Unessential kitchen equipment that you are lusting over

Cafe Society
1

So we’ve got Essential Kitchen Equipment and Most useless kitchen gadget/utensil/appliance you got suckered into buying?, so we obviously need another thread on kitchen equipment.

I’ve got a pretty good collection of kitchen stuff, and it’s not often that I need more stuff. In fact, I never need anything: I can happily cook many different types of things for years and years without ever buying another piece of gear. I’ve got pots & pans & knives. I’ve got a KitchenAid and a food processor, a pressure cooker and a sous-vider. I have an entire closet filled with “overflow” stuff - fancy dishes, sausage stuffers, meat slicers & grinders, the kind of stuff that I do use several times a year so I don’t want to get rid of it, but not enough that it deserves a spot in the too-full kitchen cupboards.

But every once in a while, I get bit. And I get bit bad. I really shouldn’t have purchased Modernist Cuisine, because now my idiot brain is telling me I need a chamber vacuum sealer. My life will not be full if I cannot seal liquids in plastic bags for sous-viding, or create compressed watermelon, or make light-as-air mango sorbet by vacuuming mango sorbet until it puffs up like a cloud.

Unfortunately the damn things cost upwards of $600 for the cheap model, and into the many thousands of dollars. And they weigh a ton - 50-100 pounds or more - so they’d have to have a permanent spot on my countertop, which I don’t really want. But my dumb brain keeps telling me I neeeeeeeeeeed one…

So what about you? What are you currently lusting over?

2

I feel pretty happy with what I have, but I’d like one of those scrapey blade beaters for my Kitchen-Aid.

I’d like an ice cream churn, but I don’t dare get the one I saw at the thrift store for $5, because I’ll use it. A lot. :smiley:

Oh, and a candy thermometer. Lost 3 (I don’t know why I had 3, but I did) in the last move. I don’t need 3, but I’d like 1!

3

Oh, if you get that mixer blade, go for the Side Swipe rather than the other kind; Cook’s Illustrated preferred this version, and I love it.

Love them but wouldn’t use them after a while:
Sous-vide machine (plus holy-crap expensive and takes up valuable space)
Vacuum sealer (for sous-vide cooking plus general food storage)
Ice cream maker (wtf, I’m trying to keep my weight down and my husband is trying to lose significant weight - so not a good idea)

More useful:
Kegerator (I brew beer but hate bottling - so I haven’t brewed lately)
Chest freezer (tiny over-the-fridge freezer compartment leaves no room for freezing stocks, sauces, or buying frozen stuff at Costco)

4

Vacuum sealer & Sous-vide machine. You could really do some cool stuff with it, but where to put it? I guess that is what restaurants are for.

5

The Crustastunlobster zapper.

I don’t eat lobster but these things are just cool.

6

A brick oven.

7

Porsche knives. I have good knives and the Porsche ones may actually inferior, but, man, they are SCULPTURE. I love to look at them.

8

A deep fryer. Bought one on a whim a few months ago and it’s the best $60 I ever spent.

Yes, I know you can do the same thing with just a pot, but the fryer just makes it so easy. Too easy almost…

9

Oh, hells yeah to this. My dream is to have a kitchen or backyard with a proper wood-fired oven. Can’t think of anything else I need in the kitchen–pretty much have everything I’m ever going to use regularly or even semi-regularly.

10

A Candy thermometer. Not because I’ve lost any but…because I would use it ALL THE TIME. I see recipes and think “oh shucks, can’t make it…don’t have a candy thermometer”. And my hips thank me. Ditto ice cream churn.

No, really I don’t need a stand mixer. I have no counter space for it now and even (swoon) in August when the SO leaves town and I move and have enough counter space for a king, I won’t need it because I’ll be cooking just for me. So I tell myself that I can wait 3 years till the wedding registry to get one for free. But I still neeeeeeeeeeeeeed it now.

I would love a chest freezer because Costco has the best meat around here. But who the hell buys a chest freezer for one person? I want to smack myself just thinking of the silliness. I would certainly eat all the savings in the electricity for the thing.

11

6-quart KitchenAid stand mixer.

The reason this is unessential is that we HAVE a KitchenAid stand mixer. The 4.5-quart one.

I want the bigger one. Because it is bigger and awesomerer. How am I supposed to awesomize my baking if I don’t have the awesomest stand mixer? Come on, people.

12

Those ridiculously expensive Shun knives and the like. I’d probably never use it, but they’re shiny.

13

Pie-divider… I make pie pretty regularly. It would be NICE to have but not necessary.

14

Holy cow! That thing is like a little electric chair for your crustacean! I only got as far as the electrode & sponge, but that was enough!

15

:stuck_out_tongue:

16

I want one of these guys’ utility pans:

http://www.olvidacookware.com/?page_id=3

17

I’m following you from thread to thread now because now I want one too!

Oh, and since we have the vacuum sealer, a sous-vide machine is on the list.

18

I have a regular ice cream maker.

But what I’d really like is a fancy one with its own freezing unit. But they cost hundreds of dollars.

19

A Bizerba professional slicer (actually I have a good line on one and will probably end up getting one this year).

20

Heck, forget hundreds - how about thousands? My brain is also telling me I neeeeeed a Pacojet.