Mandoline Slicers, The Secret Chef Tool Every Home Cook Needs

I don't know how your knife skills are but my are horrendous. Not being a professional Chef, I have not had the time or the energy to sit patiently chopping onions as Julia Child did in the movie Julie And Julia.

My juliennes are not uniform, my slices are a bit chunky, it's always steak or home fries for me, never the thin crispy match sticks you find when ordering pomme frite in a french bistro.

I suppose my lack of skills gives my dishes a quaint home spun charm, but this is not the image I always want to portray. After growing up with Julia, Jeff, Graham and Martha, besides being exposed to all of the cooking shows they have to day on the Food Channel and Bravo, I want to look like I know what I am doing, without the luxury of a food tech backstage spraying everything with vegetable fat so it looks fresh on camera.

After working in Restaurants for many years, I noticed at some point, a green plastic thing in the kitchen with a blade in it. It was rectangular in shape and had collapsible legs on the back. I asked the Chef what it was and he replied a mandoline and that they used them for slicing vegetables. He liked the green one as it was a Japanese model and seemed to believe it was best one to use. He ordered one for me through his Restaurant Supply company and I have been a fan ever since.

This was many years ago and this particular mandoline was not exactly the safest model, there are, however so many models out there now that have numerous safety features, that any home cook should be comfortable using one.

A mandoline is a long rectangular slicer. It resembles a board and has a blade attached about midway down so that you can run vegetables over the top and they fall in to a bowl below or sometimes they have legs that set on a cutting board so that the vegetables drop to the board below. They are as simple as a basic strait slice or come with different blades so that you can produce juliennes or waffle cuts.

Some come with a little plastic gripper, that holds the vegetable while you slice so that your fingers never get near the blade. They come in plastic or stainless steel. Some have their own chamber to drop the vegetables in as you are cooking, some fit over the top of a mixing bowl, while others prop up on two adjustable legs, to give you a nice angle to drag the vegetables up and down over the blade

Mandolines come in a variety of colors and are produced by many major companies now, so finding one to suit your price range and needs should not be a problem.

These things are great. If you are making onion rings you can adjust the slicer for thin or thick rings and your slices will be completely uniform. The same goes for fries. You simply add a different blade and you can have what ever siize fries you prefer.

If you are makeng a carrot salad or something that requires a thin matchstick jullienne for garnish, this does the job.

It is also great for cookouts, when you are serving hamburgers you can slice tomatoes and onions for a garnish tray and when you are making a slaw, you can shred your cabbage right over the mandoline blade.

If you are making a grautin of vegetables,it make beautiful paper thin slices of potatoes and when it come to apple pie, slicing the apples is a breeze. You will be amazed at all of the applications the mandiline will be used for and how it will cut your prep time down. A mandoline slicer will be the best investment you can make for your kitchen.