Behind many professional stoves, tongs are pooh-poohed as bad technique, a lazy and even disrespectful way of cooking. But the truth is that tongs are advantageous for just about anything you’d do in a home kitchen.
Photo by Incase
Turn to tongs for stir-frying noodles, dressing salads, flipping steaks without puncturing them, pulling hot dogs out of a beer bath, roasting vegetables over a flame, even coaxing out bread that’s been stuck in a toaster (note: you want a plastic coating for that!).
In addition to their foremost function as a heatproof pair of hands, locking tongs are also great for a lesser-known set of tasks both inside and outside the kitchen. While prepping food, tongs can do double duty as a citrus reamer (push the cut end of a citrus half into the scalloped edges of a pair of closed tongs), or, in a pinch, a beer opener (use the long arms of the tongs). They’re also an excellent way to get a better grip on lemons before juicing.
Beyond the kitchen, use them to grab things from hard-to-reach shelves, to go after for something that’s fallen into a hard-to-reach place, or to toss things you’re too grossed out to touch with your bare hands. Oh, and hey: back scratcher, anyone? We can hardly say the humble kitchen tong doesn’t deserve respect.
Comments
5 responses to “Kitchen Tool School: The Indispensable Stainless Steel Locking Tongs”
Sticking anything metal into a toaster is a really bad idea. Even if it’s plastic coated. Unless you’re trying for a Darwin Award.
…unless you unplug it first. Then you’re fine
Really if you can’t work that out, and unplug the toaster first, you deserve all you get.
Surely unplugging the toaster first solves the problem?
“tongs are pooh-poohed as bad technique, a lazy and even disrespectful way of cooking”
What? I’ve never heard this. There are actually people who have an issue with tongs??