Unconventional kitchen utensil you can't live without?

A Marijuana grinder. I like foraging for foods, so I tend to use the grinder on things like Staghorn Sumac, or Spice Bush to make a course grind. It allows a lot of control on how much you want to use and how fine, unlike a blender.

Before it's asked, I actually have never smoked weed. It was listed as a "spice grinder" and I never thought it was for weed when I got it.

A safety can opener that doesn't create any sharp edges, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_mLxyIXpSY (a LONG video, but quite an interesting one IMHO).

It's nor even funny how much this thing is better than any other opener I've ever used, it's just so bloody amazing!

I sometimes find these two in a box in my kitchen, does that make them utensils?

A coffee grinder. Freshly grinded beans taste so different from normal preground coffee.

A garlic press - saves so much time and effort over mincing garlic with a knife because I'm not a pro chef, and can be used in about 95% of situations where you need garlic. I don't use it when I want the garlic texture, but otherwise I just adjust the amount or the cooking time versus minced garlic. There's some hate floating around from professional chefs, but I bought one a few years ago to try it and haven't looked back.

Unconventional in what sense? For westerners? A wok probably

I used to hate wok because it is so big to wash, but then I started understanding its versatility. I still hate washing it tho.

Osthyvel (a cheese slicer). I kinda miss it every time I'm on vacation and I have no means to get the expected thickness of a cheese slice.

This is the epitome of first world problems.

I unironically love cooking with my steel chopsticks.

Weirdly, a dough scraper. It's not because of the measurement conversions, I don't think I'd ever noticed them up until now actually. It's just a really solid dough scraper. I use it for dough, but I've also used it for so many other things, like assembling/disassembling furniture, patching holes in the wall, wrapping furniture in a vinyl sheet. Loads of various tasks.

Every so often you find that you need a solid, flat, steel thing, and this comes in handy every single time.

I use a mandoline. It used to take me easily 5+ minutes per onion to dice. Now I can get 2 onions diced in about 2 minutes. Less dramatic time savings are available for other veggies too, depending on how finely I want them chopped up.

Small set of whetstones so I can keep my kitchen knives absurdly sharp. Sharp vs "meh" vs dull knives make a huge difference in speed, comfort and safety. I've scuffed my knives a bit getting into things, but at least they're sharp as hell and touching them up only takes a few minutes.

Also it's hardly unconventional, but a quick read thermometer (fold-out type) is almost a must.

I have a tiny whisk instead of a regular-size one, and I have convinced myself it is objectively superior in every way

Bamboo pot scraper. Not a brush, but an actual small wedge of wood that you can use to scrape cast iron, stainless, etc pots & pans.

Great for heavy duty scraping, but usually just use it lightly to get crispy residue off of stuff (well cooked rice, beans, etc).

I like how much easier it is to rinse off, compared to a brush or sponge, that you really have to clean after using

Did I miss it or did no one say Rice Cooker yet? A good rice cooker makes rice texture so much better while simplifying the whole process.

A danish dough whisk. Somehow it’s easier to mix dough and it won’t have so much gunk sticking between the wires like in the balloon shaped whisks. It can be cleaned easy by hand. It’s pretty large though.

Probably unconventional now, but one of those old can openers. Not the turning ones, the manual single-piece ones. Every can opener I have had dies after a year or two, but this one has been going strong for like.. 50+ years.

A measuring jug (from oxo) that allows you to see the marks when looking at it from above.

Also I have two timers, and I need and use both.

A microplane grater - it's been really great for dealing with ginger, and even garlic (although for garlic I mostly prefer to just squish it with the flat side of my knife). I've also used the slicer end to make chips out of baby potatoes and turnips.

Another go-to for me is a conventional pressure cooker - I use it when I'm feeling lazy, I just chuck everything in it - lentils/beans + rice + veggies + condiments, and it's all done in one go, only takes 15-20 minutes and there's no need to soak stuff beforehand. The best part is that I put all my ingredients in just a single ceramic bowl, so cleaning the cooker is super easy (just rinse it with water), and I can eat directly off the bowl, which saves me from having to use a separate dish.

My tiny 1" silicone spatula is one of the handiest utensils I own.

Steel tea pot - I drink a pot every day but last couple pots were both glass and only last a couple months before breaking (both my fault) so upgraded to steel and so far my clumsiness hasn't yet managed to break it

A standalone egg steamer / boiler / poacher (like https://www.sunbeam.com.au/kitchen-and-home/cooking/pie-waffle-snack-makers/poach-and-boil-egg-cooker )

Yes I can boil or poach eggs on a stove or in the microwave, but the sheer ease of use and that it's always perfect is a life changer.

I'm famous for loving my air fryer.

Egg slicer.

Can't get medium eggs in nice slices on sandwiches so well with a single point of pressure on the egg. That is even with a really sharp knife cutting soft-ish eggs is annoying and just not as good.

Everything else, knife.

Strawberry cutter. That stupid looking plastic strawberry with the little blades in it? Turns out it can do basically evening I don't like cutting, mushrooms, berries, olives, all in tiny perfectly uniform cuts.

I've got two - a potato ricer, basically a big garlic press you put a boiled potato in, instant perfect mash.

And one of those spiral apple peeler/corer/slicers, makes cooking anything with apple in so much faster (it's a fiddle to clean though unfortunately)

Souper Cubes, which are basically silicone containers with a lid for freezing food. I’m trying to do more batch meal prepping, and 1 cup sized blocks are waaay easier to store in the freezer than a bunch of freezer bags whose contents may or may not have frozen completely flat. It makes portioning easier too. I haven’t tried baking in it but I do like that they’re oven safe too if I ever want to do that.

Fish spatula

Pizzelle maker - like a cookie iron. It was the only thing I asked for as a HS graduation present, my parents thought I would never use it. 20 years later, I still whip up pizzelle every few months

I got this one weird ass meat mallet from a Brian Lagerstrom video and I use that shit for my black bean burrito filling. It works like a dream chopping and mincing anything especially if you are cooking it.

Electric knife sharpener.

Maybe more of a splurge purchase and it works so much better than those janky acoustic sharpeners.

Box cutter for removing can labels. That way, they don't get soggy and awful when you have to rinse the can before recycling. Or rinse before opening, if you store your cans in a semi-outdoor environment like me.

I don't know about unconventional but I use the absolute heck out of my half width spatula, the skinny one.

Also got a silicone fish spatula and that thing rocks. I thought it would be too bendy to work, and I don't have any nonstick pans (cast iron all day every day and one steel pan we call the stick pan, sometimes you want fond) so usually use metal but the edge on this thing is knife sharp and it squeezes under fried eggs like nothing else.

I really want a stovetop milk steamer. Sure would use it every day.

My boiled egg slicer. It seemed really frivolous when I bought it, and I probably only use it five or six times a year at best but man if it doesn't cut down prep time for any salad with boiled egg in it, it also works with avocados!

Spiral pineapple slicer. Thought it was dumb but now i love it.

Cheese Slicer. The most common kitchen tool in any Swedish home!

Grapefruit knife!

I bought a few small silicon dough rising containers, for use in the fridge when making pizza (i.e. low yeast content) dough. Absolutely stellar. Can easily keep balls of dough around for 1-2 weeks and they in fact get slightly better with age, and they're trivial to clean, too.

Huh. No one has said ground meat breaker/chopper.shen my wife got one, I said it was a waste, a spatula was fine, etc etc. Then I used it once....holy crap so much better and easier to get exactly the chunkiness you want from ground beef, turkey, etc. Love the the thing now.

Apple watch siri set timer