upgraded to a fancy-pants model with a fuzzy logic processor¶ and a nifty latching top that keeps the moisture level inside at the exact right level. I love my rice cooker almost as much as I love my instant-read thermometer, which is just a hair more than I love my wife (just kidding, honey).
ESSENTIAL KITCHEN HAND
aren’t obvious until you start using it regularly. I keep one on my cutting board whenever I’m doing prep work. It quickly transfers chopped mirepoix to my saucepan or carrot peels to the trash. I use it to divide dough when making pizzas, or ground beef when making burgers. For cleanup, a bench scraper makes short work of dough scraps that have dried onto the work surface, and it efficiently picks up tiny bits of chopped herbs and other debris. (By the way, you should never use the blade of your knife to pick this stuff up off your board. It’s dangerous, and it will rapidly dull the edge of your knife.) A bench scraper also makes removing stickers from glass bottles or labels from plastic containers a snap.
With its comfortable handle, sturdy construction, convenient built-in 6-inch ruler, and an edge sharp enough to rough-chop vegetables, the OXO Good Grips Pastry Scraper ($8.99) is the first choice for home kitchens. In my knife kit, however, I keep a lightweight plastic C. R.
Manufacturing scraper (50 cents), which performs most of those functions at a fraction of the cost, in a much more compact package.
3. Saltcellar and Pepper Mill
Why would anyone need a saltcellar? Underseasoning food is the most common culinary blunder. Ask me why your food tastes blander than you’d like it to, and 90 percent of the time, all it needs is a little pinch of salt. Having a container of a salt in a prominent spot by your prep station or stove serves as a constant reminder to season, taste, season, and taste again until you get it exactly right. I
guarantee that if you don’t already have one, putting a saltcellar on your counter will make you a better cook. Any wide-mouthed covered container with an easy-open lid will do, but a dedicated saltcellar does it with style. Mine is a wooden job with a flip-top lid to prevent dust, water, or oil from getting in.
And pepper? If you’ve been using preground pepper, do yourself a favor and buy an inexpensive jar of pepper with a built-in mill. Then taste the fresh-ground stuff side by side with the preground. Which would you rather be putting on your food? If that doesn’t convince you to go out and buy yourself a pepper mill, I can only assume that you are dead from the tongue up.
You’ll want to invest in a mill that has a solid metal grinding mechanism. Cheap ones are usually made of plastic and will stop grinding after a year or less of regular use. Although $35 to $60 might seem like a big chunk of change, a real pepper mill will improve practically every savory food item you cook. Peugeot is the Rolls-Royce of pepper mills. Perfectly crafted, luxuriously styled, and awesomely efficient, these mills look good and grind like a dream. They also run upward of $55. More affordable and equally good if totally utilitarian is the Unicorn Magnum Pepper Mill ($36.90). It has a tough nickel-plated grinding mechanism, an easy-to-load design, and a quick grind-size adjustment screw.
4. Prep Bowls of All Sizes
Here’s a mantra for aspiring chefs: An orderly kitchen is a good kitchen.
Isn’t it annoying trying to chop carrots on your cutting board when that little pile of parsley in the corner is getting in your way? Or what about frantically trying to scoop up the chopped ginger to get it into that stir-fry-in-progress before your bok choy wilts? I use several prep bowls with a small capacity (we’re talking 1-cup or less) pretty much every time I cook to keep chopped aromatics, measured spices, grated cheese, whatever, off my board, within easy reach, and organized. This is what fancy cooks call their mise en place. In the cabinet directly above my cutting board, I have a couple dozen 25-cent ceramic condiment and cereal bowls from IKEA for this very purpose. (If you want to go fancy, you can get sets of Pyrex clear glass prep bowls.)
