What Kitchen Utensils Have One Use and One Use Only?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was just doing dishes and the thought occurred to me, mainly because of one thing I washed by hand. I don’t mean “Well, knives are only used for cutting things (though I’d dispute that).” I mean much more specific things than that.

Normal cutlery has a million uses - spoons can be used to eat with, spoon things from containers, and stir with, among other things, for example. I use mixing bowls daily, but rarely for mixing.

I can think of a few in just the five minutes since I washed and dried my hands, but I’ll just mention one - the one that made me think of this question. A garlic press. How many things need to be crushed like that and are soft enough to squeeze through the holes?

Let’s try to keep this reasonable. Hypothetically, just about anything could be used in different ways, but let’s limit it to kitchen uses. Preferably, to eliminate something, give us an example of how you have used it yourself.

2

Pasta serving spoon.
Never actually used one just the first thing that came to mind.

Besides, there’s only one unitasker allowed in my kitchen. :smiley:

3

Those make great back scratchers.

4

How about a bottle opener like this one?

5

Melon baller?

Although the only place i’ve ever seen one is in a professional kitchen, when i worked as a waiter. I don’t think i know anyone who owns one.

Cherry pitter?

I actually have one of these, for when i make cherry pies.

6

A can opener? Not including the bottle-opener part, but the actual mechanism that opens cans. Could it be used for anything else?

7

Grater? I mean, you can grate all sorts of different things with it, but that’s still only one trick

Corkscrew

.

8

A melon baller is just a kind of scoop. I’ve seen them used to scoop butter.

9

They can be used to core apples (after you cut the Apple in half).

10

I think I have one. I think I tried to use it once, in the '90s. I just use tongs to pick up the pasta.

In addition to making melon balls, they’re also very handy for scraping out the seeds from squashes.

11

Olive pitter.

Collanders and sieves: They drain things and I can’t think of another use for them other than perhaps a hat.

Knife sharpener and steel.

Cheese slicer like this one.

12

Tried that. Barely scratches the circuit boards, never mind scooping anything out.

13

Is that what that is? :eek: I thought it was a back scratcher. :wink:

14

Egg slicer, but I use mine to slice mushrooms, too.

15

Soft cheeses, too, like fresh mozzarella. Don’t have one myself, cut I saw a friend use it for that. Very nifty.

16

Whisk: Uniquely suited for nothing else but whisking.

What’s worse is that you need several sizes, depending on what you’re whisking and how much of it you’re whisking.

17

But in both those cases it’s really hard to do that job without one.

18

I sometimes use them to open impenetrable clamshell packaging without resorting to the utility knife.

19

Grape scissors

Cookie dropper

garlic peeler

There is a fruit slicer for pretty much every specific fruit for those that can’t be trusted with a knife.

20

Hey, thanks for sharing that, Lamar Mundane! It would be perfect for slicing those fresh little mozzarella balls when making a Caprese salad, which I happen to adore!