The Times2 Vinturi Review

THE TIMES Thursday December 3 2009
10 times2
6
timesonline.co.uk/foodanddrink
food
All I want for
Christmas is a
potato ricer . . .
And if you insist, a wine
aerator, a chestnut roaster
and a £1,000 Chef Cooker,
says Alex Renton, reviewing
ten new kitchen gift ideas
G
adgets, cynics say, are what make
men cook. As the owner of half a
dozen different types of patented
corkscrew, I am in a position to
comment. Certainly there are
inventions on the market that can
increase the fun and reduce the
labour of cooking. They are
acceptable as Christmas presents.
However, they should not intrude
on cooking’s real delights: the joy of ancient skills
exercised for the pleasure of friends and family. Fatuous
gizmos have no role in the chef’s sacred art.
But if anyone is wondering what to get me for
Christmas, I would not say no to a Deni 4100 musical
cake tray with LED slicing guide. Simply programme this
little beauty with the number of slices you want, and it
will turn on guidance lights to show you where to cut it. It
rotates. And it plays Happy Birthday (available from
amazon.com in the United States, $39.66).
British manufacturers have been shamefully slow at
catching on to the boys’ kitchen toys market. You have to
look to the States for cutting-edge (geddit?) gadgets.
I’m talking serious kit here, like a pair of digital
barbecue tongs with built-in heat sensors and three types
of alarm; or the talking remote oven thermometer that
clips to your belt and tells you how the roast is doing up
to 300ft away from the kitchen (both available in
America, via the website coolest-gadgets.com).
While there is no longer a notable maker of chefs’
cutlery in Britain — and a good working knife or two is
the perfect present for any boy who’s getting serious with
his cooking — our kitchen designers are good at the
elegantly practical. I’m particularly fond of Joseph
Joseph, two brothers who produce simple and cool
kitchen tools with a twist that makes them a little bit
cleverer. There’s a range of green and grey cooking
spoons and spatulas that are balanced so that when you
put them down, the business end stays off the kitchen
surface. Their canny potato masher is reviewed far right.
And Britain still does some interesting hi-tech stuff.
My shellfish-loving wife has asked for a CrustaStun, a
new device developed at Bristol University that
“painlessly” electrocutes crabs and lobsters, one at a
time. I have always painlessly used a pan of boiling water
for this job, and the CrustaStun costs over £2,000. But I
suppose you might rent it out on Boxing Day to people
who have been given unsuitable puppies.
Titan Multifunctional
Kitchen Magician
It’s just a peeler, but nothing in our
kitchen this year has induced such awe or
reverence as this gadget. Not even the
cotecchini sausages made from our own
pig, garnished with deep-fried slivers of
his ear. My wife goes all Jeremy Clarkson
on the subject: “Look how it will go round
this carrot. It corners like a dream!” A
guest tried to steal it. I don’t know why the
Titan works so well, but the two serrated
blades must be made from the same sort
of ultra-thin steel as those microplane
graters, which tend to blunt very quickly.
Yet this has not blunted at all in four
months of use — it works without effort
on cheese, vegetables, fruit rinds, potatoes
and of course the pig’s ear. Looking at the
packet, I realise you might use it to shred
cabbage, or grate chocolate and so on.
There’s a plastic attachment to help you
do that. If it had a temperature sensor and
remote control, the Titan would be a
contender for best kitchen gadget yet.
Give it to the Army to take to Afghanistan.
£10.99 from Lakeland (lakeland.co.uk)
Kenwood Chef Cooker
Almost 60 years ago a British designer
called Kenneth Wood launched the first
Kenwood Chef, introducing the British
housewife (because, boys, girls did most
of the cooking then — can you imagine?)
to the delights of motorised blending,
beating, liquidising and mincing. This
classic of the labour-saving age sold
ten million in its first five years: it was so
influential that American car
manufacturers took styling ideas from it.
Kenwood has now launched a 60th
anniversary tribute — the Cooking Chef,
the first food processor that cooks.
It is an aircraft carrier among kitchen
machines — it does most of their jobs and
weighs more than my five-year-old. The
counter groaned under the heft of all that
gorgeous stainless steel. It cooks by
induction heating of the mixing bowl: the
beauty of this is that you can set, and get,
an exact temperature (up to 140C) within
a few seconds. This allows you to make
choux pastry and meringue mix, steam
vegetables or cook risottos. Rather more
humbly, we did perfect scrambled eggs on
it, enjoying the efficient hum and clunk of
the machine that made it, according to
my son, sound like a nuclear reactor.
That’s only the beginning: if you utilise
all its accessories you will be making
pasta, stuffing sausages and milling grain
as well. It is, in short, the perfect gift for
the cook (male cook, says my wife) who
has everything, enabling him to get rid of
nearly everything else.
Is it worth nearly £1,000? Well, as
Kenwood points out, in terms of
proportion of average salary, it costs less
than did the first Chef, at 19 shillings in
1950. And it does things that your
grandmother would not have dreamt of.
It will be interesting to see if it takes off —
there’s probably an accessory for that, too.
£995 from John Lewis (johnlewis.com)
Poach Pods
These are clever little silicone rubber
pouches that take the swirl and sweat out
of poaching eggs. They sit in the boiling
water, and each one contains the egg
while it cooks. My wife, who loves her
eggs Benedict, bought them and uses
them. I’m not so sure: I rather miss the
mozzarella texture of an egg that’s had to
undergo emergency rescue from the
furious waters. But they are cute.
