Best Strawberry Huller!

When I began making pies, especially Strawberry Rhubarb Pies last summer I quickly discovered that my paring knife was just not efficient for the task. I began my search for the best strawberry huller by asking friends and finally I went to my local kitchen store and discovered the Chef'n StemGem Strawberry Stem Remover.

What a name! Way too much to slip off the tongue. I just call it a strawberry huller.

I had looked into the old fashioned strawberry hullers that pinch off the stems but they didn't get rid of the tough core of the strawberry. Then I looked into the one which looked like a Tine Test with lots of needles in a circle. But that one took out too much of the center of the strawberry.

Finally I looked at the Chef'n StemGem Strawberry Stem Remover. It had a nice smooth surface, nothing to dig into my fingers. It came in pretty bright colors; red like a strawberry and green like the stem. Put your first two fingers around the red part and use your thumb to push the green part to open the claws.

The claws get stabbed into the strawberry. Release your thumb so that the claws can bite into the hull. Give it a little twist and the strawberry hull and cone shaped core come right out. Use your thumb to open the claws again and the hulls just drop into your compost pile.

Quick, easy and no waste! What more could you want from a strawberry huller?

Photo Credit: Chef'n StemGem Strawberry Stem Remover

Available on Amazon

The soft edges of this huller conform to your fingers making it easy to hulls pounds of strawberries without cutting your fingers. Quickly and easily remove both the hulls as well as the hard core to make slicing the strawberries a quick and easy chore.

Soon you will have enough sliced strawberries to fill dozens of pies whether mixed with rhubarb or just plain strawberry pie. But don't stop there, you can also use the strawberry huller to hull enough strawberries to make strawberry shortcake, sliced strawberries for your cereal or prepare strawberries for jam.

No words or music are necessary when demonstrating how to use this strawberry huller. Just wrap your first and second fingers around the red section and place your thumb on the green stem. Pushing in on the green stem with your thumb opens the claws so that they can bite into the strawberry core.

Give it a little twist and the core, stem and hull pop right out. With a flick of the wrist you have the tops in the compost and a clean strawberry ready for slicing.

If given the task of hulling pounds of strawberries, which do you think you would prefer? I know that it can be done with a paring knife. If your knife is sharp enough it will readily cut out the cores and lop off the tops but what I discovered is that it takes a lot of dexterity to keep it up for long periods of time with a paring knife.

The strawberry huller was gentle on my fingers, quickly and easily removed both the core and the hull in one simple move and best of all, I could keep it up for hours if necessary. For me the choice was a strawberry huller, hands down. How about you?

Which hulls strawberries better?

This is a recipe I found in my grandmother's cookbook. I remember making it with her when I was little. We went out into her strawberry patch and picked the strawberries when they were ripe and juicy. Her eyes twinkled when we popped one or two into our mouths as we picked.

Then we would go over to the rhubarb patch and pick out a few long, thick stems. She always reminded me not to eat the poisonous leaves. She used her paring knife to lop off the leaves and tucked them under the growing rhubarb plant to keep down the weeds and nourish the soil.

Photo Credit: Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Used under creative commons

Again I will say that there are several different varieties of tools for removing the hulls and cores from strawberries and because of that I thought I would show you the most popular ones right now on eBay. As I am writing, number one and three are the Chef'n StemGem Strawberry Stem Remover and the number two is the old fashioned traditional huller made basically from a bent piece of metal.

Now this second kind is the kind I grew up with. It reminds me of an extra pair of fingernails but not much more. I never thought they were worth spending the money on and so I never bought one for myself.

This past summer when I began making large numbers of pies I started thinking more and more about a strawberry huller and decided to see what was available. At first I was going to go for the traditional one but I am glad in the end I didn't. The Chef'n StemGem Strawberry Stem Remover is a far superior tool.

We all have a drawer full of kitchen gadgets. You probably have a can opener, a bottle opener, maybe even an egg slicer or an orange peeler. Of all of those kitchen gadgets, none of them will work well to hull strawberries.

You might think that your drawer would burst with just one more item in it but I can assure you that this one doesn't take up much room and the next time you are ready to serve up a nice berry pie, you are going to be glad you have one.

Tell us about your experiences with hulling strawberries. Which kitchen gadget worked best for you up to this point? Are you now ready to purchase your own huller?