Do You Have a Bench Scrape? You Should.

By Julie

My favorite thing about cooking is the chopping. I know most of you are rolling your eyes because you hate this part, but I love it. I’ve spent a lot of time practicing, and now that I have a proper chef’s knife, I feel like I’m a fairly decent chopper/dicer. My technique may not be perfect, but I can make some teeny tiny pieces.

But then, my pride always kicks in, and I always think that, of course I can move that giant mound of onions from the cutting board to the skillet with just a wooden spoon or a spatula. Cut to itty bitty onions all over my kitchen floor.

But now I save myself a lot of mopping because of one little tool. If you don’t have a bench scrape, go get one right now.

{Photo Credit: www.bedbathandbeyond.com}

I use this thing to transfer ingredients, to divide large piles into portions, and to easily cut dough and ground meat into smaller sections without getting my fingers dirty. And as the name implies, it’s great for scraping off surfaces and making sure you pick up every last bit of whatever you’ve just chopped.

I realize this is pretty elementary, and most folks probably already have bench scrapes, but I swear this was a revelation to me. I love this little thing. Such a simple tool to make my time in the kitchen that much more enjoyable.

Comments

[Kay]

I have one of these and thought I'd use it all the time but I just don't. Whenever I chop stuff (which I love also), I usually use the knife blade to transfer to the pan. I did see someone using this bench scrape (I had no idea what it's name was) to cut dough and I will probably start using it for that since I've been really into making my own dough lately.

[Daniela]

I have one of these - I put garlic cloves underneath it and then pound on it and voila - all the garlic skins come off! Graham Kerr used to do this trick and he calle this thing his "bash and chop"