Product Review: Kuhn Rikon Knife Block Clear, Pocket Maker Set, and Box Mandoline and Grater

The Ranting Chef does not get paid or receive any revenue from manufactures or retailers of products reviewed. I occasionally receive products that I am asked to use and see what I think. I take a look, try them out and tell you all about them.

I am happy today to showcase a set of tools that Kuhn Rikon sent over for a review. Kuhn Rikon is a kitchen and cookware design company located in Rikon, Switzerland. Let’s see what they sent.

There were three things in the box: the Knife Block Clear, Pocket Maker Set, and the Box Mandoline and Grater.

Let’s look at the Knife Block Clear first.

One of the problems with wooden knife blocks is seeing what knife is where. Most times the handles all look similar and there are times you may pull out and replace several knives before you find the one that you want. The Knife Block Clear solves that.

The block easily holds more than a dozen knives of all shapes and sizes. I even have a pair of kitchen shears in the block.

The two knives at the end here are a large chef’s knife and right behind it a long bread knife. No problem. It will take knives up to 8″ in length.

The top of the block contains these flexible sleeves. They allow you to put in quite a few knives and they flax to allow wider blades as needed, but also help to hold the knife in place. The top comes out to allow the block to be easily cleaned inside and out.

The next item is the Pocket Maker Set.

Inside the box are three cutters and a recipe book. The Ranting Wife has done quite a bit of scrapbooking in her life and these remind me of some of the shaped paper cutters she has.

When you see the bottom of the cutters, you see how the edges have a crimping pattern. Let’s put them to work.

I decided to roll out some pie dough and lightly pressed the cutters into the dough. That gave me an idea of how much filling to put inside (I always have to fight my natural inclination of putting too much filling into items like this). I then added some canned cherry pie filling.

Around the edges where the shape was pressed in, I used an egg wash. This will help the pockets seal properly.

Lay over more pie crust dough. Press down with your fingers around the mounds to start the sealing.

Place a cutter over a mound and press the center button to crimp the sides. Make sure the edge of the cutter cuts through the dough. Repeat.

Remove the excess dough and sprinkle with a little sugar. You can see that my overfilling caused some of the dough to stretch a bit.

Out of the oven. The leaks, again, are from my overfilling, but I actually like a little color peeking through.

Perfect little hand pies!

The last item is the Box Mandoline and Grater.

This three-in-one tool contains a clear box with a lid, handle, hand guard and three cutting blades. The blades and guard easily stores in the box.

First up is the mandolin blade. It snaps securely on the top.

Using the guard, I easily sliced a handful of red skinned potatoes in even, thin slices by running it back and forth across the blade.

 

All of this was sliced within 30 seconds. Easy as pie!

Next up, the grater top.

A block of cheddar is our test cheese today. Again, using the hand guard to protect my fingers.

This top finely grates the cheese. I needed about ¼ cup and it was quick and easy.

The last top is the Julienne grater.

I needed some grated cucumber, so after peeling the cucumber, it was time to give the box a try. I started holding the vegetable.

Very quickly it was cut and I switched to the hand guard to finish.

So easy to shred! What do I think of these products from Kuhn Rikon?

My Take: These are three great products from Kuhn Rikon. The Knife Block Clear is a stylish way to display and store your knives and it takes the guesswork out of which knife you are grabbing. The Pocket Maker Set makes it really easy to create both sweet and savory meat pies for a fun lunch, quick snack or dessert. The Box Mandoline and Grater is a multi-tool for three different cuts. It is easy to use, easy to clean and is a compact way for get more tools into a cramped kitchen. Look for these products at various retailers or you can find where to get them here.