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The Two Best Mini-Spatulas that Double as the Ideal Cast Iron Skillet Scraper
We were unwilling to rely on the reviews and product descriptions so we purchased and tested the spatulas ourselves to see if these spatulas would perform a function for which they were not designed to do
We wanted to recommend a solution to our readers who would like to try OUR MEXICAN SALSA RECIPE. This recipe requires that a portion of the vegetables actually be burned on a cast iron skillet. Use of a scraper to get off the bulk of the burned residue greatly simplifies the cleaning process. It’s helpful that the scraper is stiff enough and has a thin leading edge to help “chisel” up the burned on food. There is a trade-off between “thin” and tensile “stiffness” that needs to be considered.
We were pleased to find that two mini-spatulas performed the task in a very satisfactory manner. We tested both spatulas on their ability to remove the remains of severely burned on meat as well as burned on vegetables from a cast iron skillet.
Norpro GripEZ Short Slotted Turner
Of the two that we recommend this one has the stiffest blade. In fact when we went to bend it, without actually trying to abuse it, we could not see any perceptible flexing of the blade at all. Note the thickness of the blade in relation to the thickness of a dime in the photo. Also note the edge-on comparison with the blade of the Oxo turner. Without question this is the most sturdy of the two turners.
Oxo Good Grips Cut and Serve Turner
At 1 5/8" the leading edge of he blade is about 3/8" narrower than that of the Norpro blade. The blade’s thickness is about half of that of the Norpro blade as well [Go back to the comparison photos]. Those factors combined does allow for significantly less [but not dramatically less] resistence than the Norpro while scraping through the burned on food. Upon attempting to bend the blade, without abusing it, we find that it does flex somewhat. Still we found it to be very stiff, especially for how thin it is. Out of several thousand reviews we found three complaints about the blade “bending” or being “flimsy”. We found those complaints within the three star ratings [there were no two nor one star ratings at all at the time of this writing - impressive considering there were thousands of reviews]. From our experience from using this as a scraper, which is significantly harder on this turner than “lifting” brownies, we believe those folks interpreted the slight flexing as equating to “flimsy”. After all, if the blade were to actually “bend” [as in bent out of shape] from normal use we would fully expect to see that in a one star review. That hasn’t happened.
Aside from the purpose that we originally bought these two mini-spatulas for [or turners as these are officially called] we find these to be really handy for other cooking needs such as flipping eggs, mixing food cooking in a pan, etc. If one of these becomes your first mini-spatula we strongly believe [just from our own experience] that just from the fact that it’ll be among your kitchen utensils that you’ll find it to be a lot more useful than you initially imagined! We really like having both of these in the kitchen since each brand has a different widths and we are constantly encountering applications where one width or other is more suitable to what we're doing.
©2023 Salsa Stop
