Capitalizing on Holiday Cooking Trends with Japanese Kitchenware

The holidays are a wonderful time to market, sell, buy, and use Japanese kitchen tools. With all the cooking that people usually have to do during these few weeks each year, having high-quality, beautiful kitchen tools is a must because they make the job so much easier. From simple wholesale kitchen towels to ornate dishes, these tools are terrific for chefs of all skill levels.

Essential Japanese Kitchen Tools for Holiday Cooking

You don't have to cook Japanese food specifically in order to benefit from using Japanese kitchen tools. In fact, these tools can make any cooking much easier, regardless of the type of cuisine. And one tool in particular is helpful across the board: cooking and serving chopsticks.

These are longer chopsticks, usually available in wood, often bamboo, that allow you to stir and grasp foods well out of range of bubbling oil or gas flames. The wood and bamboo chopsticks are particularly good for use with nonstick cookware; while you'll find metal cooking chopsticks, using those would be similar to using a metal spoon and not the best for nonstick items. However, they'd be great for dropping food into broth or water, or for general use with stainless steel and aluminum cookware.

Kitchen chopsticks can be used to stir, whisk, grasp, and move food, with no need to switch between different tools. Use them to poke holes or create lines in dough for decorated cookies, too. The chopsticks come in different lengths, so you have your choice if you're more comfortable using shorter or longer versions. When you buy bamboo chopsticks wholesale, remember to buy different lengths, rather than just one length.

Another essential tool is a skimmer, which helps you remove foam and scum from boiling broths and sauces. A skimmer has a very fine mesh and allows you to remove even the smallest particles from the liquid while letting all the liquid quickly drain back into the pot. When you need clear broths or sauces that look as neat as can be, a skimmer is your best friend.

No list of essential Japanese kitchen tools for holiday cooking is complete without knives. At the very least, having a santoku knife is necessary; these are all-purpose knives that you can use for meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit. They're mid-sized and easy to hold whether your hands are large or small. The depressions on the blade near the cutting edge let food release easily from the metal; you'll find you won't have to stop and push food off the blade nearly as much as you would with a completely flat blade.

Finally, shredders and mandolines are very helpful for when you want to slice items into equal portions quickly. Mandolines let you create evenly sized slices, and shredders help cut vegetables into smaller uniform slices quickly.

Creating Eye-Catching Displays for Japanese Kitchenware

Any shop selling Japanese kitchenware needs to create clean, neat displays that show off the tools. Even if the shop has a cozy, more subtly lit atmosphere overall, the items need to have good lighting. If the entire shop has lower light, small spotlights are a good choice. For brighter shops, spacing out the items helps; you don't want the displays to be crowded. If the clientele of the shop isn't familiar with some of the tools, place small informational cards next to each display, explaining why, for example, a santoku knife is preferable to a chef's knife.

Marketing Japanese Kitchenware as the Perfect Holiday Gift

For marketing Japanese kitchenware items as gifts, focus on both the clean lines of each design as well as the excellent craftsmanship. Draw people in by emphasizing the longevity of the tool and how easy it makes achieving the customer's cooking goals. For example, a mandoline can ensure slices are evenly sized, which helps all of them cook evenly and in the same amount of time. You need less storage space for one santoku knife than for several separate knives, and so on. Plan to buy a few types of Japanese kitchenware wholesale that have these types of advantages and point them out to every customer.

When you want to add Japanese kitchenware to your inventory, look to Morihata for wholesale deals on efficient, beautiful tools. Contact us to find out more about what we offer.