Large mixing bowls are equally valuable. While the all-glass ones look nice up on the shelf, they’re a total pain in the butt to work with. I remember many days at Cook’s Illustrated magazine when we’d have to search through stacks and stacks of glass bowls while working on a photo shoot to find the one or two that weren’t chipped on their edges. Where do these glass chips end up? On the floor? In the food? In my own kitchen, I’d rather not find out. Plastic bowls seem like a reasonable solution until you realize that plastic absorbs both stains and odors from oily and other foods. Pour a batch of olive-oil-and-butter-based marinara sauce (here) into a white plastic bowl, and you’ll find that you’re now the proud owner of an orange plastic bowl.
Instead, I use inexpensive stainless steel bowls that I picked up from a restaurant supply store (if you don’t have a good one near you, try the ABC Valueline brand from
amazon.com). I have about half a dozen in sizes ranging from a couple of quarts up to 5 quarts. They’re lightweight and easy to handle, shatterproof, stainproof, breakproof, odorproof, and microwavable.# Add to that their shallow design, which makes whisking and tossing a snap, and you’ve done made yourself a new best friend.
5. Wooden Spoons
Short of being born a woman in Italy and waiting for your daughter to have a child, nothing makes you feel more like an Italian grandmother than slowly and deliberately stirring a lazily simmering pot of ragù with a wooden spoon. Blood runs deep between a good spoon and his cook. I nearly cried the day I cracked the handle on the spoon that had lasted me through nine years and thirteen different kitchens
—a flat-headed beechwood model that I think I stole from my mother’s hidden secondary utensil drawer. It was so well used that the handle had conformed to the shape of my hand, and the head had been worn into an angle that perfectly fit the corners of my Dutch oven.
Whether stirring sauces, tasting soups, or gently whacking cheeky spouses who disturb you in the kitchen, a wooden spoon is the tool you’ll want 90 percent of the time when you’re cooking on the stovetop. I have half a dozen of various shapes and sizes that I use almost every time I cook.
But if I had to pick a single spoon to perform every task, I’d choose one with a cupped section for tasting and a head that comes to a point, rather than being completely round, making it easier to get into the corners of pots and pans.
Whether you want a spoon with a completely flat section
on the head or a more triangular profile is totally up to you.
Like my favorite Beatles album, my favorite wooden spoon tends to waffle back and forth among the different spoons in my set.
6. Slotted Flexible Metal Spatula
Flexible enough to flip tender pieces of delicate fish without breaking them yet sturdy enough to get every last bit of a smashed burger off the bottom of your pan, a slotted metal fish spatula is an absolute essential in your tool kit. It’s ideal for blotting excess grease off cooked steaks and chops. Just pick up the meat from the skillet and put it on a paper towel, still on the spatula, then transfer to the serving plate—the wide slots allow the grease to drain off easily. The spatula is lightweight and maneuverable enough to flip fragile eggplant slices in a skillet of oil, but it will also handle whole grilled pork chops with ease. Its slight flexibility lends it agility and control, unlike stiffer spatulas (which have their place in the kitchen—we’ll get to that).
And here’s some good news: most of the expensive models are far too stiff to do the job well. I keep a $25 Lamsonsharp model in my kit, and the even cheaper Peltex (around $15) is the standard in most restaurant kitchens.
7. Tongs
A sturdy pair of tongs is like a heatproof extension of your fingers. Robust construction, slip-proof grips (ever try to grab a pair of stainless steel tongs with greasy fingers?), a spring-loaded class-3 lever design,** and scalloped edges perfect for grabbing everything from tender stalks of spring
asparagus to the biggest bone-in pork roast are the qualities to look for in a good set of tongs. The OXO Good Grips 9-inch Stainless Steel Locking Tongs ($11.95) set the bar for quality.
8. Microplane Zester Grater
When you’re talking fine-toothed graters, pretty much only one brand comes to mind: the Microplane Zester Grater ($14.95). It is more than just a useful gadget—it’s the only one to get.
