Zyliss Classic Food Chopper: Review
I have seen similar food choppers on infomercials and in the store, but I never wanted to spend the money for them. Recently my grocer had a two for one sale on ALL kitchen gadgets, and that was just too good a deal to pass up.
This Zyliss chopper was normally $16.99, but I was able to get it for free when I also purchased a more expensive set of KitchenAid Stainless Steel measuring cups.
Description
This is a hand held chopper, made of a sturdy plastic. It measures 8″ high with a base that is 3 1/4″ in diameter. The center of the chopper is about 3 3/4″ in diameter.
This unit comes in three separate pieces. The base that holds the foods to be chopped is clear, with red markings showing 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup. A middle plastic piece screws into the base, this contains two paddles on each side that keeps the foods from sticking to the sides of the base. The third and last section is the chopper. The five 18/10 stainless steel blades are in a zig zag design, and they fit into the zig zag holes in the middle section. They aren’t super sparp to the touch, so I never worried about cutting myself on them.
There is a large substantial black handle that measures 2″ high and 2 1/4″ in diameter, with the words Zyliss in the center. This pushes down to be completely flush with the base of the chopper.
It is dishwasher safe, but can be simply rinsed off and stored. (Unless you use onions, the odor remains until it is washed with soap and water).
How To Use
You add the veggies, eggs, herbs, nuts, or whatever food items you need to chop, into the clear base. Screw the middle section to it, and add the chopper. Push down hard with the palm of your hand, and the blades will cut through the food, and rotate a bit so that when you push them again, they are cutting a different area of the food. The rotating blades are designed for even chopping.
You hit and release the handle as many times as needed to make the foods the coarseness that you desire. The food chops right into the cup, the base acts as the cutting board. Measurements indicate your portions. This can also be done directly onto a cutting board if you have a larger portion of food to chop.
The chopper is supposed to be able to chop vegetables, nuts, and even ice. I have tried it with ice, and it does a fairly good job, but I have an ice crusher on my fridge so I really don’t need a hand held ice crusher.
I mainly purchased this for chopping onions. I love onions and use them in almost every dinner I make. What I don’t love is how they irritate my eyes. I have seasonal allergies and my eyes sometimes get tired and dry in the summer months, I don’t need onions adding to my problem.
I was very disappointed in the cutting quality of this Zyliss product! First of all, when cutting onions, you need to be sure and remove ANY of the older onion skins, or they will not chop. I learned this when the blades were not cutting through them, and I was making onion mush by trying to chop them up.
I took apart the chopper, removed the older onion peel, and started again. After several attempts, the chopper would NOT do a uniform job of chopping them. There are two white paddles attached to the middle section, which is meant to keep the food from accumulating along the sides of the holder. It does do that somewhat, with certain foods, but the large pieces of onion still tend to stay on the outside of the cup, while the smaller pieces remain in the middle.
If you want to chop up soft foods like hard boiled eggs, this Zyliss is for you, it does a good job on them! It also works adequately on carrots and lettuce.
Tuesday night I made a Waldorf Salad for dinner, and I chopped the walnuts with this Zyliss chopper. Again, the nuts didn’t come out in evenly chopped pieces. I also had difficulty getting the Zyliss chopper to work on red or green peppers. It didn’t cut cleanly through them as desired.
I called the Zyliss company and told them about my problem. They said that this chopper is designed to chop evenly, and that if I would return it to them, they would replace it with a new one. Of course they would not send me a postage paid label, I had to return this at my expense. Hardly worth the trouble, since they would send me another product which most likely would work the exact same way.
Zyliss does have a 5 year warranty on this product, but again, you have to return it to them post paid.
Bottom Line
I won’t be using this product as much as I had hoped when I purchased it. The intended use was for chopping onions, and it did a very poor job of chopping them up quickly and evenly.
This is just not versatile enough for me. Three stars because it does chop ice, eggs, and probably other foods. But it didn’t chop nuts and onions to my satisfaction.
Zyliss products are made in Switzerland.
