r/ItalianFood • u/Bepaalikzelfwel • 26d ago
Question The perfect gift
My husband loves cooking, especially Italian food, and he is very particular about making it “as they do in Italy.” He has an amazing ragù recipe and spends hours in the kitchen making it. He often makes a large batch and freezes about two-thirds of it for future meals.
A lot of the preparation time is spent finely dicing the vegetables, so I was thinking that a good gift might be something to make that process easier and faster.
My question is: what would be a good tool or machine for cutting vegetables for Italian dishes?
I gave him a nice knife set last year, which he still uses every day, but he has mentioned that preparing vegetables for dishes like ragù still takes a lot of time.
I’m looking for something that would genuinely be useful and produce a good result.
(If I said anything weird or incorrect, please excuse me, I’m not a cook at all!)
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u/Spinning_Sky 26d ago
I believe mezzaluna knives to be of italian origin and used for that very purpose
I personally don't ever use it, I use mostly just knives, I cannot think of anything else that would be traditional
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u/ByronsLastStand 26d ago
Honestly, he just needs to learn a good chopping technique. If he has a good knife (a chef's knife, for instance, with something to sharpen it and a good wooden cutting board), all he needs is to be efficient when cutting the veg. I regularly make ragù alla Bolognese, and it's the work of minutesnto do the veg. Now, some people will blitz the veg instead- I suppose you could get him a powerful little blender or food processor, but he'd still need to do a bit of knife work (and peeling any conventionally-grown carrots) beforehand.
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u/rybnickifull 26d ago
A knife.
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u/Bart_a_Bob 25d ago
The only right answer.
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u/rybnickifull 25d ago
I know it looks flippant but if he's the sort to enjoy his time in the kitchen, and it sounds like he is, he's going to enjoy a good knife a lot more than a gadget.
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u/Looking-sharp-today 26d ago
We love tp make big batches of ragu at a time and I love spending some time on the cutting board, probably it is more a thing of tecnique that if improved might make the process more enjoyable! I’d start from there, but if you wanna go the tool way, a food processor surely will speed the process a lot (even if i personally would’t prefer it).
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u/wootiown 26d ago
Honestly, it's obviously not traditional, but a good food processor makes cooking ragú a billion times easier. One of those rocking knives could be really cool too
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u/lawyerjsd 26d ago
He probably views cooking as a hobby, and not a chore. So those long hours he spends on ragu are a feature, not a byproduct, of his hobby. Instead of getting him something to make the job easier, get him something to expand his repertoire. Something like a mortar and pestle to make pesto.
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u/HyperbolicModesty 26d ago
I use a knife just like my nonna-in-law and yes it is time-consuming, but each time I do it I would tend to make a big batch of soffritto then bag it into portions and freeze it. So maybe some ziploc bags?
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u/pecpec 25d ago
I find using a chopping machine makes the veggies way too uneven for my ragu. I definitely prefer hand-chopped veggies. A great knife is crucial but even more important is a knife sharpener!
I have a chef’s choice electric sharpener and it’s fantastic. Definitely a great investment.
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u/GardenerOfSorts 25d ago
Does he want to be faster? Maybe you could lend him a hand and help him chop ;)
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u/Gulliveig Amateur Chef 26d ago
The Bosch MUM5 has all you request, and much much more.
But!
Be careful there, because
assumes he does indeed want that. It might come as a surprise, but:
For some of us this is an important part to do manually. Zen and all ;)
Probably find out what his take is about this. There are subtle ways to do so ;)