Several months ago, I was cooking dinner with my mother and she had volunteered to slice something. I told her the mandoline was in the drawer in front of her. She then said, in no uncertain terms, that she would not be using that. I've found, in talking to a lot of home cooks, that a general unease about using a mandoline is not uncommon. It makes sense: On TV, we watch chefs quickly and repeatedly flick their fingers milimeters from a sharp blade while slicing potatoes. And online, including in articles on Epi, you can read all about the dangers of losing a thumb to this highly-effective slicing mechanism. I don't think it's wrong to disclose the potential dangers of using a mandoline—I myself have been the victim of some cuts. But I do think it's a mistake for anyone to swear off a mandoline because they believe it's a digit mutilation waiting to happen. If you have a well-designed slicer it's really easy to use it safely, and unless you have the skills to compete on Knife or Death, it will deliver performance you just won't get with a knife. My colleague Alaina Chou recently retested new and top performing mandolines to find the best out there. The top picks below (along with a pair of cut-resistant gloves, which really do work), can deliver paper-thin slices of uniformly sliced onions for burgers, or radishes to top a salad. I've even used this mandoline for hard cheeses. And with just a little bit of practice, it will be a tool that makes lots of meal prep notably faster and easier. I reach for my mandoline (sometimes with a Band-Aid still on my finger) at least two or three times a week. For more info about how to use a mandoline and what you can do with it, click on through to read Alaina's full review. —Noah Kaufman |
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