Chef Basket (kitchen accessory) – A Marketing Review

The minutes on the countdown timer finally reach zero and a loud beep echoes off the kitchen’s walls.

The eggs should be cooked by now, you tell yourself while walking to the stove.  You lift the lid from the pot and peek inside of the metal container filled with boiling hot water and several chicken eggs.  Sure enough, they look ready.

Now comes the tricky part — removing the cooked eggs from the boiling hot water.  It’s nearly irresistible to just plunge your fingers into the scalding hot water and remove the eggs.  However, the trip to the doctor’s office and bandages on your fingers from the last time you tried that method wasn’t really worth it in the end.  Perhaps there’s a better way of removing the items from the boiling hot water without too much of a hassle or an inconvenience.  After all, this is the future and things should be not only faster but also easier.

Just as you’re about to grab some coat hangers and attempt to scoop out the cooked eggs, a TV commercial catches your attention.

What’s this?  The Chef Basket?  Can it really make life in today’s overly complicated kitchen that much easier?

Chef Basket website — www.ChefBasket.com

According to the TV commercial (and the product’s box at Walmart), apparently this is the absolute best product to use when cooking in the kitchen.  You may as well throw out your colanders and slotted spoons right now because the Chef Basket wants to be your number one cooking accessory.

Chef Basket TV commercial

Let’s take a closer look and review the Chef Basket’s as-seen-on-TV commercial to see how it’s being advertised to us, the general public.

Chef Basket TV commercial – Look at that!  FIVE freakin’ stars for this product!  Amazing!

The Chef Basket’s TV commercial begins with a woman tells us that the Chef Basket is apparently the kitchen product of the year.  The five stars and “#1 Kitchen Product of the Year” graphics also try to get that point across to the viewers.  Of course, we don’t know who exactly gave this product five stars (my guess would be the marketers themselves), and just because a product is number one doesn’t mean squat.  For all we know this could have been the number one kitchen product of the year . . . . . that was returned by dissatisfied customers.

Chef Basket TV commercial – “Ideal For [SOME Types of] Pasta.”

The Chef Basket commercial goes on to demonstrate how not only the handles remain cool to the touch, but apparently it’s ideal for pasta.

The handles being cool to the touch isn’t exactly rocket science.  As we know, metal conducts heat and the metal pots and pans sitting over a heat source will become hot themselves.  However, this heating process of conduction is going to require a significant amount of heat and/or a long period of time for the top of the pot to be as hot as the bottom.

You’ve probably noticed that it’s possible to leave metal cooking accessories (such as a large spoon) on top or inside of a pot while you’re cooking, and the spoon is still cool enough to touch without any gloves or dish cloths.  Naturally, the Chef Basket and its long metal handles will also almost always remain cool to the touch when you’re using it while stovetop cooking.  Strangely, this also plays true to other metal cooking accessories like large spoons and forks.

As far as the Chef Basket being ideal for pasta, that’s another story.  Notice how the Chef Basket has such large gaps in the wire basket.  Many common pasta noodles, from elbow macaroni to small shells to angel hair pasta, will slip right through the wire basket and remain in the pot of boiling water.  Perhaps the old fashioned colander is still better for draining the water when cooking pasta.

Chef Basket TV commercial – You can cook AND drain your chicken wings with the Chef Basket!  Amazing!

Here we have a deep fried chicken wings expert telling us how he likes frying his chicken wings whole, “. . . like they do in the restaurant.”  He loves it that he can cook and drain them in the Chef Basket.  Okay.  I’m not exactly sure why he’s thrilled to be able to cook the wings in the basket versus just letting them cook by themselves in the oil, but being able to remove all the wings at once could save perhaps a minute in the cooking process.

Depending on which cooking recipe you read or which cooking show you watch, the chicken wings should NOT be touching each other in the pot of oil.  Some people claim that the wings cook more evenly when they have some space to move around in the oil.  A cooking accessory such as the Chef Basket keeps the chicken wings (or whatever else you’re deep frying in oil) more contained and pressed together, especially when you overload the basket like the guy did in the TV commercial.

Chef Basket TV commercial – I was afraid of it because kitchens are scary places.

Next we have grandma telling us that she was a little bit concerned about touching the metal handles.  That’s understandable as she’s probably been exposed to the science behind the metal about a million times by now and still failed to grasp the concept.  Feeling brave, grandma finally put the product to the test and was pleasantly surprised that the metal handles didn’t sizzle or burn her bare skin.  Sure enough, those LONG metal handles that rested on TOP of the metal pot were still COOL to the touch.  Amazing!

Chef Basket TV commercial – The number of uses increases when you being splitting hairs.

After grandma’s show of bravery we see several quick examples of Chef Basket’s versatility in the kitchen.  The woman lists off a bunch of uses for the Chef Basket, but when you look closely it’s a different story.  For example, aren’t draining and straining one and the same?  Cooking, steaming and deep frying aren’t accurate either since the Chef Basket doesn’t actually “cook” anything.  It merely holds the food together while the water, steam or oil in the pot does the actual cooking.

