6 Gourmet Cooking Gift Ideas

When it comes to holiday shopping the foods and tools of gourmet cooking offers an enticing world of gift ideas, whether the person you're shopping for is a full-fledged foodie or just someone who enjoys whipping up a meal for friends and family. Use this list as your starting point for this holiday season or any time you need to gift the chef.

Sometimes It's All about the Oil

Gourmet chefs love to use olive oil in their cooking, often in conjunction with butter. This adds flavor and richness to the food while increasing the heat point. Olive oil does not have to be the brand sold at grocery stores. A good chef will love to experiment with gourmet olive oils. If you search the Internet for "olive oil of the month" you will be connected to several shops that, every month, will send your lucky chef a bottle of gourmet olive oil.

Voice Shopper

Every gourmet cook needs to keep their shopping list handy and updated. With the new electronic grocery list, you can add items to the list on the fly as you think of them. Every time a new item comes to mind you record it into the device. When you are ready to go to the market press a button and the device recalls the grocery list and prints out for you on thermal paper.

Hard-to-Find Ingredients

Chefs love to explore speciality ingredients that may be very expensive or hard to find. Fortunately, these items makes great gifts. Black truffles, vanilla beans, real saffron and hundreds of other gourmet ingredients can be purchased on the Internet, often nicely gift wrapped.

Foamer

Gourmet cooking is all about stretching the limits of the culinary arts as well as your own ability and tastes. A foamer allows you to make a reduction of sauces by boiling well-chosen ingredients together. You then run the liquid through the foamer which adds air creating a rich bubbly texture.

Ceramic Knives

Get two chefs together and they will compare their knives like racers compare engines. The knife is a very important weapon in the arsenal of the chef. There are not many knives on the market that rival the superb sharpness and style of ceramic knives.

French Press

This seems like an obvious gift for the serious coffee drinker, but the French press has creative applications in the world of gourmet cooking. In the press you add hot water to a 1 1/2 tsp. of ground coffee. After it berws for a few minutes you press the filter down to condense the grounds at the bottom so you can pour out the liquid. Imagine this same process with hot milk and a vanilla bean or with parsley and other herbs, making intense flavor combinations for reduction.