Chef's Press: The Kitchen Tool You Didn't Know You Needed
2012 — Husk Restaurant. Chris Lord, a lowly stagiere, enters the stage.
Sean Brock, the chef to watch at the time, led a talented team of cooks to reclaim the food of the Low Country. Obviously a huge influence on the food I eventually cooked at Union in Ottawa, I absorbed a lot in the short period of time I spent in that kitchen; pulled vinegar out of fizzy Cheerwine, diced bacon until my fingers became more blister than not, and a mental treasure chest of ingredients no one back home even knew about—if you’re nice, I may tell you about the time I got caught smuggling Tennessee hams into Canada…
After hours of prep drudgery, I was assigned to the fish cook working a gleaming flat top for service—crisping sheepshead, wreckfish, and grouper, each under a delicate mass of stainless steel. The weight kept the skin in constant contact with the cooktop, resulting in the most knife-scrape-on-Tik-Tok worthy protein I’d ever seen. I wish I could tell you that I came home and invented The Chef’s Press after that formative moment, but Bruce Hill beat me to it.
After years of using bulky cast-iron bacon presses, Chef Hill was inspired to make something that would be useful in any kitchen. After many iterations and a whole lot of prototyping, 2017 saw the creation of the Chef’s Press, now available in our stores and across the world. USA-made stainless steel (easy to wash and care for) and vented to allow steam an escape route from your not-yet-seared steak. The grooves and handles make it so you can stack a few where more weight is needed or shingle them across a larger piece of food. These have now become an absolute staple in my kitchen.
While there are several sizes and shapes, the basic idea is the same—constant gentle pressure will decrease cooking times by keeping tasty morsels in constant contact with cooking surfaces. They also do a spiffy job of keeping sauerkraut under the brine, or your chicken submerged in buttermilk.
8oz. - use for delicate foods like fish and vegetables, or the best goddamned grilled cheese you ever had.
13oz. - thicker pieces of meat or heartier veggies on the grill or in the pan. Imagine the crust on a prime NY striploin, after using one of these and basting it in garlicky herb butter. Try not to drool on your screen…
18oz. - Sub this in the next time a recipe calls for a brick, a la pollo al mattone; who needs rocks when you’ve got steel? Pretty sure the Iron Age replaced the Stone Age but what do I know, I’m just a cook not an anthropologist.
17oz. (Round) - all of the above, but especially when using a 10-inch pan for gooey quesadillas. It also fits large cambros containers, perfect for keeping a ham or brisket submerged in brine for ten days.
I’d recommend grabbing a Starter Pack of two 8oz presses, and one 13oz press to start. Having multiples lets you spread them out over a bigger piece of meat or cook individual portions. Mine literally sit next to the stove and my growing stack of pans. It’s shocking how quickly this becomes something you can’t dream of living without like a laser sharp gyuto or perfectly worn wooden spoon.
