How to Use a Spider Strainer

Once relegated to Asian restaurants and ethnic cooking, the spider strainer has become a much more universal kitchenware item in the last couple of decades. It is praised for its versatility and durability, and home cooks are continuing to find more and more uses for this amazingly simple gadget. Read on, and soon you too will be rushing to the store to purchase your next "can't cook without it" piece of cookware.

Instructions

1. Strain and shock your green veggies with it. The most common use for the spider strainer has quickly become its repurposing as a makeshift strainer for vegetables, especially for those veggies which needs to be boiled quickly, then shocked in cold water. If you try boiling green vegetables in a pot, and want to shock them in cold water after a quick simmer to retain color, you may have difficulty doing so if you are trying to bring the entire pot to the sink to drain in a colander, then taking the colander back to where your ice bath is to shock them. Not to mention, if you want to boil something else, you have to start a new pot of boiling water. Instead, dip your spider strainer into the boiler water and fish out the veggies and throw them directly into the ice bath. This will conserve the boiling water, and get the job done in a flash.

2. Rescue your deep fried foods. Deep fryers are convenient, because they have a built in basket that can take out all of your fried foods when they're ready, but they can be expensive. Next time you want to deep fry something, whip out your cast iron Dutch oven and spider strainer. Fill the Dutch oven two-thirds full of oil and heat to the desired temperature. Fry up whatever foods you wish to cook, and when they're done, use the spider strainer to bring them out of their hot oily bath. Season the food immediately and wash your spider strainer with soap.

3. Steam single servings of vegetables. If you're cooking for yourself, you know how frustrating it can be to prepare single servings of any kind of vegetable. With a spider strainer, you can easily cut up a personal sized portion of your favorite vegetable, like broccoli or cauliflower, and use the strainer to steam it. Start a rolling boil in a small pot, and once the water is going steadily, hold the strainer with the vegetables in it over the steaming water for two or three minutes. This will be the perfect amount of time for a slight steam that will cook the vegetables, but still maintain their delicious crunch, as well and water when you're done.

4. Use your spider strainer as a soup making aid. When boiling a chicken to make chicken soup, the real work happens when you have to search through the soup to sort out the meat and bones of the chicken. When a chicken boils for an hour or so, it becomes so tender that it falls apart. This makes it difficult to truly capture all of the bones, and also go through each of the chicken's parts to shred the meat and discard any cartilage that might remain. If you use your spider strainer to sift through the soup after the chicken has cooked for at least an hour, you will be able to retrieve the protein in large chunks that you can then sort through outside of the soup, shredding the meat, discarding the bone and cartilage and returning the meat to the soup, making it ready to serve immediately.