Kitchen accessories

[Green777]

I’m revamping my kitchen with a view to spending more time cooking.

What items save you time and work brilliantly to chop/process and prepare meat, vegetables?

I’ve been looking at the magimix and wondering if it would be worth investing in so if anyone recommends or has an alternative that does it all please share

I’ll be cooking a lot with sauces, curries and dishes requiring a lot of chopping and making pastes etc

Get the best food processor you can afford. It will transform your cooking experience. I became a good cook once I stopped struggling with rubbish tools!

The Sage food processor (forget what it's called) is fantastic. I also have a stick blender which I use for things like curry pastes, blending soups and things like that. Stick blenders tend to be either very expensive, or cheap and a bit rubbish. I have one made by Bosch which was about £30, if I recall correctly, and is really good.

Also, good knives and the means to keep them sharp. Knives are a very personal thing. I use global knives, which DH really doesn't use at all. I also have a small serrated knife. It's used for absolutely everything.

I've got a wet/n/dry grinder - perfect for pastes.

I gave away my large FP as it took up a lot of space, & could not go in the DW.
Recently bought this (link not working) & am happy with it.

Kenwood, MultiPro Go FDP22.130GY, Food Processor, for Chopping, Slicing, Grating, Pureeing and Kneading Dough, with Express Serve, 1.3L Bowl, Knife blade, 4mm Slicing/Grating Disk, 650 Watts, Grey

I have a kenwood chef, which probably has similar functionality to a magimix. I use the food processor attachment for chopping onions, carrots, celery etc., the glass blender attachment for wetter curry pastes, and the small spice grinder thingy for breadcrumbs and chopping garlic and ginger instead of faffing about trying to grate them. I also do use the mixer bowl for baking quite a lot. I have a grater attachment which I use instead of the food processor if I'm making very large quantities. I think it's brilliant and I use it multiple times a week.

Really good knives (go and hold them if you can) and as a big a chopping board as you can practically manage plus a small one.

Thank you all so much 🙏 it’s so helpful to know what works well and takes a lot of the work out of guessing what to get.

I’m taking the plunge with buying new equipment today for my cooking ventures and will get to searching these items.

do any of you use mandolins for slicing and would you say they’re worth it instead of just finely slicing vegetables??

I love my Thermomix! Even peels potatoes reliably. It's a heated food-processor which can cook, stir, and steam all at once.

This. ^

And the most powerful motor. I have a Bosch and it whips cream in seconds. I used to have a mandolin, now the food processor does the job.

Don't just think of it as being something to help cook a meal, I often grate a whole block of cheese and store it in the fridge grated.

Appliances are great and think hard to choose wisely but small manual bits are useful, too.

My mandolin lives in a drawer at my hip so I just pull it out, slice, rinse off and into the drainer. Same with graters and my mortar and pestle. Better for meals for my small family.

Bigger dinners get the appliance treatment.

All these are great tools, but for me, for every day, my knives snd my stick blender are most important.

As @StillSmallVoice says, are intensely personal. I may have the same Bosch stick blender as she does. Mine is at least 10 yo and going strong. The blade pops off after use and into the DW.

I have a mandolin but am afraid of it. DH uses it. We recently acquired some large, beautiful wooden chopping boards that hook over the worktop. We keep one mounted permanently for bread, fruit and veg (and maintain it well). This gives a surprising feeling of ease to the kitchen.

It isn't an accessory as such but, when you are having your worktops fitted, get them to cut you a big cutting board size offcut and finish up the edges. Endlessly useful for protecting your worktop when you're doing big/messy cooking jobs. My piece just slips in to the side of my washing machine in the utility.

I used to cook for seven people every day and used my food processor every day. Once it was only four people, I used it less - too much washing up for smaller quantities. Now I cook for three and only use it at weekends. I have three knives (four including bread knife) and taught myself to sharpen them using a whetstone. I use them every time I cook. For a couple of onions and peppers, I'd use a knife. For three or four of each, I'd use a mandolin. Also use it to make potato crisps, dauphinois etc but if it's for for than just three or more of us, I'd use the agimix.

Weekends, I use Magimix to grate a couple of blocks of cheddar - what I don't use at weekend gets put in fridge. I usually have a bag in the freezer for emergencies too. I also make more bread than I need, so I can make batches of breadcrumbs in Magimix. I don't cook meat, but when I did, sharp knives were more useful than a food processor. I use my stand mixer more than my Magimix, and I'm not sure I'd replace the latter. I might just buy the slicing/grating attachment for the mixer.

I love my mandolin. It makes short work of slicing vegetables finely and consistently when there’s not enough to make it worth getting the food processor out for.

Get some cut resistant gloves for your mandolin.

If you are making curries get some small dip pots and put dried spice measures in each one and write on the lid with a sharpie eg marinade spices for butter chicken. I find when making curries the tediousness of one teaspoon of this, half a teaspoon of that etc etc takes up a lot of time. Having a few in reserve makes the process quicker and thread cardomom pods so you're not fishing them out individually at the end of cooking.