I love to eat with chopsticks, but additionally …students are amazed to see me use chopsticks to accomplish so many tasks in the kitchen. Some are listed below.
Chopsticks are great for….
Stirring (hold 4 together) instead of using a wooden spoon.
Using as a swivel stick and cocktail mixer for making a Mojito and other cocktails.
Peeling ginger, leveling off dry spices in a measuring spoon, and leveling off measuring cups when baking … all with the square end of the chopstick.
Making a “Chinese Wooden Whisk” (holding a bunch together) for mixing anything from eggs, to a mustard sauce, to dry ingredients for a cake.
Pulling the roasting pan toward you in the oven when there are no handles.
Re-stirring a slurry (or binder) just before adding to a sauce to thicken it.
Removing an olive or caper from a tall narrow jar.
Tasting a sauce instead of using a spoon. So little adheres to the surface of the chopstick, so you save calories. Because it is wood, it cools off immediately and you never burn your mouth.
Tasting a rice pilaf to test if the rice is done.
Inserting between the oven door and the oven when you want the oven to be ajar
Cleaning hard to reach places. I dampen a paper towel, spray it with a house hold cleaner, then wrap it around a chopstick and go right to the spot.
Creating a make shift rack when roasting a chicken by assembling 4 chopsticks in a square pattern on the bottom of the pan.
Chopsticks can entertain children as well by …
Teaching children eye hand coordination. Just lifting cheerio’s and other cereals with chopsticks is fun for young kids.
Playing improvisational games. Guess what I am doing?
Conducting an orchestra, fencing, playing a flute, harmonica, violin, trumpet.
Teaching letters and shapes.
Make the letter T or W or E or F. Make a square or a triangle
The possibilities are endless!!!
I buy 12 pairs of bamboo chopsticks for just $1.00 at Kam Man 200 Canal Street, NYC. Sometimes I find them at Gracious Homes. But remember, buy the bamboo, not the plastic.
caroline roth says
Once a drawer wouldn’t open because something was caught in it.
There was no way of getting my hand in the drawer.
I was able to get the obstruction out using the big “cooking” chop sticks.
I wouldn’t be with out them.
Caroline Roth
Amy says
I also use chopsticks as makeshift trellises for houseplants, bound together with those plastic-bag twisties!
Deborah Dugan says
Hi,
Seems like many chopsticks have a coating on them. Do you know a brand that does not have a coating? I like to eat food with chopsticks not the coating.
Karen Lee says
Dear Deborah,
Kam Man at 200 cancal street and sometimes Gracious Gomes has the bamboo chop sticks I like. No coating. I feel the same why.
12 pairs in a package.
Good question.
kl