Everyone needs a strainer, right? Whether it's to drain the water from potatoes or rinse some berries, it's a handy thing to have. Sure, there are ways to work around it. For years, I just tilted a pot lid to restrain the contents and used that to drain liquid from pots.It wasn't the best way to do things, but it worked. Most of the time.
Now ... I have more strainers than I should admit to. Small, large, fine mesh large holes ... and now there's one more. The collapsible silicone strainer ($30) from Core Kitchen has a few features that make it more useful than the typical metal strainer.
First, the collapsible feature is nice. Anything that can compress itself for storage gets a thumbs-up from me.
But this also works well as a steamer basket, which gets an even bigger thumbs-up. I've used the metal steamers that sit in the bottom of a pot, but they're sort of awkward to use. This is simpler, and it's not an extra thing I need to find space for. And if you want to fill the pot with water and boil in the strainer, you can do that, too - it's safe in boiling water and in the dishwasher.
Overall, I think this is a great idea, particularly for people who don't have a lot of storage space. Earthshaking, no. But useful and practical.
The product was supplied for the purpose of a review on Serious Eats; this was previously published on Serious Eats.