Chef Basket TV commercial – So what exactly makes it “ideal” for deep frying food?

Again we see the claim that the Chef Basket is “Ideal For Deep Frying.”  Oh, really?  And just what makes the Chef Basket “ideal” for such a cooking method?  As it was stated earlier, many cooking recipes and cooks on TV claim that you DON’T want your food to be bunched together when it’s cooking in the fryer, especially if it’s something unbreaded and prone to sticking.  It’s more important to make sure the food cooks evenly and completely rather than having a quick way to pull it all out of the boiling pot of oil at once.

Chef Basket TV commercial – It takes a chef to show us how to transfer eggs out of a pot of water.

Next we see Chef Daniel Kohler show us the absolute fastest way to “. . . make perfect hard boiled eggs.”  The Chef Basket isn’t used for the cooking but rather transferring ALL of the eggs quickly from the pot of boiling hot water to the container of ice cold water.

Chef Kohler tells us that the trick to making the most perfect hard boiled eggs on the face of the Earth is to shock them in cold water right away.  FYI, this “trick” is widely publicized on the Internet.  So tell me, Chef Kohler, is it really necessary to transfer all six or eight of the eggs at once, or is it okay if I use tongs or a large spoon to transfer them one at a time?  I’m working in a home kitchen here and not a busy restaurant.  It might take me an additional thirty or even forty seconds to transfer all of the eggs.  It sounds tricky, but I’m pretty sure I can handle it.  I think my method might be okay since the eggs still have to sit in the cold water for a few minutes anyway.

Chef Basket TV commercial – Steaming a meal, you say?  Sounds interesting.

After the instruction on how to transfer a bunch of eggs at once, we see a woman still in amazement about how she cooked practically a whole meal in the Chef Basket.  In other words, she’s never heard of this cooking concept known as “steaming” until recently.  I’m sure you can research a variety of ways on the Internet about how to steam cook without a steamer.  You know, in case you want to try it before resorting to an accessory such as the Chef Basket.

Chef Basket TV commercial – It can fold flat!  Take that, colander!

Believe it or not, but you just saw the best feature of the Chef Basket.  It can fold flat and be stored practically anywhere.  The colander, the Chef Basket’s arch rival, can only be stacked with similar sized containers, such as pots and other colanders.

Chef Basket TV commercial – With the RoboStir, you’ll be one step closer to being bonded with your kitchen.

Included with the super special Chef Basket promotion is the RoboStir, an accessory that spins and stirs whatever is in your pot or pan.  And just how well does the RoboStir reach the edges of the pot or pan?  Does the food really need to be in constant motion, or am I okay still giving it an occasional stir so that it doesn’t burn or clump together?

It wasn’t that long ago that the RoboStir was sold in its own as-seen-on-TV commercial.  Is it a good sign that we’re seeing it return as a “freebie” in the Chef Basket promotion?

Chef Basket TV commercial – It’s time for the BIG promotion!

The end of the TV commercial has the big promotion and final sales push for the Chef Basket.  This is the same promotion on the product’s website (listed near the top of the article).  This sale includes TWO Chef Baskets, ONE RoboStir and ONE recipe book for the Chef Basket.

The Chef Basket promotion COSTS $23.98 ($10.00 + $6.99 S&H + $6.99 (S&H for the “free” item).  That doesn’t sound nearly as nice as when a woman claimed spending only $10 for the Chef Basket earlier in the as-seen-on-TV commercial.  How much is it selling for at Walmart again?

FINAL THOUGHTS

Just what exactly is the Chef Basket?

To me the Chef Basket looks like a collapsible colander with large holes.  The problem with the large holes is that you cannot use the kitchen accessory with a variety of small or thin foods, from common types of pasta to small chunks of vegetables to even rice.  You’re still going to need to use a colander to help with draining the water from those types of food.

When you eliminate the small and thin foods, and the debate whether this is really an ideal way to deep fry food in oil, is there anything really special that the Chef Basket can do that makes cooking in the kitchen any easier for you?  Anything at all?

It looks like the Chef Basket’s greatest selling features is that A) it’s collapsible and can be stored nearly anywhere, B) it makes steaming easier for those of us without a steamer, and C) it helps speed up the process of draining / straining food, not that using a colander was ever known as being slow.

When it comes to spending $23.98 for the Chef Basket promotion, how much will it really help you in the kitchen?  As far as I’m concerned, an old fashioned colander, a strainer, and a slotted spoon work quite well.  Chances are likely that you already have one or two of those already in your kitchen.

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All of the Chef Basket commercial images were screenshots of a TV commercial currently available on the product’s website.  For more product information, please visit the company’s website at www.ChefBasket.com.

Chef Basket is a registered trademark.

RellimZone.com is not affiliated with Chef Basket or Walmart.