£4.88 for two, Lakeland (lakeland.co.uk)
The Good Grips brand makes specialised
kitchen tools with large, rubberised
handles. They’re chunky and
good-looking, but I’ve owned a couple
that lost their handles after a while. The
best kitchen gadgets — like the curved
chopping knife that I bought on
Portobello Road 20 years ago — last until
they’ve eroded enough to fit your hand
alone, and beyond. But Good Grips’
clamp-action potato ricer is a joy if you
are obsessed with the quest to make
perfect mashed potato. For me that is
lumpless and uniform, but not a glutinous
purée. What I like about this shiny gadget
is the speed at which it works and the
brilliantly smooth results. It’ll be great for
the bashed neeps come Burns Night, and
you can use it to mash fruit and other
vegetables for baby food.
£22, John Lewis, Lakeland
Joseph Joseph Smasher
Children love recipe books: they let them
take charge of the chemistry experiment
that is part of a good kitchen adventure. I
still treasure The Usborne First Cookbook,
whose stained and crusty pages tell the
story of my son’s early attempts at
pancakes, fudge and spaghetti bolognese.
Fiona Bird’s box set of 40 wipeable
illustrated recipe cards are jolly and
sensible: she chooses foods children
actually want to eat (fruit jellies,
home-made baked beans, chocolate
brownies) and provides some interesting
exotics that we will try: a dal (lentil stew)
flavoured with orange, ginger and
cinnamon; a simple vanilla ice cream that
doesn’t need an ice-cream machine.
No meat, so for my attempt to get the
children to make their own sausages
we’ll have to go back to Jane Grigson.
£15 (£9.20 on Amazon), published by
Barefoot Books
Potato mashing is a pain — it’s hard work
with a fork, and if you use an electric
wand or a blender you’re likely to
overmash the spuds, producing glue.
Hand mashers are OK, but they are
usually metal, which will ruin your
non-stick. This one, from the groovy
British kitchenware designers Joseph
Joseph, is plastic and clever: springloaded
so all you have to do is pump it.
In fact it is so much fun you can get
small children to mash your potatoes for
you. But to get a perfect, restaurant-grade
mash, there’s nothing to beat the Potato
Ricer (see opposite).
£12 from John Lewis, Lakeland and others
The Paul Smith for Evian
Limited Edition bottle
Antony Worrall
Thompson’s Breadmaker
Good Grips potato ricer
Kids’ Kitchen recipe cards
You may sneer — who needs a
breadmaker with Chef Wozza’s name
scrawled on it? But this one is a step up
from the Panasonics most commonly
seen in the kitchens of converts to these
wonderful and pleasurable devices.
This one, from the British company
Breville, has a longer timer facility — you
can set it 13 hours ahead of breakfast —
and programmes for making pizza dough,
cakes, and even jam, as well as the usual
range of loaves. It will stay warm, in case
you forget to take the bread out. And it
has a seed dispenser and a window, so you
can see what is going on inside.
I found the loaves to be lighter than the
bricks that usually emerge from my old
Panasonic. With a wattage/time meter I
tested the breadmaker machine against
my oven on a baking setting: I reckon the
breadmaker uses a fifth of the electricity.
The only letdown is an inadequate recipe
and instruction book.
£99.99 from Argos or amazon.co.uk
The Vinturi Essential
Wine Aerator
Gadgets that tell you they are “essential”
never are, but the Vinturi is a neat thing.
It’s an update of the curved wine funnel
through which people used to decant reds
— a practice you rarely see now. This is
foolish, because an airing will improve
most red wines. The American makers
claim that this funnel, by drawing air into
the stream of wine, will improve bouquet,
flavour and give a smoother finish as the
wine goes into the glass. No need for a
decanter. “It tastes like a richer, more
expensive wine.” We blind-tested it on a
couple of bottles of good-quality shiraz,
both fairly recent vintages, and the wines
certainly tasted different from the same
wines poured straight from bottle to glass.
I liked the Vinturi enough to get one for
my dad this Christmas.
Around £30 from Amazon and other
websites
This is the silliest thing in food and drink
I’ve come across this year. It boasts that
the Paul Smith stripes are printed with
organic ink, but the bottle isn’t even
reusable. The fast-track-me-to-Pseuds’
Corner press release says it all: “The style
of a design icon and the youthful spirit of
Evian have merged this season to create a
vivacious bottle for the festive holidays.
Known for his sense of fun and optimistic
attitude, Paul Smith has partnered with
Evian to launch a new Limited Edition
bottle that signifies energetic youth and
style — a welcome alternative to the dark
tone of winter.” Just as silly, you suppose,
as anyone who still insists on importing
their drinking water.
£3.99 from “leading luxury lifestyle
retailers” (eg, Selfridges)
River Cottage
chestnut roaster
Nothing innovative about this at all. In
fact, I’ve never seen one for sale except in
an antique shop. But a crucial tool, if you
want to roast chestnuts over an open fire
this winter. Cast iron, with a handle long
enough to avoid getting scorched, or
sprayed by chestnut
shrapnel.Woodfire-roasted chestnuts are
a world better than pre-cooked or even
oven-baked ones — but if you want to
speed up the process you can boil them
for five minutes first. (For more chestnut
ideas, see Shortcuts on p13.)
£21 from the River Cottage online shop,
rivercottage.net