Kitchen Gadgets That Feel Illegal: Three Controversial Tools Tested

Introduction

Some kitchen gadgets earn their place on the counter. Others look like they belong in a toolbox, a toy chest, or somewhere best not discussed at dinner. We put three of the most talked-about gadgets through hands-on testing to see which ones justify their existence: an electric fish fillet knife, a pump-action salt launcher for flies, and an intelligent health grill that promises to cook your steak perfectly every time.

Evaluation Criteria

Each gadget was tested for real-world usefulness, safety, build quality, and value for money. Price guesses were compared against actual purchase costs, and every product was scored on performance rather than novelty appeal.

DuraTech Electric Fish Fillet Knife

The DuraTech electric fish fillet knife looks more like a power tool than kitchen equipment. It promises smooth and efficient cutting, backed by a high-performance motor delivering a maximum idle speed of 2,800 RPM with a 4.5 millimeter reciprocating stroke. It is USB chargeable and comes with two food-grade stainless steel blades, 20 centimeters and 25 centimeters, marketed for everything from bass, tilapia, and cod down to perch, sole, and trout.

Filleting a fish properly requires a bendy blade, precision, and the ability to feel the knife running along the bone. That is where this tool struggles. The heavy motor base means you cannot grip the bolster, and the reciprocating action bounces rather than glides, producing noticeably more waste because you cannot get your fingers behind the bone for control. There is at least a hand guard and a safety catch, which made blade changes feel secure.

On camera, the cuts can look efficient, but the loss of feel and control is significant. Customer reviews tend not to flag it as dangerous, but they do frequently call it overpowered, unnecessary, and best suited to large fish. At around £43, it sits at power tool pricing, and traditional filleting with a sharp flexible knife remains the better option for most home cooks.

Bug-A-Salt

The Bug-A-Salt is a non-toxic pump-action plastic device that uses ordinary table salt as ammunition to eliminate flies, marketed as the UK’s favorite way to clear flies from around food in the kitchen. It features a trigger, a pump action, and even an add-on laser sight, and the whole package cost £51.99 in this test.

In use, it is genuinely fun to pick up and does fire a spread of salt convincingly. However, biologist Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology has claimed that salt will typically only stun flies rather than kill them, since their arthropod exoskeleton offers protection. In practice, that means the device may be functionally closer to a very elaborate “go away” than an elimination tool.

There is also a broader question about adults buying gun-shaped kitchen toys with triggers and laser sights. It does exactly what it claims, which earns it some credit, but it is more novelty than necessity, and the price is hard to justify for something that mostly stuns its targets. It scored highest of the three gadgets tested here, largely because it delivers on its own narrow promise.

T-Fal OptiGrill

The T-Fal OptiGrill is billed as the brand’s most intelligent health grill, with a built-in sensor that measures the thickness of your food and tailors cooking time and temperature to guarantee perfect results. It offers settings for beef, burgers, sausages, panini, and fish, plus a steak mode with rare, medium rare, and medium targets. The dimpled plates also include a frozen-meat function, which raised more than a few eyebrows.

In testing, the grill did measure thickness and count down through color-coded cooking stages, adjusting timing as it went. The steak came off with an internal reading of 72 degrees, then equalized to around 60 after five minutes of resting, landing at what most would accept as a fair medium. The catch is that the sensor cannot know fat content, starting temperature, or the cut of steak involved, so results appear to rely on broad averages rather than true precision.

For someone who wants to set it, forget it, and pull dinner off when it beeps, the appeal is real. But the RRP of £229.99 is difficult to defend for what is essentially a smarter contact grill, even at the discounted £138 purchase price in this test. The verdict: it is not illegal, it is just naff, and being smart for the sake of being smart rarely justifies a premium.

Overall Buying Advice

Across these three gadgets, a clear pattern emerges: the more a product promises to replace skill with technology, the more carefully you should check the reviews. The DuraTech suits nobody who cares about clean fillets and control. The Bug-A-Salt is a fun gift for the right person but stuns more than it kills. The OptiGrill works reasonably well within its limits but is overpriced at full RRP. Buy for genuine need, not for the gimmick.

Conclusion

The salt launcher narrowly won this round by simply doing what it says, while the electric fillet knife flopped against a sharp blade and decades of tradition, and the intelligent grill impressed and frustrated in equal measure. If these gadgets taught us anything, it is that clever marketing and clever engineering are not the same thing. Choose the tool that matches your actual cooking habits, not the one that promises miracles.