Viet World Kitchen

8 Mighty Mini Kitchen Tools

The mini tongs that I wrote about last week got me thinking about other small kitchen tools that I use on a regular basis. Looking around my kitchen, I assembled a collection of well-worn things to share. They are far from fancy. In fact, some of them look like toys but all of them function like work horses.

If I were a parent or had kids to gift something to, I’d put together some of these items to get them started on their culinary journey. Oh heck, I’d give them to adults too. A couple of these tools were gifted to me.

I rarely use this butter warmer for warming butter. My friend Maki, a fabulous pastry chef in Santa Barbara, got me one years ago for Christmas. It’s perfect for sizzling a little bit of chile oil and making a small quantity of sauce or glaze. My husband uses it daily for warming milk for his coffee. 

New Rice Paper Gadget: Mr. Spring Roll

When I serve a “roll your own” rice paper meal, one of the biggest pains in the butt is the water bowl used for softening the papers. This type of semi-DIY meal involves a lot of stuff on the table -- platters of  lettuce, fresh herb sprigs, bun rice noodles, grilled meats, seafood, or tofu. Little bowls of dipping sauce too. The requisite large vessels of warm or hot water used for softening the banh trang rice paper take up a lot of prime real estate. They have to be wide enough to make dipping easy. Plus, if the water cools too much, you have to replenish it in the middle of the meal.

Enter Mr. Spring Roll, a new gadget from Vietnam. I have Tuyet Nguyen to thank for the tip. She wrote me about it, asking if I’d seen or used it. No I had not but I wasn’t looking for Mr. Spring Roll either. Then I spied it at one of my favorite Viet markets in San Jose, Thien Thanh. It sold for about $7 and the cashier said that it was a new and popular item.

I was skeptical at first because it seemed flimsy. The packaging and plastic didn’t instill confidence. The fact that the Vietnamese “To Nhung Banh Trang” (bowl for dipping rice paper) looms largest means that it’s geared for the solid Vietnamese market, not for outsiders.  The distributor’s name is Evershing Trading Incorporated (maybe that’s suppose to be Everything Trading Inc.?) However, Mr. Spring Roll does have a website  and Facebook page – he’s marketing savvy.

Why Muslin is the Better Cheesecloth

I stopped using cheesecloth for cooking purposes about 2 years ago. It was expensive to purchase at markets and cookware shops. It got caught in my scissors at the most inconvenient times. It had to be discarded after each use. I got fed up and instead, turned to unbleached muslin. I have never looked back. Here are 5 reasons for using muslin in the kitchen:

1. Affordable – You can buy it by the yard at a fabric store for as little as $4 per yard.

2. Easy – Just tear it along the grain into the size you need. (I aim for 24 by 24-inch pieces but also have smaller odd-size pieces.) Snip an inch then pull the fabric apart with your hands. It should tear along its natural weave. No tricky sewing skills needed to neaten things up. The torn edges fray in the wash to develop a handsome appearance. Check out my stack above.

Gifts in the Mail: Handmade Knife from Vietnam

It is one thing to open up an Amazon package of something I ordered for myself, but it’s another to get surprise mail like the envelope above. Historian and novelist Dana Sachs sent it to me, prefacing on Facebook that she had a gift to add to my kitchen. I had no clue what to expect. Then the  manila envelope arrived.

It looked plain and unassuming. Being flat, it couldn’t contain artisanal palm sugar or homegrown chiles, a couple of past food gifts that I’ve received in the mail.

But it must have had something to do with Vietnam because that is Dana’s area of specialty. (Her new book, The Lives We Were Given, details the fall of Saigon through the journey of thousands of babies airlifted from Vietnam in April 1975.) On the back of the envelope, Dana cautiously warned me to open it carefully, lest I cut myself. Did she send me one of the 'killer' dao bao shredder/peeler knives?

Turns out that she sent me a handmade knife from Hanoi. She carefully wrapped the blade in paper and affixed this post-it note:

These are my favorite knives in the world. Don’t put it in the dishwasher. Also, they rust, so just wash it off. But they never get dull.

I slipped off the newspaper sleeve and found a hand-forged blade. My gawd. I’d never seen such a rustic knife. But I could not use it – yet.