Perfect steak and French fries

By Greg Turner | Published: July 31, 2011

When I was in high school, my friends and I sometimes ate lunch at a hot dog stand called Pluto’s Dog House. Pluto’s offered up a bounty of different dogs, from Chicago style to chili, but the thing that really set the place apart were their French fries. One, the fries were free, complimentary with every hot dog, even the cheap-ass plain one. Two, they tasted great. Did they taste great because they were free? Perhaps that helped, but I think the real key was they were made fresh, right before our eyes.

Pluto’s had an open kitchen, right there behind the counter. As a middle-aged woman took our orders, a middle-aged man (the husband-and-wife owners, I’m going to guess now) started cooking them. For every order of fries, he grabbed a large Idaho baking potato, shoved it into a metal box on the wall above the frier and pulled a big handle topped with a red rubber grip. The potatoes shot through the cutter with a hiss and thunk, and perfectly cut fies dropped into the hot oil. A few minutes later, the woman served up the fries wrapped in wax paper and set in a cheap plastic basket.

I can’t remember if Pluto’s double-cooked their fries. I didn’t pay much attention to food back then. But remembering how good they were, I have to think they did. After all, that’s the key to perfect fries: you fry them once at a low temperature (say, 350F) to cook them through, then flash fry them again at a higher temperature (say, 450F) to crisp the outside.

Making perfect fries at home can be tough, especially if you don’t have a Fry Daddy or some other device specifically made to dunk food in hot oil. Deep frying in pans can be a messy, time-consuming process. Luckily, you can achive results that are pretty close with a regular skillet and a big stock pot. And if you happen to be making steaks to serve at the same time? Congratulations, you get to mimic classic French fries (or pomme frites) that are often fried in rendered beef, pig, or duck fat.

Seared flat iron steak and French fries

Perfect steak and fries

Ingredients:

  • One large Yukon gold potato for each diner
  • About 1/4 – 1/2 pound of flat iron steak for each diner
  • Prepared salad
  • Olive oil
  • Vegetable or some other generic cooking oil

Supplies:

  • One large stock or soup pot
  • One large skillet
  1. Pull the beef from the fridge, salt it, and set it aside.
  2. Scrub your potatoes, then slice them lengthwise into half-inch sections
  3. Slice each of those sections cross-ways into half-inch lengths (raw French fries)
  4. Put the potatoes in the stock pot and fill with cold water until the potatoes are submerged (about 1 inch under water)
  5. Put the stock pot on the stove over high heat
  6. While the water heats, set the skillet on the stove, add a dash of olive oil, and set the heat to medium-high
  7. Once the water starts boiling, set a timer for eight minutes, and carefully lay the steaks in the pan
  8. At the four-minute mark, flip the steaks
  9. Let them cook another four minutes, then move them to a plate, and cover them with aluminium foil
  10. Drain the potatoes
  11. Add oil to the skillet until you have it filled about a quarter inch
  12. Bring the heat back up to medium high, wait a bit, and add the fries in batches1
  13. Let each batch cook three to four minutes (no, don’t flip or move or touch them or anything. They’ll get good and crispy on three sides), then transfer to a plate heavily lined with paper towels
  14. Liberally salt the fries, slice the steak and serve with a little salad

1. Give the fries a little room. If you put too many in the pan at once, the steam released by cooking won’t have anywhere to go, and you’ll end up with steamed, boiled potatoes instead of fried. And unless you’re going to mash them, you don’t want steamed, boiled potatoes.

Posted in boil, flat iron steak, pan fry, Yukon gold potato | 1 Comment

Get your kids into the kitchen (recipe: Mexican casserole)

By Greg Turner | Published: April 22, 2011

Two nights ago my son helped out in the kitchen. He’s two and a half, and I’ve been including him in kitchen stuff forever. He first noticed, I think, at about three months. We cooked frittata together, and he was fascinated by the eggs.

My son fascinated by eggs cooking in a pan

My son staring at eggs in a pan

Before last night, he’d done a few things here and there to help out: adding a dash of salt to a chick pea salad, putting the coffee filter in the coffee maker (we make the coffee together almost every morning), and adding a splash of lemon juice to some sauteed greens. But the night before last, it really felt like he was helping. We made a mexican-style casserole, modified from a vegetarian layered enchilada recipe I found in the Whole Foods app. My son helped me line the pan with tortillas; helped me measure out the corn, chili powder and lime juice; helped mash the black beans; and helped spoon the black bean and vegetable mixtures into the pan.

