15 Kitchen Utensils That Will Give You Abuela-Status Cooking Skills

Taking those first few steps away from the family home into some sort of adulthood is a painful process. As the keys on our ring multiply, things get complicated: there’s the expense, the responsibilities, the interminable laundry. The cruelest gut-punch of them all may well be having to abandon all that good home cooking: the rice and beans, the tostones, homemade salsa. If you work all day or live on your own or — gasp! — are the one in charge of getting dinner on the table, there is nothing more comforting and nostalgia-satisfying than the smells of home from your own kitchen right now.

Of course, you don’t have all day to simmer stock for the pozole or fold tamales, so make sure you grab a box of stock and pre-ground masa at the store. Below, we’ve got you covered with all the gadgets you will need to make the dishes you crave at home. Some of them are the same the same utensils the abuelas use, while others are updated versions of classic tools that will make your life even easier. No one is suggesting that it is even possible to top your abuela’s ajiaco, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying

2 Tortilla Press

Tortilla Press BeLatina Kitchen

Nearly impossible to convince anyone who grew up with homemade tortillas to settle for store-bought, a tortilladora or tortilla press makes half the work easy. Mix and knead a batch of masa and pop individual balls into the press. With a single move you will have flat tortilla yumminess, ready for the skillet. Using the same technique, you can make corn empanada skins, arepas, and best of all, no more fiddling with scalding hot plantains for tostones. After frying the plátano the first time, press the softened plantain in the pre-seasoned cast iron press and fry the now-flat tostón again, until crunchy.