(Un)intended Kitchen Items and Uses

I was in my kitchen and I caught the eye of the try square that I used earlier to divide the dough for biang biang noodles. Then I wondered what else there was in this kitchen that was not really common or used for a different purpose than originally intended. So here a small unusual kitchen tour.

I have a number of 100ml beakers which I have found to be extremely useful for measuring liquids or small quantities of ingredients. Although they are used for measuring, which is their purpose, you don't see them very often in home kitchens.

On the cocktail side, I started to adopt the use of metal straws for stirring cocktails. It works as well as barspoons, with the advantage that you can easily taste the result to check for correct dilution and more. I first spotted this in London cocktail bars, and now it seems to be slowly spreading around the world.

Besides a manual grinder, I have a cheap blade grinder. It has seen everything but coffee. I use it to grind whole spices, sugar or salt. It works pretty well, but mine is not so nice to clean, so maybe I should get a new one.

Although a French press is primarily intended for coffee, you can steep just about anything with it. At one point, when I didn't have access to a strainer but a French press, I started using it for my loose-leaf tea. Now I use it mainly for that, as it works well if you want to steep the leaves multiple times.

Back to the test square. For dividing dough evenly and cleanly it actually works better than my current bench scrapers. It is very good for getting the right size when laminating dough and also for checking the progress of a sauce reduction.

What unintended items or uses are found in your kitchen?