Philippe Chow’s new kitchen gadget is indispensable

Philippe Chow is an accomplished chef from Hong Kong who has worked in some of the most exciting kitchens in the world. His eponymous New York restaurant, Philippe, is one of Manhattan’s most renowned Chinese restaurants, focusing on classic Beijing-style Chinese cuisine in an elegant dining room. He sat down for an exclusive interview with Tasting Table at this year’s New York Wine & Food Festival (NYCWFF), where his restaurant served unique chicken satay during Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits Trade Day. During our conversation, Chow told us about one gadget that recently entered his life and completely changed the game in the kitchen: a machine that peels shrimp for you.

“(The machine) is much faster than people who (peel by hand),” he said. We see the appeal – One of the most common questions when preparing shrimp is whether home cooks should clean the shrimp before cooking. And before you can clean the shrimp, you have to peel them, which makes the cooking process much longer; it is laborious and often frustrating. But with a machine like Chow’s, preparing shrimp can be as simple as loading the shrimp into the machine, selecting the cleaned, shelled meat, and tossing the shrimp into whatever dish you choose.

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A machine that will peel shrimp for you

Philippe Chow did not reveal the name of the specific shrimp peeling machine he recently started using, but there are several restaurant-grade machines on the market that can peel and separate hundreds of shrimp per hour. While a home kitchen may not need something that meets these performance standards, the potential for a similar peeling machine like this in the home kitchen is huge, since purchasing peeled and cleaned shrimp from the grocery or fish market is often quite expensive.

However, in restaurant kitchens, having a shrimp peeling machine for kitchen staff is the ultimate culinary trick – it allows them to purchase fresher ingredients at a lower cost and prioritize their time more efficiently, so they can focus on perfecting their culinary preparations. According to Chow, “The machine does (peeling) really fast” – so fast that it completely streamlines the process. We may not be investing in our own shrimp peelers anytime soon, but we’re excited about any innovation that doesn’t take away from the integrity of ingredients and gives home cooks and professional chefs the opportunity to focus on spices and cooking styles.

Read the original tasting table article.