Like a lot of cooks, I didn't trust silicone kitchen goods when they first started appearing on the market. Molecular gastronomist Hervé This once lamented that the microwave was the only new kitchen tool in the last 500 years, but I tend to think that's a good thing: It means that the established ways of cooking, especially home cooking, work. Oh, I don't think we should stop working on food and recipe innovation. But if a greased metal cake pan continues to do a damn fine job of cooking a cake, why mess with that frosted, cakey success?
Similarly, I think that all too frequently, new-fangled kitchen gear is produced not for people who like to cook, but for clueless people with friends who like to cook. Nobody really needs a panini press cluttering the cupboard over the fridge. Giving an avid cook a quesedilla maker is akin to giving a truck driver a book of inspirational truck-driving quotes.
Recently, however, silicone has started to win me over. It was a spatula that did it. My boyfriend's mother gave it to me as a gift not long after I accidentally melted a pan-edge mark into my cheap plastic spatula. The new silicone spatula was a thing of beauty: I could leave it in whatever hot mess I darn well pleased without it melting or becoming too hot to touch. And I'm not the only one who's become convinced of silicone's magic: The fine folks at Bon Appetit have recommended numerous silicone items over the past couple of years, from good ol' Silpat baking sheet liners to silicone pot holders and colanders.
Sure, not every silicone product is a winner. Putting wet batter into a bendable pan and then getting it into a hot oven without spills can be an ordeal that requires black magic to get through. But there are also plenty of silicone kitchen helpers that are inexpensive, interesting, and legitimately better than their existing non-silicone counterparts. We tested out five of them, and each one would make a lovely and actually useful holiday gift, especially paired with a jar of sauce or a cookbook.
Brush On Item: Le Crueset Basting Brush One time, someone gave me a regular old food brush. I quickly proceeded to melt the end of the bristles, then permanently bend them by running it brush-side down in my dishwasher's silverware rack. If a normal kitchen brush looked like Dr. Frankenstein, this once looked like his monster. But oh, such a simple thing of silicone can be a beauty: The bristles of this basting brush won't melt, even if you stick them in the piping-hot fat of a roasting chicken, and the silicone head removes easily so that you can just pop it in the dishwasher. |
Pretty Poacher Item: Silicone Poach-and-Serves With these poachers, no special egg poaching techniques or pans are needed. The silicone Poach-and-Serves float in boiling water, making perfect poached eggs in just a few minutes. Shaped like flowers and available in combinations of red and yellow or blue and green, they do it with style, too. The nonstick, food-grade silicone from manufacturer SiliconeZone USA is dishwasher safe, but it needs a good scrubbing after each use, otherwise tiny bits of egg do what they do best — adhere to the poacher in the most unappetizing way. |
Think of the Children Item: Head Chef Cooking Tool Action Figures My mother recently revealed to me that it was kind of annoying when I wanted to help her cook as a child. I was surprised to hear her say this — I always remembered her having utmost patience as I slowly (very slowly) measured out the ingredients for bread or cookies, and I credit this patience for fostering my current love of cooking. As I grow older, though, I can understand her sentiment — letting a kid muddle through half the steps in a recipe can be annoying. Now you can simultaneously let kids help you cook and distract them from cooking all together with these bendable, suction-cup-footed kitchen tools. Available in whisk, measuring cup, spoon, spatula, and brush, the Head Chefs make it equally possible that your kids will help you cook and that they'll start a kitchen-based superhero team. |
Lid It Item: Easy Lid There is no shame in never growing out of having mis-matched kitchen ware. It's frugal, functional, and allows you to feel less guilty taking in orphaned mixing bowls when friends move. But, at the same time, it also often means that you can be missing some key items, like lids. Enter the Easy Lid. Available in different sizes (we tried the 10 1/2"), the lid makes an air-tight seal on most pans, pots, or bowls, eliminating the need to waste plastic wrap every time you want to cover up leftover pasta salad. Plus, since the lid is good ol' silicone, it can also be used as a trivet and a splatter guard in hot situations. |
Alien Steaming Item: Sleekstor VeggieSteam When I was little, I thought that my parents' metal vegetable steamer looked like a UFO, and when they removed it from the pot, it would unfold evenly to reveal little vegetable aliens. Because of that fond memory, I have a hard time bad-mouthing the metal steamer. But the maker of the Sleekstor, Chef'n, brings up a good point: There's no chance that a silicone steamer will scratch up the sides of your new-fangled non-stick pots. I'd say that's not enough of a reason for you to throw out your old metal UFO, but consider giving this steamer to somone who's moving into his first apartment. The one downside of the Sleekstor is that, depending on the size of the pot you steam in, it might be difficult to get the steamer's handles away from the hot sides. If you're really concered, Trudeau makes a similar silicone steamer that costs a bit more, but you can grab from the top. |
Meg Favreau is a writer and comedian living in Philadelphia. She blogs at ihearyoulikestories.com.
Photographs by Mike Bucher, "Gadget” photograph from istockphoto.com, "Pantry" photograph by Áslaug Snorradóttir.
