Milk Street: Nakiri
What if we told you there is a Japanese knife specifically designed for vegetable prep that will make your cooking safer, easier and faster? It is vastly better than the all-purpose European chef’s knife, which is clunky, heavy and too thick to precisely slice and dice onions, cut carrots into perfect coins or reduce chard into feathery ribbons. The solution is the Milk Street Nakiri. It’s light, thin and sharp, with a design that resembles a mini cleaver—2 inches deep with a squared-off tip. A very thin blade, just 1.6 millimeters at the top, tapers down even thinner toward the end so it slices through even tough ingredients effortlessly without bending. The broad blade shields your fingers when you chop and works as a bench scraper to transfer chopped veggies to the simmering pot. With the help of veteran industrial designer David Lewin, we added a few special touches. The blade is embossed with a nonstick file pattern that replicates the kourochi (blacksmith) or tshuchime (pear skin) finish to traditional nakiris, so sliced ingredients fall right off. A gentle curve accommodates fingers when choking up tight for control, and the handle has been designed to provide a nonslip grip.
Milk Street: Kitchin-kiji
Milk Street: Közmatik
When a recipe calls for charring vegetables, what do you do? Well, you can fire up the grill but that is a lot of work for just one eggplant or two bell peppers. In Turkey, however, they have a better solution called the Közmatik, a metal disk that fits perfectly over the burner of a gas stove. Evenly spaced holes allow heat to circulate around the vegetables, so you are truly roasting, rather than searing as you would on a skillet. The holes are close enough to hold even small veggies, like slender spring onions, and the disk is large enough to keep several bulbous eggplants from rolling off. It’s also less messy than charring directly on the burner: The Közmatik catches nearly all of the bits of charred vegetable skin and juices that would leak onto the surface of the stove. And, once cooled, it can be thrown in the dishwasher for easy cleanup.
Milk Street Store Membership
You also receive early notice of special sales events plus the opportunity to preview new product launches that have limited inventory. Automatically renews annually.
Milk Street: 3-Piece 13-Inch Hammered Carbon Steel Wok
The typical wok is lousy for home cooking. With a round bottom that doesn’t heat on a flat American burner, poorly conductive steel and low-quality construction, most woks don’t perform well enough to be worth the storage space. That’s why we designed the Milk Street Hammered Wok specifically for American home cooks. After dozens of hours testing 10 woks of varying shapes, sizes and materials, we understand the features that make a great wok. Our redesigned 13-inch wok has high-quality construction, oversized handles for better control, a special dimpled surface for nonstick cooking and a tight-fitting tempered glass lid. It will last a lifetime, and it’s guaranteed to improve your day-to-day cooking.
Aux Co. Ltd: Japan Sukueru Knife
This unique serving spoon-knife combo tool is a must-have for serving. Right at the table (or the picnic blanket or the potluck), you can use the serrated edge to cut out your perfect portion of food and then use the dipped bowl of the spoon to easily scoop it into your plate. The concave shape and wider width actually lifts up the food and holds it there—it won’t go tumbling back onto the platter like it would with a classic narrow, triangular server. The blade is sharp enough to cut through pizza crust and it’s ideal for slicing through gooey lasagna without lopping off that top layer of chewy cheese trying to slice and serve. Plus, it’s made from durable, dishwasher safe stainless steel with a satin finish, which is great for camouflaging scratches after frequent use. (And we promise you’ll be using this tool quite a bit.)
Milk Street Store Gift Card
This is a digital gift card which will be sent to you, the purchaser. Purchasing a Milk Street Store gift card creates a unique code, you will need to forward via email or print out for the recipient on the intended gift date.
Your gift card recipient can enter this code at checkout to subtract the gift card value from their order total. This gift card is nonrefundable.
Milk Street Store gift cards are only valid for orders in the Milk Street Store and cannot be applied to classes or events at the Milk Street Cooking School.
Milk Street: Julienne Peeler
The Milk Street Julienne Peelers will ship in 2-3 business days
Shredding vegetables into a fine julienne turns tough vegetables tender and opens up their flavor. However, it usually requires the hassle of hauling out the food processor—and finding the shredding attachments, or using a box grater, which will tear at your knuckles if you’re not paying keen attention. Or, you can try your luck with any number of the cheap, gimmicky shredders on the market, which dull quickly and buckle under use.
The Milk Street Julienne Peeler makes shredding vegetables easy, safe and effective. We married our confidence-inspiring, ergonomic 304 stainless steel handle to a razor-sharp, 16-tooth julienne blade for a lifetime tool. Shred your way through soft and hard vegetables alike for salads, slaws, hash browns and more. And when the blade eventually wears out, its easily replaceable with the turn of the screw.
