Gifts that nourish and satisfy palates
Butter up the cook in your life with these fabulous additions to the kitchen
Sure it’s better to give to than to receive. It’s also true that splurging on a gift for your favourite home cook could be an investment in good eating. Here are a few items that might serve the amateur chef and gift-giver equally well.
Blenders don’t always get the respect they deserve as small-footprint appliances that do everything from blend soups to make mayonnaise to chop nuts and herbs.
Chefs who are also connoisseurs of mid-century or small-space design might like one from Smeg, the Italian manufacturer of compact, curved countertop appliances in a rainbow of colours.
ASmeg blender, in a cheery seasonal red, is available at Lowe’s and lowes.ca for $349.
Brand new this year is Panasonic’s Countertop Induction Oven, which uses induction and infrared heating to create what has been described as a toaster oven on steroids. There’s almost no preheat time; in minutes, it’s up to 450 F.
That’s hot enough to grill whole fish quickly with a crisp skin and flaky, moist interior. A one-pan chicken and veg meal can be done in about 20 minutes.
The non-stick pan that must be used with it is dishwasher safe, and each unit comes with a cookbook of recipes developed by the Culinary Institute of America. Available at major retailers and on Panasonic’s eStore, shopping.panasonic.ca. The suggested price is $700.
Home chefs who already love Le Creuset’s line of enameled cast-iron wear might covet the dutch oven in a zippy tartan pattern exclusive to Williams Sonoma, williams-sonoma.com, for $550. Purists who insist on solids will be better pleased with exclusive grey, white or dark blue options.
Fresh herbs take any dish from average to outstanding. They are much easier to incorporate if the kitchen includes a unit from AeroGarden, which makes economically-sized indoor garden kits with fullspectrum grow lights and hydroponic, soil-free containers. Recent sale prices on aerogarden.com started at about $100.
The slow cooker has long been loved by home cooks. It’s perfect for anything that benefits from lengthy cooking at low temperature, such as stews, stocks and cheaper cuts of meat. It also does soups, yogurt, pud- ding, grain dishes, and jams.
There are lots of versions of this versatile cookware, but the granddaddy of them all, Crockpot, has a clever new design twist. The Multi Crockpot comes with a 2.5- split, a four- and a six- quart crock. When not in use, they nest for compact storage. About $100 at Bed Bath & Beyond, bedbathandbeyond.ca.
A vacuum packer is a very efficient way to preserve food. So a chef can buy larger amounts of perishable foods, such as cheese, when it’s on sale and/or available, and use it reliably for a couple of months to come. It also seals make-ahead meals for road or camping trips, and busy weeknights.
Hamilton Beach has come out with NutriFresh, a vacuum sealer with settings for moist, dry and delicate foods, which are sealed in bags made of refillable, BPA-free plastic rolls. About $130 at multiple retailers and at hamiltonbeach.ca.
Adventurous chefs will want to try the sealer to cook sous-vide, in which vacuum-sealed food cooks under gently circulating water at very low, very precise temperatures for a very long time — 24 hours or more.
The advantages are virtually no volume loss, and excellent texture; the long, slow cooking apparently also makes magic out of tougher cuts of meat.
To do it, the cook will also need something like the Nomiku immersion circulator. About the size of a hand blender, it clips on to any pot, and handles the temp and circulation. It sells for $549 from Nella, nellaonline.com. Look for other, less expensive brands at Amazon.ca.
Good knives are the foundation of a functioning kitchen. Knife nerds would be delighted to receive the Gude Chef’s Knife from Lee Valley Tools.
A large, deeply curved blade is supposed to give the chef exceptional control, enhancing those much-coveted “knife skills.” This 121⁄ 4- inch knife weighs 450 grams ( just less than a pound of butter) has a fulltang handle made of African Blackwood and sells for $429 at Lee Valley, leevalley.com.