A mandoline vegetable slicer by Japanese company Benriner is standard equipment in most Japanese homes and restaurant kitchens around the world. We prefer this tool’s simplicity, durability and efficacy over other more complicated models. It comes with three interchangeable blades: The fixed straight blade—which is also removable and replaceable, ensuring long-term durability—creates slices ranging from .5 mm to 5 mm. Use the dial on the underside of the mandoline to fine-tune and adjust the thickness of your slices. You can also screw in one of other two blades, which allow you to julienne or finely shred your vegetables. We especially love that the finger guard, which extends across the width of the entire blade, is easy to handle and keeps a firm grip on ingredients while slicing. Additionally, a non-skid base, safety handle and notches in the mandoline will keep the device steady whether you lay it across a bowl or prop it against a countertop.

It is a standing joke around the office that I LOVE this rice washer. It is just the right size, so storing it is not a pain (it’s small enough to keep it on my drain board at all times), it’s lightweight, it’s well-designed, and—if you like—it also washes rice. Why do we all have huge colanders, anyway? This 2.5-quart colander is the perfect size for 95 percent of your kitchen draining jobs. With rice, the device allows one to cover the rice with water and swish it around; there are tiny drain holes in the bottom and larger holes near the spout. You can use this simple bowl for washing any sort of produce, including berries—a simple but brilliant concept. As for cooking rice, I use a ceramic Japanese rice cooker (the Kamado-San Double-Lid Donabe Rice Cooker—available in our store) and use slightly less water than rice.

When Andrea Nguyen, author of The Pho Cookbook, visited Milk Street , she used this mesh spider/strainer to cook a small portion of noodles in the same pot she also was using to cook vegetables. This was new to us and we immediately fell in love with this inexpensive kitchen tool for cooking small portions of pasta, blanching vegetables and even deep frying. Made from stainless steel, it has a wooden handle and two hooks for hanging on the side of a large saucepan or stockpot.

We love this stainless steel rice washer from Helen’s Asian Kitchen, a line of products by iconic Chinese-American chef Helen Chen. The rice washer doubles in function as a colander, and at 3 quarts it is just the right size for your everyday kitchen draining jobs. With rice, the device allows one to cover the rice with water and swish it around; there are tiny drain holes near the spout that hold the grains in as you’re washing your rice. You can use this simple bowl for rinsing any sort of produce, including berries—a simple but brilliant concept. We like that this bowl features a perforated lip instead of an open spout, which helps keep food inside the colander when draining. As for cooking rice, I use a ceramic Japanese rice cooker (the Kamado-San Double-Lid Donabe Rice Cooker—available in our store) and use slightly less water than rice.

If meat pounders had a power player, it would be this one: Clocking in at nearly two pounds with 3.25 inches of pounding surface, it looks more like a paperweight than a kitchen tool. But when it comes to flattening meat and poultry into thin cutlets, it’s hard to beat.

Made from sturdy stainless steel, this durable meat pounder is built to last—and won’t retain or transfer odors or flavors between uses. It makes quick work of flattening meat into thin, even cutlets without tearing up the protein. The pounder also works beautifully on biscuits, cookies, nuts, ice or anything else you need to crush. And when you’re done, just pop it in the dishwasher for easy cleanup before storing.

Much as we love our stovetop coffee makers, too often the grates over the gas burners are too wide for them to sit safely above the flames. But in Italy, Christopher Kimball was introduced to a simple tool that keeps the country’s ubiquitous stovetop espresso pots perfectly balanced. The Ilsa Gas Ring Reducer consists of high-quality, heavy-duty cast-iron construction that decreases the size of gas burner openings in center grates while absorbing and diffusing heat evenly. It’s fantastic for making coffee, of course, but we find it’s equally useful for any small cookware, from saucepans to tea kettles.