My favorite thing to do with a zester is to go to town with it on an orange and watch as the little mountain of zest effortlessly grows on my cutting board. Wait—my favorite thing to do is grate delicate wisps of Parmigiano-Reggiano over my Bolognese. No, I take that back. My favorite thing is to grate fresh nutmeg on top of my gin flip. Or is it to sprinkle chocolate shavings over my soufflé? Oh, but I do dearly love the lovely little mound of ginger that smells oh so lovely as it falls off the zester into my bowl. No, I’ve got it, and this time I’m sure: it’s being able to throw out my confounded single-tasking garlic press and using my Microplane to grate garlic into tiny, even mince.
So many things to grate, so little time!
9. Whisks
They’re essential for mixing quick-bread batters or emulsifying hollandaise. Use one in a large pot of soup to incorporate seasoning much more quickly than a wooden spoon can. And a whisk is the best tool to whip cream or foam egg whites into frothy meringue. Models with stiff
wires require much more movement and hard work from your wrist. The OXO Good Grips 9-inch Whisk ($8.95) has thin, flexible wires, which make whipping vinaigrettes into shape an effortlessly enjoyable endeavor.
10. Salad Spinner
Yes, it will get your greens dry, and we all know that dry greens are better at holding dressing (right?), but the salad spinner is actually one of the truly great multitaskers in the kitchen. I fill mine with water and pick herb leaves directly into the bowl. Once they’re picked, I swish them around, lift them up in the basket, dump the sandy water, and spin dry.
You can wash delicate items like berries and then dry them in a salad spinner lined with a few layers of paper towels to extend their shelf life by a few days. Or take chopped tomatoes for a spin for easy seeding (the seeds slip through the basket while the flesh stays put). Washed mushrooms, sliced peppers, broccoli florets—anything you could think of stir-frying or sautéing—will cook better after a thorough drying in the spinner. Use the power of centrifugal force to whip away excess marinade from shrimp, chicken, or kebab meat. And if you’ve got a sturdy one with small slots, like the OXO’s Good Grips Salad Spinner (about $30), there’s no need to own a colander—
just drain beans, pasta, and vegetables in the spinner basket.
11. Stiff Spatula
My Due Buoi Wide Spatula (about $35) is exceedingly sexy, in that mostly platonic inanimate metallic object kind of way. It’s got a business end that’s 5 inches long, a
generous girth of 3.9 inches at the front, and a hefty weight of 7.76 ounces. It’s a size that can’t be beat—just large enough to smash a ball of beef into a 4-inch patty or flip a couple portions’ worth of browning home fries, without being so large that it doesn’t fit into a small skillet. I’ve picked up a whole pizza off a hot stone with this thing. I’d like to see your wimpy plastic spatula do that!
The blade and tang are formed out of a single piece of cast stainless steel, which clocks in at a thickness of 0.04 inch (1 mm, or approximately 18 gauge). This is important:
it allows you to lift a whole turkey or rib roast with reckless abandon. If you flip the spatula over, its keen and sturdy front edge substitutes handily for a paint scraper, allowing you to ensure that every last bit of flavorful, crisp crust stays firmly attached to your burger or steak, instead of remaining in the pan. The handle is made from tough, durable polycarbonate and features a full tang, for optimal strength and balance. This baby’s gonna last a lifetime.
And there’s a musical bonus : When struck daintily against the cutting board, the spatula vibrates at precisely 587.33 hertz (really!), with an outstanding overtone series.
Even Stradivarius would be proud to apply his famous varnish to it. It’s the very thing during that all-too-common situation when I desperately need to tune the fourth string of my guitar while applying cheese to my burgers.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better stiff spatula.
12. Japanese-Style Mandoline
Sure, you can train for years and spend hours a day sharpening and honing your knives to get to the point where
you can whip out fennel wisps so thin you can read through them or slice through your prep work at a hundred onions per hour. And I’ll be the first one to tell you that you’re really, really cool. But for the rest of us, a mandoline makes quick work of repetitive slicing and julienning tasks. At one point in my life, I owned a fancy-pants $150 French model.