Milk Street: Precision Peeler
Most peelers do a lousy job. The blades are made of inferior steel so they do not peel easily and the peel itself is often too thick. The blades dull over time so you have to throw it out. Many designs have uncomfortable handles or the handles are awkward since they are not aligned properly with the blade. And when it comes to thick, tough skins such as butternut squash, you might as well give up before you start. That is why we just redesigned the peeler, using top-grade 420 stainless steel for the replaceable blade (why don’t all peelers have replaceable blades?) and a handle that is big enough for a firm, easy grip. Try it just once and you will find that it peels like cutting through butter. It’s that good!
Skeppshult Cast-Iron Spice Mill
The gritty texture of Skeppshult's hand-held grinder makes it easier to coarsely grind spices and is designed so ingredients stay in a concentrated area for efficient crushing. The softly radiused iron base fits the hand well, and the walnut-wood top provides a better grip and looks beautiful. Weighing just over two pounds, it feels great, looks great and is a pleasure to use.
Hasegawa Wood Core Soft Rubber Cutting Board
This cutting board is not only durable, but it also will prolong the life of your knife blade. The “pull-and-slice” technique is the common way to slice food in Japanese cooking, which can often lead to chipped edges if using a hard cutting board. But this one is coated in layers of soft plastic that provides much better protection for your knives and protection for your fingers, since it’s non-slip. Plus, the material has strong antimicrobial properties—one of the highest standards in Japan—so it won’t hold germs as much as a standard cutting board would between uses. Its wood core keeps the cutting board from warping from use. And since it’s not entirely made of wood, it's much more lightweight to use.
Milk Street: Kitchin-tan™ Serrated Japanese-Style Utility Knife
The serrated Milk Street Kitchin-tan utility knife will be the most useful knife in your kitchen. It’s a pinch-hitting wonder that spans the gap between a chef’s knife and paring knife. It’s long enough for many big tasks, but small enough for detail work. We’ve taken the proven shape and functionality of the Kitchin-tan and added a maintenance-free serrated edge. The grippy razor teeth effortlessly slice though anything and everything: thick-skinned tomatoes and peppers, fibrous broccoli stems and asparagus stalks, rubbery citrus peels. You’ll be amazed at how often you use this knife.
Milk Street: Everything Pan with Glass Lid
Now featuring a glass lid! We consider a big, broken-in cast-iron skillet the most useful pan in any kitchen. It holds heat like no other cookware, develops a nonstick surface to rival the best coating and is virtually indestructible. But getting that well-seasoned surface? That takes time and effort to build up. Plus, the shape of a skillet has its limitations: Steep walls can result in food getting stuck in the corners or uneven cooking.
So we modernized the classic cast-iron skillet using a hybridized shape that combines the best of a skillet and a saucier in one. Like a skillet, the shorter, sloped sides of the Everything Pan provide maximum surface area for cooking—it has as much internal space as many 12-inch pans, even with its smaller 11-inch diameter. But like a saucier, we added rounded edges to aid with whisking and stirring for more even cooking. The curved edges where the bottom meets the side are rounded to help turn food and ensure nothing sticks in the corners.
From searing a steak or whisking up gravy to baking a skillet pan pizza or shallow-frying fritters, the Everything Pan will take you from breakfast through dinner and can go from the stove straight to the table, thanks to its gorgeous two-handled design and an exclusive, custom-fit magnetic wood trivet. The pan’s walls are low enough so that you can easily flip eggs and pancakes but tall enough to boil pasta or simmer soups and stews.
After casting, the Everything Pan is tumbled smooth—a final polishing step that most modern cast iron producers skip—which makes all the difference between the sleek, satin finish of a well-seasoned vintage pan and the rough, pebbled surface of most new pans. It’s then treated with a durable, all-natural vegetable oil seasoning, making it slippery-smooth right out of the box.
Milk Street: Small Nakiri
Introducing the Milk Street Small Nakiri, a companion piece to our full-scale vegetable knife. In Japan, nakiris come in all shapes and sizes to accommodate a variety of hands and chopping styles. Small nakiris, called ko-nakiri, are perfect for those who prefer using small knives or for the cook who wants a reliable knife that stands in for a paring knife or prep tool. It’s every bit as essential a kitchen tool as the full-scale knife.
Like its big brother, the Small Nakiri is the perfect tool for vegetable prep. Super thin, lightweight and razor sharp, it’s a nimble knife for all your slicing and dicing. It’ll precisely slice razor-thin ribbons of shallots, carrot coins or garlic cloves and turn a fluffy pile of parsley into confetti.
