Kitchen/household items that seem useless

[Arseulaundress]

The very fine bit on a grater, ostensibly for zesting citrus fruit.

Utterly pointless. It all gets gunked up and I have to spend 10 minutes ungunking it with a pointy knife. Just use a hand-held zester.

I also fail to understand the point of oiling and lining a cake tin with parchment. Won't the parchment just do the job anyway?

What irks you?

We have a garlic grater its absolutely ridiculous 🙄 😃

I grate parmesan in the fine section, it's perfect. Agree that zesting citrus fruit with it is a bit messy.

Pizza cutters, never seem sharp enough so I just use a knife.

My dd uses a veg peeler to zest fruit. I don't bake or need any zest for anything

This is the bit I meant.

I’ve never used that bit of the grater. I do Parmesan in the small cheese grater section.

Keep a toothbrush, unused of course, in the kitchen draw to brush the zest out

That seems like a faff.

Totally agree - that bit of grater is useless

I only ever use that spiky but of a grater for nutmeg, never zesting.

I would undoubtedly end up with grated toothbrush bristles in my orange Madeira cake.

(Or what do people put zest in? As you can tell I last baked in 1985).

Yes, nutmeg too.

I also use it for nutmeg. I do sometimes use it for lemon zest if it needs to be v fine for baking, and I use a fork to scrape most of it off the outside, then bung in the dishwasher and it comes out sparkling. I do have 3 graters though, so that I'm never without...

A mandolin and spiraliser. Both take longer to set up and clean than simply using a decent knife. Ditto garlic crusher.

Try kitchen scissors, so much better and quick!

OMG the garlic crusher, most useless item, I would be more forgiving of it if certain people did not put it in the dishwasher without cleaning t he gunk out. It cannot be put in the dishwasher!!!!! Just use a bloody knife!!!!

Oiling the tin means the parchment stays in place when you put the batter in.

Potato ricer, spiraliser, juicer. Too much faff to clean. Gathering dust in a cupboard.

Re lemon zesters - the flavour is in the oil that comes away with the zest so you are better using a hand held microplane shaped one and holding it over the rest of the ingredients so that any oil drips in.

Ha! DH and I were discussing this earlier this evening need a hobby he asked what the fine spikey bits were for...he is 73..

Potato ricer. Took far too long for the amount of mash I usually make.

That bit of the grater is for reducing solid fruit and veg to a pulp. It's effective at that job, but I agree that it's pretty useless because why would you want to do that? And it's a nightmare to clean.

I also have a garlic grater that looks like a tiny regular grater. Absolutely useless for grating garlic (again, why would you want to?) but perfect for zesting citrus.

My useless kitchen item is the cleaver that came with our knife set. Terrifying beast of a thing. You have to swing it with purpose, but I generally miss or just knick the edge of the thing I'm trying to chop, which then goes flying across the room like an unguided missile. I don't think it's been taken out of the knife block in years.

And while I'm on the subject of fancy kitchen knives, why are they so difficult to sharpen and not dishwasher safe? The beautiful, expensive set (with cleaver) that we received as a house-warming gift is hardly used, whereas our first, 'entry-level', serrated stainless steel set has been in constant use for 30y.

The zester bit on the grater... leave it to soak, then scrub with a nail brush. I used to spend ages poking through each hole with a knife too.

This kind actually works, and is easily cleaned.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joseph-Rocker-Garlic-Crusher-Silver/dp/B007P5UVWA/ref=ascdff_B007P5UVWA/

lol I use it for spices. It’s perfect

Not just for baking. Lemon juice, lemon zest and black pepper on plain spaghetti is a surprisingly tasty dish.