Kitchen Utensils

Some people like a lot of electric gadgets in their kitchen. I prefer to keep it simple; gadgets do have a place but often results are not as good as doing things by hand and by the time you have washed them up, you did not save any time anyway.

A good example of this is the food processor. i only use mine for grating potatoes for rösti and making French pastry (which it does in moments). When it breaks I will not replace it. For chopping, slicing or blending, the blades bruise food rather than chop it finely or crush it; and unwanted flavours are released. If you don’t believe me use it to chop onions and compare the results with those chopped by hand using a proper knife; you will be struck by how strong and unpleasant the food processor ones taste. Invest in some high quality knives like Henckels or Sabatier, a steel for sharpening them and a wooden chopping board and learn how to handle them. You will be able to chop ingredients as you need them quickly, but don't do it after a dark and stormy cocktail or a caipirinha! You will be shocked at how expensive good knives can be but you will have for the rest of you life as long as you do not put them in the dishwasher. For blending or pureéing a food processor does not do as good a job as the blender or mouli-légumes.

While we are on the subject of dishwashers, a dishwasher saves so much time in the kitchen, far more than buying ready made meals. Unfortunately granny’s best china and glasses will not be dishwasher proof so buy white pottery china and dishwasher proof glasses. Like mine, your best china and glasses will stay in the cupboard from one year to the next.

Another huge time saver is the microwave. In my opinion this is an essential tool in any kitchen. It is a completely different cooking method compared to baking, roasting, braising etc., and the end result does taste different so I would never use it for cooking a complete dish. However, it has legions of uses in the kitchen and I find it performs much better than other techniques for: defrosting something in a hurry, melting butter/chocolate – no more bain maries, reheating leftovers such as rice, softening onions without burning them, cooking rice and couscous easily, warming plates (amazingly it will warm a large stack of plates in minutes), scrambling eggs (but you must stir them every 45 seconds or so with a fork),cooking vegetables, making lemon curd, cooking crispy bacon and steaming fish.

A good blender is indispensable for making soups, purées, breadcrumbs etc.

A hand held blender; this just has to be the cookery invention of the last 30 years. Invaluable for blitzing soup in moments, rescuing a split custard, making fruit sauces, taking lumps out of a flour sauce... returning the skin into hot milk etc.

The Kenwood chef (or other electric beater on a stand with changeable beaters) is a must-have for making cakes (especially creaming butter and sugar, you can never get the same results with a hand held beater and as for doing it by hand, forget it!), kneading bread and whisking egg whites, the results are excellent and time savings significant.

A hand held electric beater is extremely useful for whipping creem. Copper bowls for beating egg whites are - yes it is true - very slightly better but it is not worth the arm ache for the marignal result. I spent years slaving with them!

Stainless steel pans ; while the initial outlay is high they last for years and are easy to keep clean.

A non-stick frying pan with glass lid – you can see what is going on inside without fat splattering everywhere. Perfect for making Fennel, Garlic and Anchovy chicken or chicken with South of France Herbs and Vermouth.

A well tempered steel frying pan; perfect for searing steaks or sea food. Never scour the pan, clean with washing up liquid and a soft brush.

An iron wok – great for steaming and stir frying. You need to season the wok before you cook with it the first time. Wash off any protective coating with hot water and soap. Rub the wok with 2 tbsp oil and a paper towel, place over a medium heat for 10 minutes. The oil will bond to the metal and seal it. Do not leave the kitchen at the point in case it catches fire. Wash with soapy water and repeat. Never scour the wok as it will remove the tempered surface. Just clean the wok with a soft brush, hot water and soap. Rinse thoroughly and dry the wok by placing it over a direct flame. Leave to cool.

An electric wok is very convenient but is not going to do the true wok trick. It is just not hot enough and the food will partly steam, partly fry. The taste of wok cooked food is much enhanced by the searing of the food against the extremely hot wok. The Chinese call this wok hay. This is very hard to achieve in a domestic kitchen as the flames are simply not high enough, so to go some way to it, heat the wok over a flame until it literally is smoking and is as hot as possible. It will go an ashy white in the hottest part. Add the oil, pouring it down the sides and then immediately afterwards the ingredients. This hot –wok-cool-oil combination also means that the food will not stick.

Woks make very good steamers too, put a trivet inside, water and hey presto, off you go. I have cooked Christmas puddings, steamed puddings, cheesecakes etc. like this.

A quality electric fan oven with a glass window in the door; I almost never pre-heat my Miele oven as it comes up to an even temperature in 2-3 minutes. A glass window is essential as it is often good to be able to see what is going on inside the oven without opening the door.

Cast iron enamelled baking dishes and covered casseroles. Again these are expensive but last for ever. The results from cast iron pans for roast potatoes and gratins are excellent as are slow cooked foods cooked in large cast iron casserole pots.

A rubber spatula, so efficient at scraping out bowls in a moment, an absolute kitchen essential.

White porcelain soufflé dishes and little moulds like crème caramel. (Pillivuyt is a good brand)

Measuring jug and set of measuring spoons.

Cherry stoner, grater, peeler, potato masher, palette knives, ladle, slotted spoon and, balloon whisk.

Silicone mat for baking; this is good innovation, rolls, croissants etc. do not stick.

Nozzled plastic bottles for dressings. I keep vinaigrette in the fridge in these and ready made raspberry and other sauces in the freezer.

Large freezer bags for marinating joints in the fridge.

A good range of bowls and microwave proof lidded plastic items.

A pestle and mortar and coffee grinder for crushing roast spices. A rough granite pestle and mortar from an Asian shop is so much quicker and betterthan a smooth one.

An ice cream scoop.

An ice cream maker with built in freezer. If you like homemade ice cream, and I have never met anyone who did not, this is made for you. It is relatively expensive but it produces crystal free smooth ice cream in 40 minutes, any flavour you like. I do have several recipes for no-churn ice cream that work well, but these are limited to vanilla, chocolate, Baileys and coffee and dulche de leche.

Unfortunately the ice cream makers that go in the freezer are too much fiddle if you are busy and making custard based ice creams in trays in the freezer gives a hard crystalline result, even if you do break it up. Ice cream is meant to be smooth and voluptuous not hard and icy. In my youth we used a salt and ice hand churn version; great ice cream but a lot of work. It took 4 of us to operate it.

A meat thermometer - this is invaluable when roasting meats – you will be able to tell exactly when roast meat is cooked how you like it.

A simple timer – never try to remember cooking times, when we are busy we are surprisingly poor at measuring the passing of time. A simple timer will save you, as it has me, from many disasters.

Pressure cooker – the English have a phobia about pressure cookers; hissing, spitting, dangerous, bad flavours, etc. Nonsense, everyone in France, Germany and Spain has one and results are excellent. I use mine all the time; it cuts cooking times by around 70% and saves the same on energy. If you cook a lot of slow cooked food - casseroles, braises, soups, beans, mashed potatoes, vegetable purees, then you must get one as well.

Follow the manufacture’s instructions carefully and cut the normal cooking time by 3. Never open the lid while it is under pressure, so allow it to cool down at the end of cooking before you take the lid off.

Mouli-légumes - not so easy to find in the UK, specialist cooking shops only. It will simplify pushing things through a sieve enormously; the tough stringy bits get left behind and the edible get pushed through but retain their texture. Great for soups - Spring Vegetable Soup - vegetable purees, fish terrines, coulis, etc.

Baking trays and swiss roll tins.