Four Kitchen Gadgets Put to the Test: Bread Slicer, Oil Strainer Pot, Sink Strainer and Flavour Blaster

Introduction

Kitchen gadgets promise to solve problems we sometimes did not know we had. To find out which ones actually earn a counter space, a professional chef and an everyday home cook put four popular products through hands-on testing: a manual bread slicer, a two-in-one oil strainer pot, a suction cup sink strainer and a drink aromatising toy called the Flavour Blaster Mini 2. The results were a genuine split, with two clear winners and two that left testers unconvinced.

Zassenhaus Bread Slicer

Zassenhaus has a long history with kitchen machinery, with bread slicing machines a fixture of the household as far back as 1904, and the brand positions this modern slicer as a revival of that era. The design is straightforward: a cranked blade sits in the middle of the frame, and a guide adjusts to set your slice thickness. You push the bread against the straight-edge guide, slide the blade through, and your slice falls out of the back.

In use, the testers found it very easy and remarkably even. The consensus was that it is not necessarily easier than a good bread knife, but it is far more consistent, producing perfectly flat, uniform slices that would be impossible to match by hand. One tester, initially sceptical, reversed course after seeing the results and admitted they could not cut a quarter-inch slice that evenly themselves.

There are caveats. The suction feet that hold the machine in place did not grip well on the polished test surface, and the testers suggested most kitchen surfaces would struggle, noting that a bench-clamp design would suit it better. It is also bulky, taking up considerably more space than a bread knife, and it needs a partner hand to hold the bread steady at times. Still, the craftsmanship and operating feel earned praise, and it was judged a cut above most bread-related gadgets tested in that kitchen.

Two-in-One Oil Strainer Pot

The next gadget is a compact two-in-one oil strainer pot, built around a large fine mesh filter net inside the pot. The pitch is simple: after deep frying, pour the oil through the built-in filter to catch debris, then store the cleaned oil for reuse without messy, cumbersome straining.

From a food safety and oil management standpoint, the chef was immediately on board. If you fry at home in a pan, straining scraps out of the oil quickly keeps it cleaner for longer, and the built-in spout solves the very real problem of oil slopping down the side of a spoutless pan when you pour it away.

In practice, the frying side has limitations. The pot uses less oil than a conventional fryer pan and heats faster for small portions, but a small volume of oil also drops temperature quickly when cold food goes in, so it is best for individual portions of small foods. Larger items such as schnitzel-style cuts struggle in the basket, and battered foods like tempura or onion rings are a poor fit because items stick together. The handle also heats up noticeably during frying.

Where it shines is filtration and storage. The fine mesh did catch the debris, and having a dedicated lidded container for used oil frees up your saucepans for other jobs. The verdict: as a multipurpose pot for pasta, noodles, asparagus and oil storage at around 22 pounds, it works well. As a dedicated fryer, it is less convincing.

Suction Cup Sink Strainer

The third gadget is a suction cup sink strainer, a flexible mesh net that suctions to the side of the sink to catch food waste, doubling as a small drying rack. It aims to keep drains unclogged and counters tidy, and similar rigid metal versions exist built into high-end sinks.

The testers liked the principle more than the execution. Suction grip was genuinely good, and for someone with a small sink and limited tap movement, catching scraps before they hit the plug hole has real appeal. But the experience of using it felt fiddly: the mesh stretched and tore under rough handling, retrieving caught waste meant putting fingers through soggy debris, and emptying it meant lifting water-dripping netting up and over the draining board.

The recurring criticism of the day landed here too: it seems to solve a problem that was not really there. At around 13.99 pounds it is inexpensive, but the panel’s verdict was blunt, and the suction strainer did not win anyone over.

Flavour Blaster Mini 2

The final gadget arrived boxed, and the unboxing alone earned compliments. The Flavour Blaster Mini 2 is a handheld machine that infuses drinks and food with bursts of flavour and aroma, most famously by forming a large aromatic bubble that sits on top of a cocktail until you pop it and inhale the scent.

Operation is simple: a flavour vial loads into the gun, a bubble solution goes into the gold saucer at the nozzle, and a few trigger presses forms a bubble. In testing, the results delighted everyone. The bubble landed perfectly on the cocktail, the room filled with citrus aroma, and the testers had great fun floating bubbles through the air and popping them. The drinks were already good, but the gadget added a genuine element of theatre.

Does it actually change the flavour? Honestly, no. What it adds is aroma and spectacle, which, as the chef pointed out, is roughly half of what cocktail bars sell anyway. Beyond drinks, there are plausible food applications: a pine-scented aroma over a rich seasonal venison dish with root vegetables and mushrooms would not improve the dish itself, but it could elevate the experience of eating it.

At 199.95 pounds it is far from cheap, but the testers argued the price is defensible. For event and party organisers, weddings, hen and stag dos and Christmas parties, it adds a memorable flourish, and it does exactly what it sets out to do: make cocktails even more fun than they already are.

Overall Buying Advice

Two of these gadgets earn their place. The Zassenhaus bread slicer is worth it for households that go through a lot of bread and value perfectly even slices, provided you have counter space and a surface it can grip. The oil strainer pot is a genuinely useful low-cost buy for anyone who fries at home occasionally, as long as you treat it as a multi-purpose pot rather than a full fryer. The suction sink strainer is cheap but skippable. The Flavour Blaster Mini 2 is a luxury, but a delightfully effective one for anyone who entertains.

Conclusion

Tested side by side, the pattern is clear: gadgets that remove real friction from everyday tasks, like even bread slicing and clean oil reuse, justify themselves. Gadgets that reinvent solutions you already own, like the sink strainer, do not. And then there is the Flavour Blaster, which solves no problem at all and is all the better for it.