Local Life - St Helens - May/Jun 2021

28
The best gadgets for
every kitchen
Now that many of us are cooking so much more at
home, there are lots of gadgets that promise to make our
kitchen time better. Some of them enable you to do much
more with much less washing up; others ensure brilliant
results for every meal; and still others enable you to cook
like the pros.
One of our favourite kitchen gadgets is the electric
pressure cooker. The most famous one is the Instant Pot,
but there are lots of rivals. It’s a one-pot machine that you
can use to make soup, stews, casseroles and even yogurt,
and unlike many multi-cook devices it’s good at all of
them. One of the best things about it is that it enables you
to slow cook quickly: pressure cooking means you get all
the flavour and tenderness of slow cooking in less than an
hour. And when you’re done, there’s only one dishwashersafe
pot to clean.
Another firm favourite in our kitchen is the air
fryer, which gives you deep fried taste
without the mess, smell
or unhealthiness. They’ve come a very long way in just a
few years and they’re brilliant for fantastic fried chicken,
amazing chips and quickly reheating takeaways: the only
thing they’re not great at is food with lots of runny batter,
which just falls off.
If you’re feeling really fancy, a Thermomix can do pretty
much everything: it can vacuum cook meat, fish and
vegetables for sous vide cooking; it can slow cook; it can
caramelise, brown, blend, boil, knead, emulsify and more.
It even has a display to show you video tutorials. It’s very
expensive but it’s an incredible device.
If you prefer to cook manually we’d thoroughly
recommend the Thermapen, an instant thermometer
that enables you to test the temperature of things like
large roasts. It takes the guesswork out of cooking times,
ensuring that every roast is perfectly done, and it’s also
really useful in barbecue season when you
don’t want to risk giving people
undercooked meat.
THERMOMIX TM6
The TM6 is incredibly expensive but it’s a truly
extraordinary intelligent cooking machine that’ll
replace many of your existing appliances.
£1,145, Vorwerk.co.uk
THERMAPEN
This instant-read digital
thermometer takes the
guesswork out of cooking
meat, fish and bread, and
while clones are cheaper
they’re not as accurate.
£51, Thermapen.co.uk
ANOVA PRECISION
COOKER NANO
Sous Vide – gently
cooking food for hours
in warm water – delivers
incredible tenderness
and flavour, and the
Anova enables you to do
it in any big pot. It’s appcontrolled,
easy to use
and produces amazing
results.
£129, Anovaculinary.com
PHILIPS AVANCE COLLECTION
AIR FRYER
Philips’ air fryers are easy to use,
easy to clean and deliver excellent
results. This is one of the larger
models, with a 1.2kg capacity that
makes it ideal for families.
£250, Amazon.co.uk
INSTANT POT DUO
EVO PLUS
This isn’t the cheapest Instant
Pot – the Duo is half the price
– but this is more flexible and
has a brilliant display that
makes it even easier to use.
£129.99, Amazon.co.uk