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?

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

Mushrooms fried with garlic and butter

Risotto

Lemon chicken

Candied lemon zest is also lovely.

Good on potatoes roasted with rosemary

Lemon and pepper breadcrumbs for schnitzels or similar.

It's delicious grated over fried fish

North African food too, like a lamb tagine or similar.

Oh thank you @SpringIsTooFarAway 😊

I need to up my zesting game

Excellent tips here, as well as justifiable mini rages.

I love zest in things. Lemon drizzle cake gets the zest as well as the juice, and I am very keen on Nigel Slater's lime tart (made for NY's day meal just last weekend).

Garlic crushers are the devil's work. When we was ours it fills with water that is hidden until one goes to put it back in the drawer.

Me too never zested anything in my life 😃

I sometimes use scissors for cutting pizza..works well haha

So do I

Have a pampered chef hand zester which seems to work

Hard spices - Cinnamon, Nutmeg
Things that need to be soft, rather than fibrous - fresh Ginger, Turmeric - or fluffy like Daikon
Pecorino, Parmesan, Gran Padano - especially the rinds to get maximum flavour from something that would be wasted otherwise

It just goes into the dishwasher and comes out fine.

A draw is pretty useless in the kitchen. What is it anyway? A drawing of a utensil?

If you mean drawer, the thing that you keep loads of stuff in in the kitchen, that's fine, but don't call it a bloody draw! (Off to pedant's corner with me, but come on!)

Scissors for pizza, revolutionary!

Colander that doesn’t drain when full of cooked veg. I’d rather use the sieve but it’s a swine to de-gunk.

tut-tut, this is the internet. Don't ever move to Canada, where we have lots of immigrants for whom English is a second language. On Kijiji, I've seen "chess of draws" and "chester draws".

As you say, off to pedants' corner with you.

I use the fine cheese grater bit for zest. I don't think I have ever used that side.

I have a useless garlic crusher. It doesn't crush it, wastes loads in the easy clean out bit and I end up having to crush it with a knife anyway. I need to get a OXO good grips one.

Silicon tongs, crap of the highest order. Won't pick or turn a darn thing.

Agree about the zester on the grater, total nightmare to clean. Never all comes off in my dishwasher. I just use the mini planer thing from Ikea. Great for nutmeg too if you give it some welly. Not that I grate nutmeg often.

Food processor - so much setting up required and all that washing afterwards.

Furthermore, processing carrots in it dye the plastic parts bright orange.

Processing onion or garlic results in an odour that's impossible to remove.

@LulooLemon you need this in your life! I use it for everything, I even chop cheese in it for ds's endless macaroni cheese. Piece of cake, it's tiny and only one blade to wash. Would never be without it now. www.diy.com/departments/KitchenAid-Mini-Food-Processor-Almond-Cream/5413184123369_BQ.prd?ds_rl=1272379&ds_rl=1272409&ds_rl=1272379&gclid=Cj0KCQiA5NSdBhDfARIsALzs2EBkycS2J7ohESbLCVC08iA79y-YRjWAGarLCyNE0z8wvEDPqaR4zsIaAiqBEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

@spuddel

😃

Don't get me started on potato ricers.

Bought one during lockdown on the advice of my cousin, who is a chef, to make gnocchi.

Now I just buy gnocchi from a shop, like normal people.

To use the spiky bit to roll over sloes before making sloe gin

Any type of garlic grater, peeler or press. Pointless. Just buy a jar of Very Lazy Garlic FFS.

Again pampered chef but my garlic crushed is fine

We see chess of drawers/ chest of draws here all the time too- not just in Canada, and it's mostly nothing to do with EAL, it's English- centric MNers who speak with an accent that doesn't distinguish between draw/ drawers. Those of us with a rhotic 'r' find it very frustrating and there's usually no excuse for it, particularly with a poster, like above, who writes in otherwise perfect English.

I'm off to pedants' corner- with the plural apostrophe- my predictive text let me down badly earlier.

I love my potato ricer!
Yes to cutting pizza with scissors.

Scissors for pizza, revolutionary!

My partner does this, and I initially pooh-poohed it (as I arrogantly do most things), but now I am a convert. The only truly quick and effective method. That said, I still persevere using a big kitchen knife, while squinting at her enviously as she scissors up her pizza.

As for the grater issue: It just goes into the dishwasher and comes out fine.
Yes, but my point is that half the zest it still stubbornly secreted in its tiny nooks and crannies. Terribly wasteful.

Isn't it pickled? Tastes weird imo. I just crush under the blade of a big knife, then chop messily.