Kitchen Cooking Tools Starts With The Best Knives

Knives are flat out your most important kitchen tool- spend the money here. Unlike many of the little gadgets that have been a disappointment, I have never regretted the money spent on a really good knife.

This is true for butcher knives, and especially true for paring knives. In fact, I don't even buy knives at discount stores. I prefer to go to a local restaurant supply. The shank, that's the part that is steel, should go all the way through the knife. I have a number of brands, but my favorite are German. Check out a good knife catalog and read the specs. It is the heftiness of the knife and the wedge shape that tapers from the top and thins to the blade that puts the best force on what you're cutting. ."

Learn good knife technique, by the time you get out your food processor you could have diced that onion. Reserve that for quantity cooking where it makes sense. You will notice that the efficient use of a knife is the one skill all the food channel stars have in common.

Using parsley as an example: put the tip on the board, raise and lower by the handle to cut, pivot the knife by its point. Scoop the parsley that danced away to the edges back into the center of the pile and repeat. Practice until you look like a Food Channel chef.

How cheap can you get and still have great cookware? These next four are great values!

• The wok and its good friend,
• The bamboo steamer.
• The crock pot
• Cast iron skillets and cast iron Dutch ovens (image) are something you must have.

They are not expensive and do the job of the higher priced enamel ones - not that I don't like the enameled ones - when I get my own cooking show, they'll be high on my list. Cast iron provides a good, strong, even heat on the bottom and all the way up the sides as you will know if you accidentally touch it.

A word about "seasoning" your cast iron. Nowadays, they come to you "pre-seasoned" but you will probably have to repeat the procedure from time to time. Cast iron, like the wok, doesn'tlike to be scrubbed with soapy water. When you succumb to laziness and stick it in the dishwasher (or when a helpful guest does this for you) it will come out looking rusty. Spray liberally with Pam(or your brand) wipe out carefully with a paper towel, and move on. Life is too short and most of us don't have enough iron in our diets anyway.

Or you could re-season the skillet or Dutch oven. To do this, rub salt and oil in the cast iron piece, heat, then using paper towels, wipe it out carefully. Put it away with theresidual oil undisturbed. The best looking wok is the one that looks like it's an antique you found in the basement - heavily carbonized. The shiny new ones are for shiny new cooks.

Dora A., a local Chinese cooking instructor in my area, used one of these rigid "bamboo brushes" (image) to loosen bits of food before putting the wok away, scraped and rinsed with onlyhot water. Spray with Pam and rub that in to prevent oxidation (rust). I was dubious about the sanitation of this procedure, but there are a lot of healthy people in China who show otherwise.

Pyrex containers with Burping Lids

You really can't bean them for leftovers, they are one of the most versatile containers on the market. The advantages are:

• they go into the oven
• then directly to the table
• they can be used for storage in the fridge with plastic wrap if the lid has walked off - it sticks to glass particularly well though many come with excellent plastic lids that "burp." This will not be a tight vacuum, but with the air that oxidizes your foods, quantity counts. it can go to the freezer
• they are inexpensive
• they always match. If you use pyrex for all your courses, your buffet table will look elegant and not like a hodgepodge of mismatched servingware bought or gifted over many years.
• Pyrex glass plus one or two colors carries a theme:
• • use something red and green for Xmas, the pyrex won't compete with your theme.
  • pyrex plus pink or blue for a shower

Mix your pyrex with any cut crystal you might have. Candlelight will cause reflections and twinkling and the effect is spectacular. These look great for passing around hot hor d'oeuvres directlyfrom the oven (allow a few minutes to cool enough to pick up).

Try to find round flat pyrex microwave turntable replacements from a glass remnant and overstock store (hereabouts, we have the Glass Barn, for example) These look great for passing around hot hord'oeuvres directly from the oven (allow a few minutes to cool enough to pick up). They will shatter if you do more than warm - about 200 degrees should be ok.

Risers

On really special occasions, to set a dramatic table, try putting your buffet offerings on "risers" at different levels like professional caterers do - never try this with cardboard boxes -someone may be burned. This is how you make a riser:

• Take four identical cans you plan to use anyway (e.g., chicken broth.)
• Remove lids, wash, and remove labels.
• hot glue them to a board (3/8 inch is best ) you have bought as scrap from your home decorations store
• • (most of these places will cut them just large enough to hold perhaps two 9 by 13 pyrex dishes side by side.)
• Sand the corners just a bit.
• You can stack two of these on top of each other to get different heights.
• Don't put anything with boiling water on top of a "doubly stacked" riser.
• Place your "risers" on a tablecloth, cover loosely with another tablecloth, arrange folds loosely and tuck under the edges.

Gadgets

• A mallet for pounding,
• A "toothed tenderizer" for prepping potentially tough meats.
• Connective tissue that, being a protein, congeals or contracts when heated, is what makes some meats tough. Pounding or making tiny cuts break this tissue.
• Restaurant supply roasting sheets- the largest that will fit in your oven. Flimsy ones from the grocery will warp and will not heat as evenly.
• A pizza stone

Table set-ups

Suggest you buy white square tablecloths off the Internet from a discount restaurant linens or supply company. You can use several, overlap these, puddle them over "risers" and the effect isexcellent. You'll never worry about having the right size cloth when all the extensions are used in your table. Since these are bought in quantity - usually in durable, washable cotton - you needn'tworry about a mismatch of color or material.

Small tools that make a big difference:

1. Instant read thermometer *must have
2. Spoonulas and spatulas that tolerate high temperatures are one of the great inventions
3. Several digital timers
4. 1. ones with magnets are great, but clips are perhaps better, most stainless appliances won't take a magnet. T
   2. he ones that time several things at once are too confusing.
5. The rasp zester- every home needs one
6. Melon baller-every home needs one
7. Wooden spoons-a variety

Not for everybody, but are two dishwashers right for you?

We throw large family dinners at least twice a month. Twenty-five to thirty people are common. Given that I practically run a restaurant, I treated myself to two dishwashers. It becomes unloadone, reload one, unload two, reload two. This, plus a deep double-bowl stainless utility sink in the laundry room right off the kitchen, means I can also hit large trays, cookies sheets, servingplatters, and pots.

This sink has mounted over it a truly wonderful high-pressure faucet. It fairly blasts off food residue with hot water.

One appliance I have loved and lost, The Ultra Chef.

For making delicate sauces nothing before nor since has come on the market to take its place. It wasidiot-proof.

Taking, for example, Hollandaise Sauce from scratch, you merely dropped in all the ingredients, put it on number "1" - the lowest of five temperature settings - set the timer for 20minutes and forgot about it. The cylinder would rotate at a 45 degree angle with the gentlest of heat from an electric coil below, then it would turned off the heat at the end of the 20 minutes and continue rotating patiently until you turned it off - perfect, wonderful sauce every time. The Ultra Chef was very definitely one of the right kitchen cooking tools.

If anyone knows where one is, let me know, my search has turned up nothing so far.

Now that you have the right kitchen cooking tools, let's do a mini-cooking course!

Ready to cook?