8 Kitchen Hacks Pro Chefs Swear By

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The best tip I have to offer

is to always use a silicon spatula.

The whole point of this is that they're thin,

but they're also really flexible.

They really take the shape of the bowl or the pan.

Whatever you're working with, they can adapt to it.

So it really kind of helps you scoop everything out

and the bowl comes out really nice and clean.

I really don't like wastage,

so I just need to see that everything's come off.

Indian cooking has cooking

that happens on a lot of high temperatures,

and these are meant to withstand really high temperatures.

When you use a metal spoon that can't go through the corners

and can't clean up the little stuck tidbits,

it can start burning and can completely ruin

the flavor of a curry.

And this is really gentle on that surface,

so you could literally use it on the surface to scrape

and it does no damage to the pans whatsoever.

The best part about these is that this is so easy to clean.

It's silicon, it comes off.

You could literally just pull it off.

Very easy to wash.

This is completely 100% dishwasher safe.

Once you get dependent on them,

it's very difficult to work with something else.

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My advice is that a microplane

should be part of every person's kitchen.

When I'm in the kitchen at work,

we're trying to get through a lot of projects in the day

and often a microplane will save you.

Instead of pulling out my knives and cutting board

and spending time chopping,

I can just really quickly add flavor to a dish

with a microplane.

Microplane is also really easy,

pretty safe to use at home as well.

You eliminate chopping the tip of your finger off

if you're in a rush,

so it's just a really good, quick, easy way

to impart flavor and ingredients,

and finish dishes with some lemon zest or cheese as well.

But it really is a great versatile tool

to make your life a little easier at home

when you're cooking.

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The best tip I have

is make sure you always work with a sharp knife.

One, it's safer.

Dull knives will lead to you slipping and making mistakes

and cutting yourself.

And two, it gives you more precise cuts.

It makes everything look a lot neater.

How I know they're not sharp

is when someone's cutting chives or herbs in general

and they come at all wet and mashed-looking.

So my favorite way of having a sharp knife

is using a whetstone.

So this is Korin's dual-sided whetstone.

First thing you need to do is soak the coarser side,

which is a thousand grit.

So you wanna have a nice towel underneath it.

Keep it nice and secure so it doesn't move.

And then when you're sharpening your knife,

basically they like to say

two pennies can fit stacked underneath it,

and then you just go

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long strokes against the whole stone,

and then you move up a little bit,

continue to do the same thing,

move up a little bit,

continue to do the same thing.

And now it starts getting a little bit trickier

because it's the tip of the knife,

but now you're just gonna wanna really

put an angle at the tip.

And you know you're sharpening the tip too

when you see the little lines.

It is important to keep on wetting the stone

as you're doing it

because you want there to be friction,

but you don't want there to be too much

because then you're just gonna grind away your knife.

And then I will turn it over,

and this is the polishing side.

This side, you don't actually wanna soak at all.

If you soak this, it's gonna become way too soft

and you could break your stone,

and you could also just mess up the tip of your knife.

Once I use the polishing side,

you're gonna see that it reflects a lot more light.

So now the knife is nicely polished, wipe it off.

You can see there's like a mirror's edge.

It reflects a lot of light.

One way you can test it

is you hold a piece of paper at an angle

and you can slice right through.

Nice and sharp.

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The best tip I have is use your bench scraper

to clean and organize your kitchen.

I always try to, like, clean

and organize as I'm doing something

because it just gives me clarity.

So the bench scraper is a tool that's easily overlooked,

but once you start using it,

you can't really go without it.

It just helps you, like, when you're chopping things,

lift things, put them whatever they need to go,

or you can always, like, clean your table

or your cutting board.

I think using a bench scraper sometimes better than a knife

because it has, like, a wider surface

so you can, like, hold more things.

And then also, I don't like using a knife personally,

like to scrape things on a cutting board.

You don't wanna mess up with the sharpness of your knife.

I like this one because it's flexible.

So actually when you're, like, using a bowl,

you can, like, bend it

and just make sure you're getting everything of a bowl.

And then you can use this part for a cutting board,

and it's just very versatile.

I personally love the plastic one.

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So for a tip,

it's something everyone is familiar with at this point,

which is mise en place.

It's basically getting ready ahead of time

and having your ingredients, your tools ready.

And that can be something like just having your salts,

cubing up your butter,

maybe letting it temper before you use it.

But it's really setting yourself up

for success in restaurant and at home.

So a way to improve or elevate your mise en place

is to use these yakumi pans.

And these small ones are very useful,

not only in a kitchen and to organize your table,

things in your refrigerator,

but they're great

for a small New York City apartment as well.

So they're pretty light,

they're stackable,

and they are easy to clean.

So these containers

not only good for arranging mise en place

but also simply for storing ingredients.

Or it can be that you pre-cooking something,

like roasting diced onions,

and keep them in here so they're ready to go.

So it becomes almost muscle memory,

so you don't have to run around and look for them.

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The best tip I have is to use a thermometer.

I think a thermometer is a great tool to have,

especially in home-cooked kitchens,

because it's a safety net.

When you're using a meat thermometer

if you're cooking bone-in chicken,

you're gonna want to get the tip of the thermometer

close to the bone

so you get an accurate read of the internal temperature.

You can constantly check the oil temperature.

If it's too hot,

you're gonna burn your food without cooking it through.

If it's too cold,

it's just gonna absorb a lot of oil and come out mushy,

and both of those are a tragedy.

I think an overlooked use of this tool

is using it as a cake tester.

A lot of times, I don't keep my cake tester on me,

but I'll have one of these closer at reach,

and if it comes out with dough on it or batter on it,

I know it's not ready.

You can get one of these for about $17

and I think it's a great investment for a cheap price.

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I highly recommend every kitchen to have a food processor.

You know, using a food processor at home

can really save a lot of time,

but also you can make, like, a cake in a food processor,

and it kind of gives you a better control

when you are making, for example, a pie crusts.

You don't want to necessarily just, like, turn on

and have it, like, blend

and chop up the butter in two smaller pieces,

so you can just use, like, pulse,

and as you're pressing it,

it will just kind of do it

in, like, a second or two-second intervals.

At home, I also made like a whole wheat bread

using a food processor,

and it only took maybe, like, two minutes

for the dough to form versus, like, a mixer,

which might take sometimes up to, like, 5,

even 10 minutes for dough to form.

Like, even the creaming method, for example,

where you have to cream the butter and sugar,

it will do it much faster and easier

than let's say in a KitchenAid stand mixer.

If you aren't really comfortable

with dicing, slicing using knife,

then I highly recommend you get a food processor.

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My tip is always bring up the best, finest flavor

when I grated daikon radish.

So a lot of moisture,

I don't wanna waste that moisture.

I think moisture is kind of umami.

Also, it's best parts of a daikon radish.

So what I use, I use this tool, onioroshi.

So I just wanna save ingredient umami.

So this is you can grate it more bigger.

Basically, no moisture out.

Then after shave it, and when you bite it,

the moisture in your mouth, [whooshes]

the explosion in your mouth.

And that moisture is key,

so I just wanna bring to your dishes.

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