Too young?

Aiden Grey helps line a casserole pan with corn tortillas

Lining the casserole dish with tortillas

Some poeple might think he’s too young to be in the kitchen. Some people might think that he’ll get hurt, what with all the knives and hot pans and scariness. And yes, he might. But I think the positives far outweigh the negatives. I want him to get an appreciation for food and cooking. I want him to undersand how good it feels to make something (he was super excited when I pulled the finished dish from the oven), and though I never put it together before, cooking can teach kids some valuable skills, like addition, measurements and time:

  • You can get two cups of corn kernels by counting out four half-cup measurements
  • A tablespoon is three teaspoons
  • Fifteen minutes is one quarter of an hour

Whether he puts any of this togther at this point is irrelevant. He counted to four when we measured the corn, and it made him happy. He was able to hold a measuring teaspoon steady enough to fill it three times with lime juice, and each time tipped it into the right bowl. He added two pinches of salt to the kale I sauteed on the stove. And when we’d finally put everything together and I slid the food into the oven, he raced into the living room and said, “I helped make dinner!” It was followed by multiple high-fives all around.

Don’t make it too complicated

If you’re going to cook with kids it’s important to keep things simple. Casseroles are perfect. You mix and layer a bunch of ingedients, then put it in the oven to cook.

Delicious Mexican casserole

veggie Mexican casserole

Mexican casserole (nee layered veggie enchiladas)

Ingredients:

  • At least 12, small white-corn tortillas (They’re probably listed as taco-sized on the package)
  • 16oz freesh greens
  • 2 cups frozen corn kernels (or fresh, if you have them)
  • 2 cups thinly sliced bell pepper
  • 15 oz. diced tomatoes (it’s tomato season in many places, and fresh is best)
  • 2 cans black beans (if you make fresh, you’re looking at 28oz., give or take)
  • 1 cup shredded cheese (equal parts cheddar and monetery jack works great)
  • Cumin
  • Chili powder
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Lime juice

Supplies

  • 9″ * 13″casserole dish
  • 1 large bowl
  • 1 large skillet
  • Measuring spoons
  • 1 wooden spoon
  • A potato masher (or sturdy fork)

Set your oven to 400 degrees. While the oven heats, you can do everything else:

Sautee a pound of greens over medium heat in about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. You’ll want them to cook down1., so it might be best to work in batches. We used kale.

While the greens cook down, mix the bell pepper, tomatoes and corn together in a large bowl. Add a tablespoon of chili poweder, a tablespoon of lime juice and a sprinkle of salt. Mix it together. Then line the bottom of the casserole dish with half the tortillas.

note: the tortiallas should overlap and should come up some on the sides of the casserole dish.

Once the greens have all cooked down, add the corn mixture to the pan and mix it together.

While that warms through, put the beans into the bowl, add some chili poweder, a little salt, and a little cumin and mash them (if your potato masher will work, great. Otherwise, use a fork).

When you’re done with the beans, spread them evenly on top of the tortialls. Spoon half the corn mixture over the beans, and sprinkle half the cheese evenly over the vegetables. Top with the remaining tortillas, spoon on the remaining corn mix, sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top, then slide the dish into the 400-degree oven for 15 minutes.

Slice and serve.

1. When you cook down greens, you’re essentially extracting water and wilting them. It’s best to work over medium heat so your greens don’t burn. Add a little oil to a large pan, get it hot, then begin adding the greens. Add enough so you can still stir them a bit, but get as much in as you possibly can. Let them sizzle, and move them from time to time. When you can add more greens, do so, then stir it up so the newest addition gets worked to the bottom and closest to the heat. Working in this way, you should be able to get your greens wilted down so you have enough room to add the corn mixture.

Posted in bake, bell pepper, black beans, corn, corn tortillas, extra virgin olive oil, Ingredient, kale, lime juice, saute, tomato | 1 Comment

Simple, delicious roasted chicken

By Greg Turner | Published: April 8, 2011

Can you do me a favor? I want you to cook this weekend. Cook for yourself, or cook for your family. It doesn’t matter. Just get in the kitchen. It won’t take up much of your time, and the results will be amazing.

Are you with me? Good. You’re roasting a chicken.

