A few weeks ago, I brought my fine mesh strainer to a friend’s house for a cooking project and forgot to take it home, kicking off 36 hours of torment.
“I don’t have my strainer,” I thought while waiting on the subway platform. “I don’t have my strainer,” I thought upon waking up the next morning. “No strainer, no strainer,” I chanted quietly on the way home from work, hoping to keep myself from falling into the trap I knew was coming—but it was no use. Once I was through the door, like a body possessed, I opened a can of chickpeas and reached toward the place where the tool usually lives, finding only sad emptiness instead. “The strainer’s gone,” my boyfriend said helpfully, as I bellowed in frustration like an animal. “I have no idea what we’re going to cook.”
Like a Swiss Army knife or Inspector Gadget, a fine mesh strainer is ready for anything. I bought mine originally to rinse delicate farmers market raspberries, but now use it at least three times a day, for a wildly varied set of tasks. Draining beans and strainingpasta? Obviously. Sifting cocoa powder overtiramisu? Mesh is the move. Steaming puffygua baoon the stove? No better tool for the job. It’s as much acooking essentialin my home as asharp knifeor good wooden spoon, playing a role in almost every mealtime.
Fine mesh strainers come in all shapes and sizes, fromteeny and pointy at the bottomtostand-alone and very large. Mine, from Winco, is 8 inches in diameter, which I’ve found to be the perfect width: large enough to hold a whole box of cooked pasta but still easy to house in a countertop utensil crock. The wooden handle doesn’t get hot, and the two little hooks fit nicely around the lip of a bowl or pot, for hands-free draining. I’ll admit that depending on what you’re using it for, the mesh can call for some enthusiastic cleaning; when gunk gets stuck in the little holes, you have to really go at it with aspongeto clear everything out. But all good things in life require some work, and a little elbow grease is nothing compared to my strainer’s years of tireless service.
Dependable and versatile, inexpensive and no-nonsense, it’s possible that a fine mesh strainer is the ideal kitchen tool. Owning one has made me a better and more efficient cook in all the ways that I expected and some surprising ones, too: With its help, for instance, I can now reliablypoach an egg. It's the best next purchase if you're in the market for a quiet powerhouse, able to make itself useful no matter the project. As for me, I'm about to buy myself a second, so I’ll never have to know what it’s like to live a strainer-free life again.
