese Knives are also known for cutting as you pull the blade through an item as opposed to pushing them through.  This is very useful, especially for more delicate items like fish as it will cut the item without crushing it.  Remembering to cut like that is taking some adjusting but it’s fun to experiment.

It’s a little too early to pass any kind of real verdict on this tool other than to share that I’ve been using it for a few weeks and have been loving it. It’s well-balanced, efficient and feels like a tool (in the best of ways).  I’ve used it for vegetables as well as a variety of proteins and it has been awesome!

What’s your favorite kitchen knife?

Yes.

I was really tempted to end the post there (it would have set a new record for our shortest post ever which still stands at 5 words).  Alas, this evening was not destined for such greatness.

The long answer isn’t a lot longer: it really is worth the investment (and storage space) to buy a pasta roller and cutter.  Here’s why:

• Pasta rolled by hand is difficult to precisely control for thickness.  An even thickness is critical for even cooking time.
• Cutting pasta into noodles is also inconsistently wide (see problem 1) and cutting by hand can easily double or triple the amount of time it takes to make pasta by hand.
• The units are affordable – ours was about $25.
• There’s a remarkable amount available in thrift stores or by asking friends and family – not a lot of people are willing to spend the few times it takes to learn to make it.
• You can dry the pasta for later use.
• It takes me 20-25 minutes of active prep (and about an hour total) to transform eggs and flour into cooked noodles.  Although the hands-on time is longer the much shorter cooking time means the total time is almost identical.

We have very limited storage space but I can’t believe how much we’ve ended up using our hand-me-down hand-crank pasta roller and cutter.

If you make your own pasta, how do you cut/ roll it?

edit: April11, 2012.  This article was originally published as a page instead of a post and was updated as a post today.

Optional preamble that has nothing to do with the actual post:  This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. If you’re reading this post on the day it was published, know that its random appearance may not be related to recent content but is related to an exceptionally busy day.  The challenge of daily writing is not without its challenges – we store a few emergency posts like this one to publish on days that just won’t allow us to write.  The content is still valid – the timing just may appear a little random.  We return you to regularly scheduled programming…

We have very limited storage space (even after transforming our horrible cupboard from this to this).  We don’t have a lot of room for gadgets, gizmos or grenadine for that matter.  Most spaces are filled with items that are used on a weekly basis (with the exception of our salad spinner which hibernates for most of the winter months).  If we’re going to store it, we had better use it.

Although knives don’t take a lot of room, we keep the ones we store to a minimum.  It’s taken some practice not to fill the drawer with every possibly home-show kitchen gadget (or, more likely with us, classic corkscrews, bottle openers and other used kitchen classics that would easily fill drawers we don’t have).  The trappings of acquiring kitchen ‘stuff’ can be difficult for me at times.

But I do love me a soft cheese knife:

It’s not without irony that the knife that’s used to cut the wimpiest (structurally) of cheese actually looks the most menacing.  Most cheese knives look like some sort of weaponry that Blade Runner would attach to the end of a low-tech laser cannon.  Just holding one of these dairy-killers is enough to put a bit of a swagger in your step.

But a soft cheese knife looks like this for a reason.  It contains as little surface area as possible so that the cheese doesn’t get stuck to the blade.  This avoids a possible awkward moment at a social event where one must use a combination of fingers to pry the piece of fermented milk off the back of a knife and onto a cracker (and the other awkward moments when one misses said cracker and launches the parcel of dairy into orbit before it re-enters the atmosphere and lands in parts unknown of your hosts humble abode).

The lack of surface area allows the cheese to be easily dislodged from the cutting surface before being pierced and picked up by the ‘scary’ sharp end of the knife.

A good soft cheese knife will run between $5-$15 and I’ve found them to be fairly equal in performance.

What kitchen luxuries do you make room for in your house?

NOTE: After publishing the following article, a few awesome users found a link to a recall on this pot.  Read this article and others before deciding to use this or not (the reccomendations of others are not to).  There is an alternate model described in the article that we are now on the hunt for.