Roast chicken with carrots and potatoes

Roast chicken with potatoes and carrots

Ingredients:

  • 1 roasting chicken (about 8 lbs.)
    • If you’re cooking for one, go with a small fryer, about 4 pounds — reduce the cooking time to about an hour
  • 5 Yukon gold potatoes
  • 6 carrots
  • Olive oil
  • Kosher salt
  • 6 Garlic cloves
  • 1 lemon (or onion or bell pepper–more on that in a moment)
  • Pepper

Supplies

  • A roasting pan or dish
  • A deep casserole dish
  • Aluminum foil
  • Chef’s knife
  • Large serving spoon

Start with that chicken. Unwrap it, let it drain a little, and set it in the roasting pan. Salt it inside and out. And really salt it. You should be able to see the individual flakes of kosher salt dusting the breast and the tops of the legs. Inside, it should feel like wet sand, there’s so much salt in there–two big pinches for the inside, one big pinch each for the outside’s top and bottom. We’re talking big, four-finger-and-a-thumb pinches, ok?

Great.

Now set your oven for 400 degrees (204C). While the oven heats and the chicken comes to temperature, go ahead and cut your potatoes and carrots. I like to cut the potatoes into cubish shapes approximately one-inch on a side. I cut about a half inch from the end of each carrot, half them, then cut the thick ends in half again lengthwise.

Put the potatoes and carrots in the casserole dish, drizzle them with olive oil, sprinkle them with salt and mix them together.1 Cover the dish with aluminum foil.

Using the side of your knife, crush the garlic cloves and toss them inside the chicken. There’s no need to peel them or anything, since you won’t be eating them later. Then quarter the lemon and shove two of those quarters into the chicken (the other two quarters? I don’t know. Make lemonade or something).2

Has your oven beeped yet? If so, great. Slide the roasting pan and the casserole dish into the oven. If they won’t fit side-by-side, put the chicken up top and the casserole down low. If it hasn’t beeped yet, just wait. It will soon.

Now leave everything alone for about an hour and 20 minutes. Yes, you can do whatever you want to. Play with the kids, watch tv, it doesn’t matter. At the end of an hour and 20 minutes, pull out the pans and set them on the stovetop. Let the chicken sit for another ten minutes or so before carving it up.

To plate, spoon the potatoes and carrots onto a plate, sprinkle a little pepper on them, and nestle a piece of chicken on top. Then spoon on some of the chicken’s rendered fat and other juices from the roasting pan.

Congratulations! You roasted a chicken, and it tastes awesome.

Variations:

You could try to roast the chicken with some herbs–a couple sprigs of rosemary inside and one on top, or you could try the same thing with sage.

You can use the leftover chicken to make an amazing rosemary chicken pasta, shred it to make sandwiches, or cook it with cumin, lime, salt, coriander and a little water to make chicken fajitas (don’t forget the onions and peppers). My family’s usually able to get three meals out of one large chicken, each different and each delicious.

Go! Cook! And let me know how it goes, ok?

1. If you use your hands, make sure to wash them thoroughly first. In fact, you should probably wash your hands more often anyway.

2. Any fairly sturdy vegetable or fruit will work for this. Essentially, what you’re looking for is something that will impart some moisture and some flavor to the chicken. A red onion work great, as does a bell pepper. Just slice it, and shove the pieces into the bird. You might even want to experiment some time and use a pear or an orange. I’d stay away from anything too fragile, though, and anything too bitter.

Posted in carrot, chicken, Ingredient, potato, roast | Leave a comment

Cooking methods: boil, steam, sauté

By Greg Turner | Published: March 9, 2011

Here’s a dialogue I keep having with myself:

You haven’t given them any recipes
Who needs recipes?
Your readers might like one or two. You know, that’s why people come to a cooking blog. For recipes.
They shouldn’t.
No?
No. Besides, I’m not very good with recipes. Mine are always slap-dash and imprecise.
Then why should they bother?
They should bother so they can learn how to cook.
So what are you waiting for?

If I’m being honest, I can say I’m a descent cook. I make food good enough to win a departmental cooking contest, but I’m certainly no Grant Achatz. I’m not even an experienced line cook. But I’ve been fortunate to have a patient wife who’s willing to encourage my cooking, even when it doesn’t go well, and I know enough to pay attention so I can learn from my mistakes. A big one I run into time and again? Cooking cold chicken thighs too fast so they’re under-done in the center.

I know what the problem is: cold chicken thighs take longer to heat through than even cool chicken does. And they have that cold bone in the center, acting like a heat sink. So I put them in the pan, sear them, and when the skin’s nearly perfect they’re still raw in the center.

Bummer.

