About Mandolins or Mandolines

About Mandolins/mandolines...they can't even decide how to spell this darn device!

This is Sandi U writing....If you’ve been reading my posts, a few weeks ago I wrote about buying a mandoline to prepare a Spanish dish that uses 1/16” whole round slices of apples. Only possible on a mandoline and a WIDE one since the slices are large, round Granny Smith apples.

OK, I bite the bullet and spend $70 on a OXO metal mandoline thinking that if I’m going to buy one, I’ll buy one that was recommended by the "Fine Cooking" Magazine. This blog is also a plug for Sur la Table stores because they have a great return policy!! Anyway, I buy this gigantic thing that I have NO room to store it in, and give it a try for our Cookbook Club Holiday Buffet dish…it does NOT slice 1/16” thin AND the blade is NOT razor sharp.

My cousin Mary gave me a $15 Benriner Japanese mandoline a few years ago. It’s a cheap, plastic mandoline that has a box to catch the slices in and has several different blades for slicing, grating, etc. I love this little device! It’s fast, sharp and gets the job done. My only complaint is that it is very narrow so slicing whole apples won’t work…hence the need to buy a “real” mandoline. . . Hah!

So I return the $70 mandoline and exchange it for the V-shaped, plastic, $40 OXO mandoline….again, highly recommended by the staff at Sur la Table. The good news is that I am going down in price. But this mandoline, while easier to use than the straight-edged more expensive mandoline, does not slice at 1/16” setting. It HAS a 1/16” setting on the dial but when I tried to use it I could not get nice round slices. They came out in partial, irregular slices.

So, a couple of weeks later, after the holidays, I return the $40 mandolin and exchange it for a $20, plastic, “Sleekslice” mandoline. It is wide enough, to be sure but does not have two legs. It has three. The third leg can be maneuvered into a “handle” so you can hold the mandolin over a bowl. It has different settings for thickness AND the blade is finely serrated, like the cutting blade on my Cusinart. The thing collapses down to 1-1/2” thickness so storage is not a problem either.

Can this be the solution?

And, so cheap???

And, never even mentioned by “Fine Cooking” magazine?

Stay tuned, I’m giving it a try tonight! I was tempted to buy the ceramic bladed Kyocera device but it wasn’t wide enough...sigh.

If this doesn’t work, I’m giving up and cutting the apples in half before slicing them on my trusty Benriner! I sure hope I get to use this thing more often than just for this one salad! Grumble, grumble, grumble….

My next gripe is about knife sharpeners. . .