A couple of years ago, I volunteered to make brownies for a friend for a charity bake sale in her community. I had to make 3 batches of 25 brownies each. That wouldn’t be difficult. Or so I thought….
A couple of years ago, I volunteered to make brownies for a friend, for a charity bake sale in her community. I had to make 3 batches of 25 brownies each. That wouldn’t be difficult. Or so I thought. I lined up three baking pans and got started with prepping the ingredients. Everything looked and smelled superb, and I couldn’t wait to cut the pieces and pack them in the box for my friend.
And then, the horror. The baking paper I had used had totally got stuck to the brownies and I spent over an hour trying to peel off every bit of it before I could declare the brownies edible. It was possibly the worst baking disaster of my life. All because of a bad baking paper.
Sometime last year, this Japanese company Asahi Kasei met up with some of us Bangalore food bloggers and we had an interesting discussion on the way we cook and bake in Indian kitchens. They left us with some samples of their 3 products – the cooking sheet, the frying pan foil and the premium wrap, which I have been using over the past months. I’m sharing with you a short review about the same.
COOKING SHEET
Asahi Kasei Cooking Sheet is “Japan’s No.1” cooking paper (baking paper / parchment paper) for baking in the oven & microwave cooking. The silicone coating on both sides prevents food from sticking to the sheet, and is non-stick in the truest sense of the word! I’m sure like me, you too end up greasing the baking paper for double protection and for that 100% guarantee that our cakes and bakes will come out without being stuck to the paper? That is totally not required here. Just line it with the cooking sheet, and no need to pray to the baking gods even!  I’ve used it to bake cookies, and even the peskiest of fudgey brownies and I’ve nearly recovered from the scars of the earlier brownie baking catastrophe. You also get a clean tear of paper and it withstands heat well (at 250°C for 20 mins). The cooking sheet can also be used in the microwave to seal food like a candy wrapper before steaming / cooking.
FRYING PAN FOILÂ
The frying pan foil is a unique product. It comes with the promise that if you line a pan with this foil, you can cook anything on the foil with zero oil – be it veggies, eggs, fish or anything else. You know what I tried to make oil-free here? Popcorn 🙂 The popcorn from scratch, where you throw in the dried corn kernels in oil in a heavy pan or the pressure cooker and wait for everything to finish popping. I tried the same using a Asahi Kasei cooking foil lined pan. The kernels did take way longer than usual to start popping, but it also went from popping to burn stage very fast. Possibly because once heated, the foil retains the heat to a large extent. But my trial with an egg white omelette turned out good. 3 egg whites, some finely chopped onions and green chillies on a well heated foil lined pan, and I was able to turn over the omelette without any problem. Especially on the fast days of my 5-2 way of life, every drop of oil adds calories and it’s a huge plus that I can cook oil free on these days. Also, no time wasted in cleaning up the pan, just remove the foil and discard.
The silicon coating on one side prevents food from sticking to the foil. Look for R mark to identify correct side, which should always be facing up, on which the food is placed. Check this video to see more on how the frying pan can be used in your kitchen.
PREMIUM WRAP
This is a premium plastic cling wrap. The one feature I loved that this roll of cling wrap doesn’t drive you mad when you try to peel off one sheet and cut it clean for use. It is super easy to tear off and wrap any food of choice. It keeps food fresh in the refrigerator, freezer, and on the counter top. Potato, broccoli florets, carrots, French beans can all be wrapped with this cling wrap and steamed in the microwave. A good use for this premium wrap is if you make rotis for your family in the morning, they can be tightly packed in the cling wrap and left in a box. To serve them for dinner, just place the rotis in the cling wrap in the microwave for 30 seconds and fresh, hot rotis are ready to serve.
Gone are the days when we would ask relatives and friends to get us good quality parchment paper for baking and cling wrap to make our life easier with leftovers in the kitchen! It’s great that quality products like these are easily available in India now, thereby enhancing the cooking experience in our kitchens. You can check out Asahi Kasei’s FB page and Youtube for more info and info on where to buy the products in case you want to try them out for yourself.
(Rosti and Broccoli images courtesy Asahi Kasei)
Asahi Kasei supplied me with the 3 products to test and share my experiences. The views expressed in the post are all mine and unbiased.Â
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