What’s the secret? Start with chicken thighs that have been allowed to come closer to room temperature, or finish them off in the oven. Either one works all right, though starting closer to room temperature gets better results.

And I’ll get to some recipes, I swear. I just think it’s important to mention a few things before we go there.

Heat, Moisture and Time

For me, cooking comes down to these three elements. When cooking, you’re trying to heat food without losing all its moisture. At least I am. Don’t heat enough, though, and it’s raw. Heat too much and it’s burnt. Proteins cooked too high and too long end up rubbery and tough. Vegetables cooked too long and too dry become leathery or brittle. Pasta cooked too long disintegrates. Cakes and breads turn to carbon. They have for me, at least.

The thing is, knowing the various cooking methods can pull you back from the brink of a bitter disaster, and just might salvage an otherwise inedible dinner.

Cooking methods: wet and dry

If you pay attention to recipes, you’ll see the same cooking methods come up over and over again. You’ll see some of them stand alone, and others you’ll see used in conjunction with one another. The important thing is to notice. Notice when a high, dry cooking method is paired with a long, low wet one, or vice-versa. Pay attention to how people use bake and roast (in my experience, it’s mostly about temperature, but I am probably dead wrong about that). When you’re working with food, figure out how sturdy it is. Brussels sprouts are going to stand up to a par-boil much better than Ritz crackers could ever hope. But bagel dough? Boil away.

Because I cook when I get home from work, and because I want my family to eat closer to 6:30 than 8:00, I tend to rely on fast cooking methods. For the most part that means lots of cooking energy or very high heat: boil, steam, grill/broil, sauté.

Boil
I hope you know what it means to boil. If you don’t, go fill a pot with water, put it on high heat on the stove and don’t look at it. If you watch the pot, it’ll never boil.

And old wife told me that.

Anyway, boiling can be a remarkably fast cooking method because the water currents and constant motion mean hot water molecules are smashing into cool food molecules, imparting some of their energy, then racing off to gather more energy. It’s also an incredibly violent process and only hardiest foods can stand up to it. Think beans, sturdy vegetables, starches and dry pastas. Boiling won’t brown food, though, because it’s not hot enough. For browning, you need to go with direct heat and a little fat.

Steam
Heat water until it evaporates and then don’t let it escape. Steaming is a quick, efficient method of cooking delicate foods like fish. It’s also great for imparting even heat pretty quickly because a lot of hot molecules are coming in contact with the food. Steaming heats a little quicker than boiling because condensing water vapor releases some energy in the form of heat (it’s an exothermic reaction).

Steaming doesn’t get hot enough to brown food either.

Sauté
Sauté comes from the French, and means, literally, to jump. The idea here is that food comes into contact with a pan so hot the surface water in the food immediately steams away and causes the food to ‘jump’ in the pan. It’s the European equivalent of a stir fry. To sauté, make sure you have some fat in the pan (oil, butter, etc.), get the pan piping hot, and toss in the ingredients. The key here is to make sure the ingredients have enough room to let the steam escape. If they’re too crowded, they’ll end up steaming, not sautéing, and you won’t get the wonderful caramelization of sugars or the browning of amino acids.

When sautéing vegetables, it’s important to keep them moving. When searing meat, poultry or fish, you’ll want to let it sit on the pan long enough to get a good crust on it.

So now what?

Now you can cook. Seriously. Don’t believe me? Try these simple dinners:

Rosemary and sage-scented pork roast with potatoes and carrots

This is a variation on the pork roast from the salt post. See how this stuff fits together? (You’ll also see now what I meant when I called my recipes slap-dash).

rosemary and sage scented pork roast with carrots and potatoes

Ingredients

  • Pork loin
  • 6 Yukon gold potatoes
  • 5 carrots
  • Kosher salt
  • Rosemary
  • Sage
  • Butter
  • Olive oil

Supplies

  • A large skillet
  • A large roasting pan
  • A splatter guard

Take the roast out of the fridge, salt it, and set it aside in a container on the counter. Begin preheating the oven to 300 degrees F. While the pork sits and the oven comes to temperature, cut up the six potatoes and break apart the carrots. Toss them into the roasting dish, sprinkle them with a couple pinches of salt and set it aside.

