Six great gadgets to buy chefs this Christmas
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Zipeela, £24.99, from Lakeland, www.lakeland.co.uk
Whoever created this nifty device deserves a toast at the Christmas table this year. This fruit and veg peeler is a marvellous time saver. Stick your produce on the prong at the base of the gadget, adjust the clamp so the spike is firmly in place, and ensure the peeler sits at the top of your fruit/veg. Switch it on and, as your food rotates, the blade will remove the skin. It can be powered by either batteries or mains and the instructions detail which power source is most suitable for the job - for example, sweet potatoes are better powered by battery, apples by mains. Will be a great help when you don’t want to spend hours peeling spuds and parsnips.
VonShef Double Hot Plate, £26.99, from Domu, www.domu.co.uk
You’ve got potatoes, carrot, swede and the Christmas pudding on the go, but there’s still the sprouts and cabbage to boil. If only you had another couple of hob plates, you could whittle through dinner in no time. Luckily, with this cheap counter-top accessory you can! A simple device, it comes with two plates that will help you get through your Christmas dinner cooking when you need as much help as possible. There are four temperature options and if the oven is filled with turkey, stuffing and Yorkshires, you can use the VonShef gadget as a plate warmer too.
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Hide AdTower 180W Electric Knife, £24.99, from Tower Housewares, www.towerhousewares.co.uk
Hate carving the turkey or gammon? This knife will make light work of it! Easy to grip, the knife may come with 180W of power, but it will sit comfortably in your hand without vibrating. While you may prefer to slice it out of the view of your dinner party, it’s a low-noise gizmo, so it won’t be overbearing if you choose to ‘carve’ at the table. What’s more, if you’re making turkey sandwiches the next day, the knife is equally adept at slicing bread!
Drop D600A Connected Kitchen Scale, £79.99, Currys, www.currys.co.uk
One for Apple (the tech giant, not fruit) lovers, this set of scales will aid you in your recipe making. The small scale is wireless but connects to your iPad via the accompanying Drop Kitchen app. Then simply find the recipe on the app that you want to follow and, as the instructions pop up, drop ingredients into the bowl before mixing and cooking. The benefit of these scales is that it amends recipes when required. For example, if you’re keen to make a cake for 12 but the recipe feeds 24, it will pick up on the fact that you’ve only put in half the weight of the first ingredient and ask you if you want to resize the recipe, click yes and it will then change the rest of the ingredients accordingly. Can also be used as a ‘normal’ set of scales, once again, using the app.
Total Control Hand Blender Pro set, £69.99, from Morphy Richards, www.morphyrichards.co.ukWhether you want your bread sauce to be lump-free or you’re starting with a soup, blenders can be a great kitchen accessory come Christmas. This one in particular comes with really useful attachments and technology to avoid making a mess when you’re busy. So, first things first, the tech. Do you ever find that when you’re blending food, you have that annoying moment where it powers on far too quickly, sending ingredients toppling out of the bowl or jug? If so, help is at hand. This comes with ‘Smart Response Technology’, which will build up speed slowly, so that even if a blade comes into contact with a particularly large lump, it won’t splatter all over your Christmas jumper. Onto the attachments, there’s a potato masher, whisk and a chopping vessel and with eight speed settings as well as pulse and turbo functions, you might find that this one device is all you need when it comes to kitchen tools this Christmas.
Sage by Heston Blumenthal BPR700BSS The Fast Slow Pro Slow Cooker, £199.95, from John Lewis, www.johnlewis.com
We all (well, most of us) love a figgy pudding but, if you’re making your own, it can involve the pud spending hours in a pressure cooker using up valuable hob space. However, as you may have guessed by the name of this Heston Blumenthal kitchen gadget, you can instead plonk it in here and cook it far faster while freeing up the hob for other dishes. This isn’t just a high-tech pressure cooker though, it’s also a slow cooker and you can use it to steam and saute too. The gadget is easy to use, turn the dial and pick the function you want, choose the dish you are cooking (or alternatively choose ‘custom’) and off you go. The cooker comes with safety features so you won’t be hurt by steam escaping when you open it.