Both large and small nakiris have their roles to play for effortless prep. The Small Nakiri excels at the little stuff that can make a big knife feel awkward and even dangerous—slicing garlic into paper-thin slices, mincing shallots or onion into tiny cubes, shaving radishes, slicing mushrooms, shredding fine herbs into a feathery garnish and more.
This isn’t just a shrunk-down version of our full-size Nakiri. It’s reengineered top to bottom for impeccable small-scale function. The blade is roughly 4.5 inches long (just a little longer than most paring knives), so it feels just right for all the usual prep. It’s tall though—1.75 inches—so that it has all the benefits of a big knife: Never bang your knuckles on the cutting board, chop through big veggies and scoop up foods like a bench scraper to dump into the pot. Of course, the tall blade also shields your fingers during chopping. Also, the blade shape is tapered to the tip and curved to make the smaller blade function as effectively as the large version for slicing. Our signature lock-in handle is slightly scaled down for the smaller blade but every bit as comfortable and secure, regardless of hand size.
Like the larger Nakiri, the blade is embossed with a nonstick file pattern that replicates the kurouchi (blacksmith) finish to traditional nakiris, so sliced ingredients fall right off. A gentle curve at the butt accommodates fingers when choking up tight for control, and the handle has been designed to provide a nonslip grip.
Raisenne Round Bread Dough Riser
Here’s our problem with proofing: You can never fully control the environment. Your kitchen on a hot and humid summer day might be okay for high-moisture breads, but leave others dense and squat. And if it’s too hot, then you run the risk of the dough rising too fast and not having enough time to develop flavor. But a chilly air-conditioned kitchen will extend the proofing time significantly, as yeast divides and grows much slower in cold temps. That’s why we love this unique dough riser—it takes the guesswork and the risk out of the proofing process. Our kitchen team was incredibly impressed with how perfectly the dough turned out each time. We made loaves with and without using the Raisenne and the loaf made with the tool came out a half inch taller and a half inch wider. It’s compatible with any dough that needs to be leavened and is especially great for low-yeast and whole-grain breads that have longer rest times. Simply place the thin disk under your bowl or pan of choice, plug it in and let the heating circuits do the rest. It heats to an ideal 85 degrees, which is the optimal temperature to let your loaf grow at a consistent pace without sacrificing flavor for speed.
Cuisipro: Box Grater
This box grater features four cutting sides—coarse grate, medium grate, fine grate and slice—all made from etched metal, which increases each blade’s sharpness and durability, and they won’t buckle under pressure. And unlike other brands, which often have a thick frame of metal or plastic between each cutting surface, Cuisipro extends each of their grater's cutting surfaces to the edge: more area means easier slicing, quicker grating and less work, so you can tackle soft foods like certain cheeses and sturdy veggies like carrots with ease. Plus, there aren’t any extra nooks and crannies for bits of food to get stuck in, making for easier cleanup. Its ergonomic top handle is coated in comfortable, nonslip rubber, and the grater has a rubberized detachable base that holds it steady, measures volume and collects the gratings. You can simply grate, measure, remove and dump directly into your pan without extra fuss.
Suehiro Ceramic Water Wheel Knife Sharpener for Double Beveled Knife
This easy-to-use sharpener is the perfect introduction for anyone new to knife maintenance. The handheld Suehiro sharpener contains two synthetic whetstones, which are made from ceramic and joined together to form a ‘roller.’ The roller is fitted inside a refillable water tank at the exact angle for sharpening. To use, simply add water to the tank (whetstones work best when wet), grip the handle, and run a knife back and forth through the roller.
The Suehiro is recommended for the occasional full sharpening, rather than daily honing. Steel honing rods are popular among home cooks for their speed and convenience, but what many don’t realize is that they don’t actually provide a long-lasting edge on your blade. This innovative knife sharpener solves that problem, delivering a better edge every time in a convenient hand-held package that does the job in a fraction of the time.
Field Company Lightweight Cast-Iron Skillets
Field's cast-iron skillets work just as well as other brands but are so much more lightweight—the 10-inch model weighs just 4 pounds, at least 20% less than other models. The inside of the pans are also well burnished so they're smooth, not rough, for low-stick cooking, especially if you've seasoned your skillet properly. The Field skillets come pre-seasoned and are available in a range of sizes to suit the needs of any home cook. Choose between the No. 4, a compact 6-inch pan that's perfect for morning eggs and personal grilled cheese; the medium-sized 10-inch No. 8 or 12-inch No. 10; or the No. 12, a generous 14-inch skillet that is our favorite for big batches and campfire cooking. You can purchase the custom Field Company cast iron lids here.