Place the pan on the oven over high heat and add about a teaspoon of olive oil. When it gets hot (the olive oil will look a little shimmery), lay the roast in the pan, cover with the splatter guard, and leave it alone for about a minute. Turn and sear each side about 60 seconds, then transfer it to the roasting pan. Make sure the roast is down in the potatoes and touches the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle in a few pats of butter (two tablespoons, total), a couple sprigs of rosemary, and a few sage leaves. Cover in aluminum foil and slide it into the oven for two hours.

The next night you can use the leftover pork to make pulled-pork sandwiches. Delicious and amazingly easy, especially if someone’s in the middle of painting your kitchen.

Notice how in that example we used high, dry heat to brown the meat and then steam to finish cooking it? In this next dish, we do just the opposite.

Skirt steak with collard greens, potatoes and carrots

Skirt steak with collard greens and seared potatoes

Ingredients

  • Skirt steak
  • 16oz collard greens
  • ½ medium onion
  • A few strips of bacon
  • Kosher salt
  • Red pepper flakes
  • Leftover potatoes and carrots from the roast

Supplies

  • Large skillet
  • Large stock pot
  • Splatter guard

Again, take the meat out of the fridge and salt it. Set it on the counter so it’ll come to room temperature. Dice the onion and chop the bacon. Put the big stock pot on a big burner and turn the heat to medium. Add the bacon to the cool pot._1

Once the bacon has just begun to brown, add the onion. Stir it around a couple times and then let it sit.

While it sits, microwave the leftover potatoes and carrots a couple times. I used 1 minute, 15 seconds, twice.

Now, add the collard greens to the pot, give them a stir and then add enough water to just cover the greens. Increase the heat to high and bring the pot to a boil. Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to medium and toss in a couple tablespoons of kosher salt and a few shakes of red pepper flakes. Cover the greens with a tight fitting lid and let them boil away about 10 minutes.

When the 10 minutes it up, remove the lid, but don’t do anything else.

Place the skillet on another burner over medium-high heat. Add a pat of butter. When the butter begins to brown, gently lay the skirt steak into the pan, cover with the splatter guard and let it sear for about 2 minutes. When that’s done, turn it over and let the other side sear about 2 minutes. When that’s done, move the steak to a plate and let it rest.

Now add the potatoes and carrots right into the skillet with the beef juices and browned butter. You can stir them a couple times to mix everything together, but we’re really looking for a good crust on some of the potatoes and carrots to lend some texture and taste variety, bite to bite. So just let them sit there in the pan a few minutes, then bring them off the heat.

Plate the collard greens using a slotted spoon, pile on the potatoes, and finally cut the skirt steak against the grain and place a few pieces on top.

Congratulations
You just seared potatoes that had been steamed to cook them through (the opposite of what we did with the pork roast before), boiled a hardy vegetable and seared a steak to perfection.

You have just used sautéing, boiling and steaming to cook a couple really delicious meals.

Oh….you want substitutions? Fine. You could use the same method to cook a beef roast instead of a pork roast. Or to steam potatoes on their own. If you boil other greens, like kale, don’t let them go as long. Boiling kale takes about five minutes. Instead of skirt steak you could sear chicken breasts. Or, you remember those chicken thighs from the very beginning?

Salt the chicken thighs and let them come very close to room temperature. Add a couple table spoons of olive oil to a pan, get it piping hot (medium-high should do it), and set the thighs in the pan, skin-side down. Let them sear about four minutes, then flip them over and let them sear another four minutes. Then add a half cup of white wine and a couple bay leaves. Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer for about 10 minutes. Serve with some crusty bread and Spanish rice.

Congratulations, you’ve just added another cooking method to your repertoire: braising.

1. Adding the bacon to a cool pot and letting it cook as it also comes to temperature will render more fat out of the bacon. The fat will lend its flavor to the collard greens. Plus, the bacon will end up good and crispy, if you let it cook long enough.

Posted in bacon, boil, brussels sprouts, carrot, chop, Essay, extra virgin olive oil, onion, potato, salt, saute, sear, skirt steak, steam | Leave a comment

Kitchen gear primer: get only what what you need

By Greg Turner | Published: February 28, 2011

And be careful what you spend on

As a nerd, I tend to place a great importance on things. It comes from spending my formative years with +1 swords of slaying and 1-up mushrooms. That being said, I don’t place a lot of importance on prefect kitchen gear. I use what what works for me, and that’s it. And strangely, I don’t often go inventing a need for new kitchen gadgets. Maybe it’s because my kitchen is pretty small. Maybe it’s because most of meals are cooked within 40 minutes on a weeknight, so I don’t see the benefit of multiple stock pots or slow cookers. And maybe my relatively competent knife skills means I don’t need a food processor (though sometimes I think it would be nice).

