Smoking gun

Our pick: PolyScience Smoking Gun 

Turn anything from meats and cocktails to salads and fruits into a flavour bomb, using combustibles like wood chips, herbs, spices and tea in your handheld smoking gun.

Meat thermometer

Our pick: Taylor Precision Products Classic Style Meat Dial Thermometer 

If you’re the sort that obsesses over the perfect medium rare steak, a meat thermometer is a handy addition to your kitchen. A basic one that measures between 100-200 degrees fahrenheit and mentions optimum temperatures for each kind of meat should do the trick.

Coffee maker

Our pick: AeroPress

A good coffee maker can shorten your brew time to under a minute, micro-filter it for grit-free coffee and rid it of any bitterness or phthalates.

Coffee bean roaster

Our pick: Gene Café CBR-101

For coffee enthusiasts, few things are as blissful as an excellent roaster that is capable of producing about a kilo of uniformly roasted coffee — right at home.

Bottle opener

Our pick: Bropener 

Let’s face it; you always need an opener handy. And it can’t get better than one that magnetically latches on to any sturdy surface — a fridge, a countertop, your car or even a boat.

Blowtorch

Our pick: Master Class Professional Cooks Blowtorch

Easy to grip, non-flare and with a long-lasting fuel cylinder. Use your blowtorch to caramelise sugar, skin tomatoes and peppers and crisp joints of meat.

Meat tenderizer

Our pick: DCI Knuckle Pounder Meat Tenderizer

Got a tough cut of steak to cook, or a schnitzel to flatten? No better way to do it than like a badass, we say.

Smart kettle

Our pick: iKettle

There is such a thing as a Wi-Fi kettle that you can control with a smartphone app. You can operate it from within your home or outside, instructing it to create your cuppa, sett the temperature or keep your brew warm. It’ll even let you add your friends as users.

Beer foamer

Our pick: Sonic Foamer

Even beer needs great head… to look great and to bring out the flavour of hops and malts. A foamer is one of those bar tricks that will never fail to make your brew look perfectly frothy, as well as bring out consistent taste.

Stench remover

Our pick: Amco Rub Away Bar

Cooking a meal for the lady also means that you need to rid your hands of the stench of raw ingredients when you dine with her. Stock up on a bar that fights off stubborn odours, like that from onions, fish, eggs and garlic.

Smoothie maker

Our pick: NutriBullet

Pick a good blender that yields your daily smoothie — ideally a mix of fruits and veggies — keeping it as unprocessed and nutrient-packed as ever. It’s got to be compact, easy to clean and gets bonus points for doubling up as a glass.

Sous Vide machine

Our pick: Nomiku Sous Vide Immersion Circulator

Clip one onto any pot you own to turn it into a precisely controlled water bath. A must-have for carnivores who want to cook their meat quickly, evenly and retain all its juices and flavour.