The title is a pretty bold proclamation.  I think our coffee maker is the best for many reasons including:

• It makes great coffee
• It will last for generations
• It doesn’t have any waste (i.e. a coffee filter)
• It’s practically bulletproof
• It takes limited storage space (compared to a machine)
• It’s pretty
• It reminds me of my childhood
• It makes delightful sounds as it turns water and grounds into coffee
• We bought it for $15

Making percolated coffee is easy:

1. Fill the hopper (that’s what I call it) with some coffee.  You don’t need to actually “FILL” it – I use about a tablespoon of coffee for every 1.5-2 cups.
2. Pour the amount of water you want into the pot (ours has measurements inside).
3. Put the hopper cover (not pictured above – it’s a small filter with holes you can see below) on the hopper.
4. Place the hopper in the pot.
5. Place the lid (it has a glass dome) on the top and bring to a boil over high heat.  Once the water is boiling you can reduce the heat but want to see the water continue to percolate (‘erupt’ in the glass dome that’s part of the cover).

Percolation is simple – the water boils, is forced up the ‘straw’ in the middle of the hopper, hits the glass lid and falls over coffee grounds to infuse the water with coffee.

Do you have a coffee ‘machine’ you prefer?

We’ve all had the same experience – some form of liquid (like a just-cooked stock) into a strainer and the first bit works like a charm before getting bogged down by ‘little bits’ of stuff which clog the strainer.  It’s frustrating.

My solution?  I use 3 strainers in succession:

1. My first ‘straining’ uses a spaghetti Colander.  It’s big enough to hold a lot of ‘stuff’ and sturdy enough that you can press down on that stuff to release all the goodness locked inside.  Most of the liquid pours right through.
2. The next level of straining is a medium-fine sieve.  It captures larger items but generally doesn’t clog as easily as something fine – and, when it does, it’s easy to do a quick sweep of a spoon to re-open the mesh and let the finer sediment strain through.  Mine is slightly larger than a rice strainer.
3. The final stage is a fine sieve (almost like you’d use for tea or straining yogurt but not quite as tight).  Although it can clog up, the removal of larger sediment in stage 2 really helps avoid clogging.

I’ve learned that if stage 3 continues to clog, you can repeat stage 2 and remove items multiple times with minimal clogging.

I always pour stage 3 from a spoon after reading a tip by Chef Thomas Keller.  Dumping it from the bowl can cause such force that the sentiment is pushed through the sieve (or clogs it) compared to spooning a ladle at a time into the sieve.

What are your tricks for straining?

Thanks to Joel S for inspiring this post through twitter.

A word of warning: it’s Friday and a long weekend so I was a little giddy when I wrote this.  It is a serious review of a great product but I was a little punchy in spots…and it shows.

We have no paid endorsements (yet – although we had to turn down MJ as he wanted to set us up with matching Air Jordans and change our tag line to ‘we SLAM your preserves’).  But when it comes to OXO products (other than the ‘cube’), I tend to gush a little.  I’m told Micahel’s still dealing with the rejection but we’re holding out for the new Reebok Pump (up the jams) hightops.

I clearly need a new hobby. 

At any rate, we’ve had the same pitters for years. I say ‘pitters’ (as opposed to the singular ‘pitter’) because they’ve been multiple versions of the same unit.  All of them were worth $3-4 and they were perfectly fine.  Light plastic, exposed spring and metal poker to remove said seed.  You had to tie your hair back in case it got caught up in the spring but such was the life of the renegade pitter.  They would work great until they would break.

Breaking was so reliable that I would buy them in pairs.  When one broke I’d replace it with the next with no harm done (except that my recycling bucket would accumulate the carcasses of old pitters.

We recently bought 7 liters (quarts) of cherries.  I knew we didn’t have a pitter at home and knew there were all sorts of MacGuyver solutions friends used – paperclips, pairing knives and bobby pins (Julia makes it sound so easy).  I was certain that all of these things would work – and certain that I would go nearly mad in the process.  So we did what made the most sense – went to the hardware store to buy two $3 pitters.

Hardware stores open later than farmers markets.  Especially on Sundays.

So I drove to a big league kitchen store (one of the pleasures of living in a city).  I dropped Dana at the front and she headed in looking for two $6 cherry pitters (figuring they would be identical to the $3 ones EXCEPT they’d be twice as much).  Dana came out of the store (I circled it to avoid a $20 parking fee) with 3 things:

• A wry smile
• A big giant bag of goodies (so much for the $3 purchase)
• A $20 cherry pitter

The $6 ripoff was starting to feel like a deal.

I chuckled when she explained it had a ‘splash guard.’  I’ve found that a bowl normally does a pretty good job of that.  But it was a pitter and there was pitting to be done.