Knife

I’ve talked some about knives before, but I want to reiterate: Start with a couple good knives. You don’t need to go all out, but take the money you’d spend on a full set at a place like Target and buy a good chef’s knife and a reasonably good pairing knife from Amazon or a kitchen supply store. If you go the Amazon route, be sure you try them out someplace first. You don’t want to be stuck with something that doesn’t fit your hand or is too heavy or too light. Go with a knife that feels solid. One that has a good heft to it—not enough to tire you out, but enough so you can use the weight to help with your cutting. On the pairing knife, you can probably go cheap, but again, it’s nice to work with something that feels good in your hand. Figure about $40 for the two of them, and for fuck’s sake stay away from anything branded by a Food Network star. You’ll end up paying an extra $15 for a name and fake flame paint job.

Pots and Pans

The more I cook, the more I rely on just a few pots and pans. You really don’t need a lot of them, and be wary of anything sold to an exact specification. Single-egg poaching pots, for example. When my wife and I were looking to get some new pots and pans to replace the menagerie of mis-matched, plastic-handled rejects we’d collected over the years, we turned to Amazon.com. I was able to find a fantastic steel set by Cuisinart for just over $100. One of the large skillets had some cosmetic flaws, but it still cooks perfectly, and the set has exactly what’s important: thick, heavy bottoms to absorb and distribute heat evenly (and to stay hot when you add things to it), tight-fitting lids, and metal handles so they can go from range to oven without missing a beat. The set I bought includes the following

  • 8” skillet with sloped sides
  • 10” skillet with sloped sides
  • ½ quart sauce pan
  • 3 quart sauce pan
  • A large sauté pan
  • 8 quart stock pot

I get the most use out of the 10” skillet, the 3-quart sauce pan, and the sauté pan. I break out the stock pot about once a week. The only other pan I really need is a non-stick skillet for cooking eggs. Without making butter soup, there’s really no way to cook anything but scrambled eggs without a non-stick surface. (Yes, I could go with cast-iron or research and go through the steps necessary to season my steel, but I’m a busy man, as I’m sure you’re a busy person, and I’d rather cook and eat than bake cast iron in my oven). I’d also recommend looking for pots and pans that have a curved edge (like the photo above). It allows easy pouring from one pot to another without any liquid clinging to the side and dripping all over the stove. About the only other things I can recommend in the cookware department are a couple earthenware casserole dishes and a ceramic roasting pan. They’re perfect for long, slow cooking in the oven, and the materials, again, absorb a lot of heat and disperse it evenly and slowly. I like round casseroles (1 large, 1 medium) because they don’t suffer from hot spots in the corners.

A word about aluminium: aluminium is a reactive metal. Cook too much acidic food in it, and it’ll go funky on you. Your food will, too. So if you do aluminium, make sure it’s anodized.

Other tools

I have an old-style box cheese grater. It works just fine. I also have a couple wooden spoons, a couple silicone spoons (one slotted) and a couple spatulas (one wooden, one silicone). I’d recommend a can opener, but it seems most people in the first world come equipped with one. I’ll assume you have that covered. You’ll also need a vegetable peeler. I use the old-fashioned kind with the knife-shaped end. I use it to de-eye potatoes. Works great. What else? I have a few large Pyrex bowls that are great for mixing batters or making salads. They’re heavy, though, and I don’t use the microwave that much. If I had it to do again, I might buy some cheap steel bowls. They’d be easier to manage. Finally, you’ll want to get a set of measuring spoons, a set of measuring cups and a splatter shield. Yes, it’s necessary. It saves an amazing amount of cleanup.

Unnecessary but really nice to have? An immersion blender. It makes pureeing soups the easiest thing in the world.

How much do I spend?

The kitchen gadget scale has two poles, very far apart: on one end you have ridiculously cheap items that are pretty much disposable, and the other end is real heirloom stuff that’ll last generations. I can see a good argument for both, but I fall somewhere in the middle. The really cheap stuff often feels too lightweight and chintzy. Also, cheap pans usually don’t have enough material to retain heat, so they don’t cook very well. If you’re going to spend money, put into knives and pans. If you’re going to save money, save it on things like sheet pans and graters. Those kinds of things can be found at restaurant supply stores very inexpensively, and aren’t asked to do the kinds of things that will immediately show poor quality.

Posted in Tools | Leave a comment

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