Pasta servers, gnocchi board, taglia puntarelle
Do we really need lots of specialized equipment and gadgets to be good cooks? I find the more time I spend in the kitchen, the less of my clever gewgaws I actually use. I sometimes open the utensil drawer in the kitchen and wonder what I was thinking. What compelled me to buy these things? I have not one, but two of those weird claw-like spoon/fork things for serving pasta. Bones likes them but I don’t, and I’m the pasta cook around here. I either use tongs or a big spoon for serving pasta. Then there’s the garlic press, now deceased. I chop garlic with a knife or crush it to a paste with a mortar and pestle.
Why do I have a taglia puntarelle? For the non-Italophiles among you, a taglia puntarelle is a tool for slicing puntarelle into neat little strips. I do not, however, live in Rome and we don’t get puntarelle, a quintessential Roman vegetable, in the Caribbean. At least I can justify that purchase as being a holiday souvenir. It might come in handy to make zucchini matchsticks, should I ever find myself without a knife. And I’m keeping my gnocchi board, even if I can use a fork to obtain those lovely ridges that hold sauce so well. It’s a beautiful handmade tool, carved from olive wood by an artisan in Orvieto. The gnocchi board stays.
Then there’s the melon baller. Every time I’ve ever tried to use this implement for its intended purpose, I end up with a few pretty melon balls and a lot of useless, pitted melon flesh. Maybe there’s some trick to melon balls that I don’t know but I’ll stick to cutting melons into cubes.
Stuffed zucchini
I have, however, been able to put the melon baller to good use. It’s just the perfect size and shape for scooping the flesh out of vegetables I’m going to stuff. Potatoes, eggplant, christophene and zucchini have all undergone the melon baller treatment. I used it last night on the zucchini that I stuffed with my leftover Jamaican Pot Roast. There’s no recipe here, just a useful and tasty way to use up last night’s roast.
Cut the zucchini in half lengthways and scoop out the inner flesh from, so you’re left with little zucchini boats about a quarter of an inch thick. Chop the zucchini flesh and fry it gently it in a little olive oil, then add the finely chopped leftover pot roast, moistened with just a touch of the leftover sauce, and cook it down for about 5 minutes. Stir in a handful of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, some chopped mint and parsley, and salt and pepper to taste, and stuff the zucchini halves with the meat mixture. Put a little of the leftover sauce from the pot roast in a shallow baking dish, place the stuffed zucchini on top and drizzle with a little more sauce (or some olive oil if you’re low on sauce). Sprinkle a touch of Parmigiano Reggiano on top and bake at 400° for about 20 minutes.
And that’s all there was to it, which left me plenty of time for wondering why there at least 30 wooden spoons in that next drawer down.
We use these gadgets quite often
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Thank goodness someone – an authoritative voice – has echoed my perplexity at the accumulation of, in retrospect, not such well-designed gadgets that accumulate in kitchen drawers. Not only does these items never get used, but as you point out, they’re usually supplanted by a more prosaic tool that does a better job, such as a good knife, of in the case of gnocchi a spoon, or in the case of pasta a large spoon. Plus these weird gadgets are usually the culprits when the drawer won’t open because something is jammed. One source of these exasperating gadgets is the well-meaning friend who knows you like to cook and assumes any cook would welcome a more obscure and narrower-in-task item. We have a love two dachshunds, and it is simply breathtaking to behold the assortment of dachshund paraphernalia and memorabilia with which friends have showered us – including dachshund salt and pepper shakers.
Ah yes, the gifts. That’s why we have a cake server that plays Happy Birthday AND Jingle Bells. But my daughter loves it so it’s staying.
Oooh–I love the sound of that cake server, Abigail! I have a few gadgets I really love (and I envy you all those wooden spoons). As for the rest, I agree we don’t need them all.
You could sing along Tinky!
I really like the pasta thingy. Maria doesn’t and she makes the pasta. What’s with that? I think it’s a well thought out and effective device. Maybe Bones and I are more logical than you and Maria. However, as long as she makes it I shall be happy with any way she serves it.
By the way, she’s a wizzard with the melon baller.
I certainly have more gadgets than I need, somehow. Having lived and traveled in lots of places with interesting food — Africa, the Middle East, Indonesia, I’ve watched people cook lovely food with more or less nothing but a knife, a pot and a spoon.
Makes you wonder why American kitchens are full of stuff, while often the owners just pop in a microwavable meal and call it food.