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Chop, whip, stir & drizzle

Be they nifty appliances, colourful gadgets or quirky cutlery, the company of kitchen gadgets you keep is directly proportional to the fun you have in there. Marisha Karwa comes up with a modern chef's guide to joyful cooking

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How you cook and what you cook is a telling trait of how versatile your kitchen really is. Countless maharajs, mothers and chefs will admit that half the joy of cooking lies in tinkering with the many playthings in a kitchen, the pots, pans, woks, toasters, mixers, graters, slicers, steamers and what not. The sight of a rising cake batter in an electric oven, the sound of a gurgling berry smoothie in a grinder or the aroma of a flavoured stock from a pot can all induce a head rush. Here's our checklist for must-have tools to tackle everything from parsley dip to tamarind rice paste.

1) Cooking board
If you thought cutting and chopping was the most mundane of kitchen tasks, think again. The Joseph Joseph Rinse & Chop board elevates this activity from boring to level 8 on a fun scale of 10. The flat board folds into a colander, allowing you to rinse your freshly cut produce and pour it into your cooking vessel.

2) Knives and more
If you must wield but one knife, make it a ceramic one. Whether you handle melons, yams or boneless meat, ceramic knives are beautifully smooth, require less effort and give an easy grip. They have an edge – literally - over their steel counterparts in shelf life; the blades last longer and don't require sharpening as often as the steel ones do. But handle and store them with care since ceramic is a brittle material and tends to chip. Adding a quality, steel chef's knife to a ceramic one will add ages to your set of blades in the kitchen.
Slicers are essential to creative cooking. Whether its carrots, apples or even almonds and nuts, getting those delicate, near-translucent slices for your salads is easy-breezy if you have one of the numerous types of box slicers available in the market.
Many home cooks boast about being able to peel skins with a knife. But that is not only tedious and time-consuming process, it also tends to peel away a rich layer of nutrients between the pulp and the skin. Get a Y-shaped peeler instead. And the tube-like one to peel garlic.

3) Salad-mixing bowl
Think 'tossing' a salad is fun? Wait till you turn the handle on the salad-mixing bowl; you can practically feel the texture of the ingredients greeting one another with affection. Besides, it has never been this easy to get the dressing spread so evenly.

4) Oil spray
The oil spray is a boon for those who love to use the oven to roast — think baby potatoes, pumpkins, assorted veggies or even lean meat. A few squeezes here and a few splishes there allows you to cover a tray full of your roast ingredients in seconds. Use a spray container to drizzle olive oil to glaze those homemade bruschettas or on bunches of cold iceberg lettuce, and you will never want to part with it.

5) Moulds and shape cutters
What do you do to prevent a classic, almost-everyday food item from becoming routine? Change the shape, of course! This is why shape cutters and moulds make it to the pedestal in kitchens that cater to kids and child-at-heart adults. Be they hexagon-shaped dhoklas, flower-shaped sponge cakes, star-shaped cookies or fish-shaped ice cubes, a divergent from the norm is all it takes to jazz up the most basic of foods, such as sandwiches.

6) Spoon and ladle rest
Am guilty if your eyes just popped out? A spoon to place more spoons on may seem excessive, but this is a practical tool for self-serve parties so guests don't mix the soup ladle with the one for curry. Plus, they soothe the nerves of those who, like me, have a 'clean kitchen surface OCD'. Sure, one can simply use a regular plate or a small tray to put all the stirring ladles and spoons in one place, but where's the fun in that? And considering the options range from Umbra Splat spoon rest, the Mustard Splash spoon rest and Tovolo's bird and animal-shaped ladle clips, it becomes a tad too difficult to not get one. Besides, spoon rests make cleaning up so much more easier.

7) Hammer...
Be it a traditional mortar-and-pestle, lemon press or a garlic press, no kitchen is quite complete without these age-old tools to hammer out ingredients from ginger to cardamom.

8) ... and Tongs
This highly under-rated piece of equipment is nothing but an extension of your index finger and thumb. If you wrap your head around that, you'll love how easy it is to turn hot dogs over a hot grill with a pair. Or turn over chunky pieces of roasting patty and serve pastry during evening tea.

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