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The short list

The topic today is gifts, so here it is, my pick of the most useful little things in the kitchen

Kirsten Lawson
Kirsten Lawson

A stick blender. Make sure as many components as possible are metal, and make sure it has loads of grunt, or it will overheat up before the eggs are whipped to the requisite thickness for meringue or semifreddo.

A mini-blender (got this idea from Girl Who Cooks at mycanberratable.blogspot.com). We use these for pesto, nuts, spice mixes, loads of stuff where the food processor is too big.

A microplane grater is magic for zesting (see facing page). A super-small cast-iron frypan is more useful than you’d think. Amazing how often you find yourself having to brown a few pinenuts, cook garlic or chillies or spices, fry an egg – perfect.

A bottle stopper, the simple, $5 ones with a small lever are better than all the fancy ones.

A walnut opener (magic).

A copper frypan. Don’t have one of these but it’s the height of luxury for me, the kind of thing you covet. De Buyer French copper cookware is sold through Essential Ingredient. And Mauveil, also French, is sold through Cooking Co-ordinates, according to its website.

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Kirsten LawsonKirsten Lawson is news director at The Canberra Times

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