The visp, a Swedish birch whisk, makes the smoothest roux imaginable and excels at pan sauces. It is plastic and silicone free. I am also a fan of bamboo balloon whisks. If, like me, you have cookware that needs tools that do not scratch, these are great options.
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I haven’t used this brand(?). But I use birch and bent-cane ones.
Would you please describe how you use this, and especially how you wash/clean it? I think that latter aspect tilts the brains of many…
You burn it and make a new one in the garden
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Ah, but you don’t burn and remake with each use. See, https://naokimatcha.com/blogs/articles/a-guide-on-how-to-care-for-bamboo-matcha-whisk-properly
I use it chiefly to whisk a roux in the pan and as I am adding liquid. I also use it for pan sauces that require extreme smoothness but not enough so for me to use a chinois or the like. To clean it, I put it in a deep pan with very hot water, perhaps with some detergent, spin it around, and then rinse it under a fairly high pressure spray at the sink. It does not need as much babying as a matcha whisk and last quite well. Just be sure the string stays tight. I used cooking twine around the birch wraps.
Hose clamp.
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Good idea.
I’m really glad you posted this. Natural-material whisks are yet another culinary tool that the Letter Generations have never experienced. Therefore, even when they’re shown one, they would never consider getting or using one. The knowledge and appreciation are lost.
This echoes the retinal blind spot of tinned copper. It’s not used in cooking schools any longer, doesn’t appear in advertising, cooking shows and videos, and requires searching to find. Hence, copper’s benefits are generally lost on practically everyone.
Oh yes. The list goes on and on. The younger cooks grab nonstick or silicone rather than tinned steel molds, also nonstick in lieu of baker’s steel loaf pans (or a bread machine) or sheet pans. Stainless knives have made carbon knives, other than Japanese and other Asian knives, practically a cult. All manner of other materials (plastic, rubber, bamboo composites, titanium) are being lauded for cutting boards. Using ceramic for cooking has also become much less common. These, along with tinned copper, are the things with which I was taught in the early 1970s, and before I left Paris I had begun to collect them. They wear very well. They put you in close touch with your food. They are microplastic and forever chemicals free. Also, they generally make for better cooking when used in lieu of nonstick or silicone.
This deserves a thread of its own: Getting in closer touch with food. Or rather: The price of losing that touch.
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Looks similar to our sauna ‘viht’, sans leaves.
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