But you know what? It was heavy, bulky, and a pain in the butt to clean. And, with its straight blade, it didn’t really do a great job. The Benriner Mandoline Plus ($49.95), on the other hand, features a sharp angled blade that cuts much more efficiently than those awkward straight blades or clumsy V-shaped cutters. Walk into the kitchen of any four-star restaurant in the city, and I guarantee you’ll find at least a couple Bennies (as they are affectionately called by line cooks) occupying a prominent place.
Random trivia: “Benriner” means “Oh, how handy!” in Japanese (despite the fact that the Japanglish on the box front proclaims “Dry cut radishes also OK.”)
13. Spider
A spider/skimmer accomplishes almost everything a slotted spoon does, and better, at a fraction of the cost. It excels at fishing dumplings, vegetables, or ravioli out of a pot of boiling water. And its wire construction and relatively open mesh creates less turbulence in the liquid than a standard slotted spoon, making it much easier to fish out food.
As for the task it was designed for—dunking and stirring foods for deep-frying—the only thing that even comes close in terms of agility and control is a long pair of chopsticks, and even Mr. Miyagi would have trouble picking up peas
from a pot of boiling water with a pair of chopsticks. Wire-mesh spiders with bamboo handles are available at most Chinese grocers and restaurant supply stores for a few bucks a pop, but if you want something that’ll last a long time, go with an all-metal spider like the Typhoon Professional Cook’s Wire Skimmer, available for about $10 online.
14. Small Offset Spatula
Though these diminutive 4½-inch-long spatulas are intended for applying frosting to small pastries like cupcakes, you’ll find that they have a slew of other uses in both the sweet and savory kitchen. Ever find yourself trying to unstick a fragile piece of food from a skillet with a spatula three times too big? The thin, flexible blade of a small offset spatula can slip under food items that even a fish spatula is too thick for.
Pan full of slender breakfast sausages to flip one at a time?
This is your tool. It’s also indispensable for plating and presentation. A lightweight feel, comfortable handle, and ultrathin blade make the Ateco Small Offset Spatula (about
$2) the industry standard, offering precision, control, and finesse. More control means less mess and better-tasting food. Oh, and it’s good for cupcakes as well, if that’s your bag.
15. Fine-Mesh Strainer
A full-size colander is great if you’ve got a full pot of pasta to drain, but it rarely gets used otherwise (and even then, I just use the basket of my salad spinner). For smaller everyday tasks like draining a can of tomatoes or beans, or ensuring that your crepe batter is perfectly smooth, a small
hand strainer is what you need. I keep one hanging on a hook alongside my pots and pans for easy access. Inferior models consist of just a round mesh basket attached to a handle, but the 8-inch Stainless Steel Strainer from OXO ($24.95) also has a loop of metal sticking on the opposite side of the basket. This allows you to set the strainer over a bowl for no-handed operation. It may seem a little pricey for a simple strainer, but its heavy-duty construction means it will last and last.
16. Chopsticks
I admit it: this one is a little controversial. Either you grew up using chopsticks and wouldn’t be caught dead near a pot of simmering water or a wokful of hot oil without them or you didn’t—and, if so, you will probably wonder, “Do I really need them?”
But precise tips and a gentle touch will treat small, delicate pieces of fried or grilled food (say, a tempura of squash blossoms or slender stalks of asparagus on the grill) far more gently than a relatively clumsy pair of tongs, which are better suited to large items like fried chicken or a rack of ribs. I use chopsticks for picking up bits of food from a stir-fry in progress to taste for doneness. They are also ideal for picking out a few slippery noodles from a pot of boiling water to make sure that they are perfectly al dente before draining.
While regular chopsticks will do in many circumstances, high-heat applications require extra-long sticks made specifically for cooking. If you are lucky enough to have an East Asian kitchen supply store nearby, you can pick these
up for a couple bucks a pair. Otherwise, you can find acceptable models online, like the Extra-Long Chopsticks from Hong Kong Imports Ltd. ($2).
