Kitchen Gadgets Alton Brown Can’t Live Without

PolyScience’s Control Freak

Brown: “I love this thing. It’s an induction cooktop, which uses magnetic fields to heat metal. So this cooker doesn’t generate heat — it creates magnetic waves. The sensor on the bottom can actually sense how hot the pan itself is and regulates that energy accordingly. It can even sense how hot oil gets, so that you can fry something perfectly. It’s like a magic genie. If you gave me a choice between a genie and my Control Freak, I would probably pick my Control Freak. I’ve only had it for a year, and it has gone from ‘I may use this once’ to ‘I am using it every day.’ There’s even a carrying case so you can take it on the road.” 

[$1,799.95; amazon.com]

Pressure Cooker

Brown: ”I use a pressure cooker on an almost daily basis, so often that a lot of my cooking is defined by my ability to use that tool. Even though they’ve been around forever, I find people are still afraid of them. I use it to make a lot of stews, soups, and legumes. Everything breaks down and cooks so quickly it’s insane. Something that would take eight hours can be done in 45 minutes. I believe it’s better for the flavor as well, versus cooking something for an incredible amount of time, like collard greens. They’re basically time machines, like the Tardis of the kitchen.” 

[$109.99; bedbathandbeyond.com]

Immersion Circulator

Brown: “It gives you the ability to set a water bath at a very specific temperature. I really enjoy eating eggs, especially when they’re cooked a very specific way, so I can use one of these. Drop an egg in, walk away for a few hours, and when you come back they’re still going to be perfectly prepared. This a first-line tool for me.”

[$144.88; amazon.com]

Pro Tip: Some of the Best Tools are Home Made

Brown swears by a $1,700 countertop appliance, which isn’t exactly in a casual chef’s budget. But not everything has to be state of the art. Two of Brown’s most-used kitchen tools are DIY rigs he made on the cheap.

For instance, his “Steel Lotus,” a couple metal steamer baskets strung together, only cost him about $10. “This is a piece of gear that I fabricated myself and I use it once a week at a minimum,” he says. “It’s the best way to steam large amounts of chicken or vegetables. Just go to the hardware store, spend about $10 to get three collapsible steamer baskets connected together with a piece of threaded stock, [and] take out the center post.”

More ambitious but still easy on the wallet, Brown built a dehydrator that makes killer jerky, but he made the apparatus out of things you’d probably find in the attic. “I always want to have jerky around so I built this out of a box fan with a couple of furnace filters attached with bungee cords,” he says. “I showed this piece off in one of the Good Eats episodes. It’s still the most effective way to make jerky I know of, unless you want to buy a fancy $5,000 food dehydrator.”

Dry Ice

Brown: “I use dry ice pretty frequently in my cooking and especially my cocktail making. It can help you make some pretty incredible sorbets and ice creams. It’s also great for quickly freezing produce like chunks of avocado. You can harvest dry ice fairly easily out of CO2 fire extinguishers using a pillowcase. There are instructional videos out there. People are afraid of dry ice, but really is it more dangerous than open flames? Just be safe.”

[Fire extinguisher for harvesting dry ice: $40; amazon.com]

Ziploc Bags

Brown: “I am not a big fan of Tupperware as a concept (not as a brand). This is mostly for the simple fact that as soon as I buy it I always lose the lid. They start to fill up the drawers. They’re like socks when they’re lost in the laundry. I put everything in Ziploc bags. They tend to give me a better seal and keep me from having to wonder where the hell I put that lid to my Tupperware or Rubbermade. Until someone comes up with a system where that doesn’t happen, I’m going to stick with the bags.” 

[$13; amazon.com]

Thermapen

Brown: “This is the thermometer that works in any environment. It can sense how and where you are holding it in the dish, which is incredible. It’s almost perfect. Scratch that, it is perfect. You are going to spend a little bit more, but it’s absolutely worth it. You can control your cooking so much more with a tool like this. I find it especially useful when I bake bread, because it helps to be precise.” 

[$76; thermoworks.com]

Panini Press

Brown: “I use it multiple times a week, but I never make paninis with it. My go-to is game hen, which I cut into little pieces. I throw them on there and flatten them out with some sort of weight on top of the press. I usually use a kettlebell. Make sure you get one with a metal chassis that can withstand a little pressure. Later on, throw a few greens in there. You can get perfectly cooked meals in just minutes.” 

[$175; amazon.com]

Board Scraper

Brown: “I don’t understand how people can exist without a board scraper or a dough blade. I travel with one as well, because I spend a lot of time in AirBnBs and they never have one in the kitchen. I move things around with it. If you chop up a bunch of ingredients, how are you going to move them all around? I use it as an extension of my hand. I can use it to clean a counter quickly. I find it’s an extremely simple but useful addition to any kitchen.” 

[$10; amazon.com]