TIP OF THE DAY: Use Your Kitchen Scissors

September 12, 2012 at 8:54 am · Filed under Kitchenware-Tabletop, Tip Of The Day

Pizza scissors. You can use regular kitchen
scissors to cut your pizza. Photo courtesy
Sur La Table.

We saw these pizza scissors and thought: Hmm. If we were stuck for a gift for a pizza enthusiast, we might consider them. But most kitchens don’t need—much less have room for—single-purpose gadgets such as pizza scissors, avocado slicers and mango pitters.

The special-purpose scissors have a nonstick spatula base that “slides and lifts the slice.” You can buy them on Amazon or at Sur La Table.

While the nonstick base prevents scratches on metal pizza pans, at home, we use our everyday kitchen scissors to separate those clingy slices. (Pizza wheels never worked for us.)

An eight-inch kitchen knife like the one from Wustoff can do much more than slice pizza. If your knife skills aren’t as good as a culinary professional’s, you may find that a scissors can be your best friend in the kitchen.

You’ll find many uses for kitchen scissors, including:

BAKING: Cut pastry dough.

HERBS: Snip basil, chives, cilantro, parsley and other herbs for recipes, into salad (they make a huge difference in flavor), as a garnish, etc.

MEAT & POULTRY: Cut the skin off of chicken and the fat off of any meat.

PIZZA: Separate the slices.

SWEET FOODS: Cut dried fruit, trim marshmallows into mini marshmallows.

TORTILLAS: Cut whole tortillas into wedges to toast or pan fry (we use them instead of croutons to top salads).

VEGGIES: Cut the leaves off celery, cut celery and fennel stems, snip the ends off green beans and the thorns from artichoke leaves, cut the tops off just about anything, cut salad greens into “chopped salad” size pieces.

HOW TO CHOOSE A KITCHEN SCISSORS

Make sure it’s stainless steel. Otherwise, you’ll find that rust spots crop up.

For a come-apart scissors, look for a screw mechanism rather than a metal bolt. A come-apart scissors design makes it easy to separate the two blades for cleaning or sharpening. But we’ve found that scissors secured with a simple bolt closure (turn and lift) may seem easier at first glance, but come apart in your hand when you don’t want them to—when you’re using the scissors!

That’s why we like the screw design of the Wustoff kitchen scissors. While Wustoff is a premier manufacturer of cutlery, the scissors are only $19.95 on Amazon.

Blade. You get what you pay for: The scissors associated with good cutlery manufacturers have blades that hold their sharpness longer.

How do you use your kitchen scissors?

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