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It’s always rewarding to get your family or friends gifts that they truly enjoy, but accomplishing that task isn’t always simple. You might spend a few hours aimlessly wandering through the mall trying to come up with an idea to no avail. If you know that your family member or friend loves making food, though, you’re in luck. We’ve assembled a helpful list of what to give someone who likes to cook that’ll put a smile on their face.
Ladle of Contents
Pasta Machine
Attempting to make pasta by hand is a delicate and sometimes intimidating process. A pasta machine helps create homemade pasta by evenly flattening the dough. It has rollers through which pasta dough is pressed, creating a sheet primed for forming beautiful noodles and other shapes. The user can also adjust how thinly or thickly they want the machine to press the dough, opening many possibilities.
Kitchen Blowtorch
Blowtorches don’t have to remain the sole right of industrial metalworkers and the fancy chefs on TV. You can get a kitchen blowtorch for that culinary nerd you know, too. On top of making them look cool as they control a jet of flames, a blowtorch will allow them to produce effects that are difficult to create otherwise. The torch will sear the outermost surface of whatever food it encounters while keeping the insides relatively untouched. This is how you get a sheet of caramelized sugar on crème brûlées or expertly seared edges on fish and meat.
Sous Vide Machine
Tough, overdone, and unevenly cooked meat—it’s a dilemma that’s plagued chefs for ages. With sous vide, this is no longer the case. By circulating warm water at a temperature beneath boiling and letting meat enclosed in vacuum-sealed bags sit in this water for many hours, a cooking enthusiast can acquire perfect tenderness without constant attention. The only step that remains after the meat is taken out of the bags is to sear it on the outside (if you want). A savvy sous vide user can also cook a bunch of food at once and then have delicious, near-instant meals ready for the rest of the week. The machine itself is an inconspicuous cylinder that you can stick into any large, water-filled vessel, such as a metal pot or plastic container, to start the sous vide process.
Japanese Knife
No cooking aficionado’s setup is complete without a high-quality knife suitable for a range of purposes. Allow your friend or family member to put their common kitchen knife to rest by giving them a handmade Japanese santoku knife. A pure embodiment of elegant simplicity, a santoku knife can be used to cut vegetables, meat, and fish. What sets it apart from your run-of-the-mill kitchen knife is its superior sharpness and resistance to deforming. It thus attains great precision that lasts much longer, even with consistent use. Japanese knife craftsmen pride themselves on their attention to detail, and the rest of the culinary world has taken notice.