17. Wine Key
Regular corkscrews and $100 rabbit-shaped models will get your cork out, and fast. But with a little practice, a waiter’s wine key will open wine bottles (and beers) just as fast, and make you look infinitely cooler. The key is to use it as a lever. If you are pulling on it hard, you’re doing it wrong! I keep a few in my cutlery drawer (like pens and razors, they tend to wander off into the world on their own from time to time), as well as one in my knife kit.
18. Citrus Juicer
Every professional kitchen has its own hazing rituals, and as a young chef-in-training, I endured a period of time—a good eight months or so—when my first duty every single morning was to ream twenty-four limes, twenty-four lemons, and a dozen oranges for fresh juice to use on the line during service. And the only tool I was allowed to use to do the job (lest I risk being called a wimp—believe me, a wimp is the last thing you want to be in the macho world of professional kitchens) was a wood lemon reamer from Scandicrafts, Inc. ($4). It was two weeks before I could complete the task from start to finish without taking a break to nurse my painfully swollen hands, and I went through four of the reamers in the course of those eight months, slowly wearing them down until the grooved edges on the business end were as smooth and soft as river stones.
This is not to say that it’s a bad product—I’d strongly recommend it for the occasional juicer—but if you go through a lot of citrus juice (some people believe that lemon juice is as important as salt, just ask the Greeks!), there are a number of other options on the market. I use the Two-in-One Juicer from Amco ($19.95). You place the citrus cut side down in the perforated cup-shaped holder, then squeeze the handles together to extract the juice. It’s fast, efficient, and much easier on the hands than a conventional reamer. The only issue is that it sometimes leaves a bit of juice behind, forcing you to manually squeeze the empty citrus shells for maximum extraction. And though it comes in small (green), medium (yellow), and large (orange) sizes, intended for limes, lemons, and oranges, the yellow one works fine for both lemons and limes, making it the one to get.
19. Cake Tester
I know many chefs and cooks who keep a cake tester tucked into the pen pocket of their whites and none who use them to test cakes. Not that you can’t test a cake’s doneness with them, it’s just why would you, when there are so many more interesting assisted-poking tasks at which it excels?
Essentially a heavy-gauge wire with a handle, it’s about as simple as a tool can get. The idea is that you poke it into the center of a cake and pull it out. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. So, it’s sort of like a glorified toothpick, but the fact that it’s long and made of metal means that it’s useful for all kinds of other things.
The most obvious is testing the doneness of vegetables.
Have you ever been told to stick a paring knife into a boiling potato to check if it’s tender all the way through?
The problem is that even the thinnest of paring knives makes a large stab wound in the potato, releasing starch and vastly increasing the chances that it’ll break apart, particularly if you’ve bucked up for those tiny, tasty fingerlings. A cake tester neatly takes care of that problem.
Want to know if those simmering carrots are tender enough to puree? How about if those baby radishes are cooked through? With a cake tester, you can find out without leaving behind any incriminating evidence. My favorite way to cook beets is in a tightly sealed foil pouch—a method that absolutely prevents you from poking them with a paring knife. A knife makes a hole in the foil too large to recover from. Not so a cake tester.
I use my cake tester instead of a fork to decide whether or not my braising brisket or short ribs are “fork tender.” If the cake tester slides in and out with ease, the meat is ready.
Lots of fish have membranes between layers of flesh that only soften at around 135°F or so (a perfect medium-rare).
Stick your cake tester into that poaching salmon fillet, and it if meets resistance (i.e., if it feels like punching through pieces of paper), it’s undercooked. Barbecuing a pork shoulder low and slow? You can check if it’s done without losing any juices through the grill grates. Finally, if you ever (god forbid!) find yourself without your trusty thermometer by your side, a cake tester is the next best thing. Stick it into the center of your meat and leave it there for about 5 seconds, then pull it out and hold it under your lower lip (an area particularly sensitive to heat). You’ll know instantly