The unsung gadgets

I confess; I do love kitchen gadgets, especially ones that promise to slice chunks off the time spent in the kitchen; which in itself, is quite ironic when I think about it, because the better the gadgets are at performing just means that I depend less on 5-minute meals and more time labouring over meals from scratch. I’m then back to spending way too much time in the kitchen! But that isn’t the point of my story today.

You see this mandoline slicer? It isn’t flash and it didn’t cost much either, in fact it is possibly the Hyundai equivalent of kitchen gadgets with the Mercedes Benz version costing as much as US$300. And I haven’t really had much use for it apart from slicing zucchinis for my raw food vegan ‘pasta’ dish. Sure, serious cooks like some of you would say that I could easily use it for julienning all sorts of vegetables like the way my Japanese friends would attest to origami-dainty fruits and vegetables. But I’m not a perfectionist and if my vegetables look unruly, I’m certain I wouldn’t be traumatized.

However, I found a new use for it today that upgraded the taste of my keropok udang from a B-minus to a very decent A-minus. (I’m leaving the A-plus for Christine’s grandma because if it weren’t for her, I would still be eating commercial keropok udang)

My first attempt at making keropok udang had me slicing the udang roll by hand and by the time I was done with the first 2 rolls, my hands cramped and gimped; the slices got thicker and coarser. Evidently, it did affect the texture and hence, the ultimate satisfying crunch was not reached.

Then, nestled in my gadget drawer was this wooden-handled sieve that I’d bought yonks ago because I had romantic visions of me stirring and flipping hot noodles into bowls, just like the way the sweaty singlet-wearing chap did at my favourite noodle stall. But we don’t eat noodles as often as I’d like to, and along with the garlic peeler and meat tenderizer, this sieve remained out-of-sight and forgotten; well, until today when it performed the trickiest task of catching bits of fried keropok in a timely swoop plus effectively draining the oil. This time, my keropok pieces were so thinly sliced that they bloomed to near delicate paper-thin crisps. My preferred tongs would not have met up to the challenge without crushing them to crumbs.

Needless to say, this batch turned out tons tastier than the previous attempt. It was so good that I had to extract the bowl of prawn crisps from wee Sophia’s clutches so that the other 3 would have some upon their return from school. But even as I’d turned my back -- bowl in my arms and Sophia's loud protests in the background – I’d cunningly shoveled 3 more crisps into my greedy mouth; and maybe some more when she finally left my kitchen.

Who’s counting anyway?