I took a closer look when I got home.  It was an OXO unit with the ‘safe grip’ handle (also funny for a pitter – not exactly a life endangering act).  I was more impressed when I noticed a feature normally reserved for tongs – a little tab that you can pull or push to lock the handles closed and store in less space.  Storage is a premium in our house and that was a nice touch.

I picked up a cherry, pulled the stem and placed it in the holder.

CHUNK.  SPIT.  CLICK.

It was so satisfying.  This wasn’t A pitter.  It was THE pitter.  It was like using coloring pencils after years of crayons.  Glue after years of glue sticks.  A motorcycle after a tricycle.  Craft beer after ANYTHING light.  You get the idea – this was a tool and I was now a man.

OK, so it wasn’t really ALL that good.  But it did feel like equipment.  And it won’t add to the landfill anytime soon.  And I don’t need two of it.  And it really did chunk, spit and click.

If you’re looking for a pitter, consider the investment in this unit – it’s a lovely little thing.

We drink a considerable amount of carbonated water at home.  I cringe a little at the price – and just as much at the amount of bottles that leave the house in the recycling bin (1-2 bottles per week).

A recent string of posts and messages from friends online (Julia, Kaela and Shae; I hope I didn`t forget anybody) encouraged me to check out the SodaSteram units.  I`d been curious for about a year when Kaela had let me know about them and called this her `best Christmas gift ever.`  I had to check it out.

There are different models which range from $100-$250.  The additional money includes additional bottles, cartridges and the like.  The biggest difference between units is aesthetic (they all perform equally) although the most expensive unit (which tales more storage room) comes with glass bottles.

The process is fairly simple – attach one of their bottles (they are extra-thick) to the machine and pull a handle a few times – instant carbonation.

The refillable cartridges will carbonate about 60 liters of water.  The cost per bottle is estimated at about 50 cents.  Since bubbly water costs around $1.50-$2.50 per liter, the cheapest unit would pay for itself in 50-100 uses and the larger units between 125-250 uses.

We love the results!

There’s usually a fair bit brewing over here….but for the past couple of days I’ve been doing some extra percolating. We have hardly any counter space and conveniently work above a great coffee shop, so we decided to give up our big coffee maker. But some mornings  I don’t want to interact with the outside world just yet, and miss my morning brew. I always enjoy the percolator coffee at the hunt camp….so when i found this while visiting my parents in Lindsay I had to scoop it up for $15 (the vintage corningware blue cornflower makes these a little pricier in Toronto). Makes a great cup of coffee, just be sure you don’t let it percolate too long or the coffee will make you anxious. (good advice for life too I think). Good Morning!

Few things in life are better than advertised. This is:

I have no idea why we didn`t add a cast iron frying pan to our cooking collection long ago.  I`ve bought them for people and cook on cast iron at our cabin (although it`s a 5 foot by 3 foot griddle).  It wasn`t until Dana`s parents bought us one for Christmas that we`ve had one.  It`s been part of almost every meal in our house since.

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We reviewed the l’il boy of mandolines yesterday; today is the chance to review its big brother (or sister): the Easy Grip Mandoline by OXO.

We aren’t brand loyal (and not sponsored) but I have owned several mandolines in my past that lasted less than a full season in our kitchen.  I was hesitant to drop the big dollars on this unit (just over $100 Canadian) – both worried it would break like the others or be a horrible expense with little joy in return.

There are a few advantages over the smaller unit, namely:

• This one`s bigger.  It will also cut bigger things.
• It`s more flexible – you can turn a dial to get precisely the width you are looking for.
• There are more blades and cutting options – fries, ruffle cuts and frites are all possible.

I really, really like it.  The problem is that I want to LOVE it.  I don`t regret buying it and when I use it it`s indespensible.  The problem I have is that the far less expensive unit gets far more use and the cost per use of this unit seems absurd.  If you`re cooking a lot of potatoes or need flexibility for your slices, this is an amazing option.  TO me it`s more of a nice-to-have while the cost and usability of the smaller unit makes it closer to a must-have (I would actually buy it before buying an expensive chefs knife for preserving).

I would buy this unit second – fall in love with the smaller unit and decide if you need some more flexibility.  If you`re looking for options, the options of the larger unit can`t be touched by the smaller unit.