No matter how little cooking you might do, there are still some essential tools that should be in every person’s kitchen. Even cooking an omelet, boiling some potatoes or heating some soup require certain pieces of equipment. This article gives an overview of just some of the tools that should be in every kitchen to ensure the best results for your food.
A wooden spoon
Even if you are not into mixing and baking cakes and pastries, you still need a wooden spoon to stir soup or to make gravy. Most people will use a wooden spoon in preference to metal spoons because they won’t scratch the cookware and metal spoons are extremely likely to become hot due to the heat from the pan, so investing in a few wooden spoons is essential.
A strainer
If you cook any kind of vegetables, pasta or want to wash salad vegetables, the best way of doing this is with the aid of a metal strainer, or colander as they used to be called.
Steamer
If you want to make sure that you keep all the vitamins and goodness in your vegetables then you should cook them in a steamer rather than drown them in water and boil away the vitamins.
Knives
Besides your everyday knives and forks, you need some sharp cook’s knives, preferably one of the sets that are sold in butcher block holders as you will need them for a variety of cooking tasks.
Cutting board
You need a cutting or chopping board if you are going to chop vegetables or slice up your meat or fish. A good quality board will set you back several dollars but will last you for years. If you want to go one better, you could even invest in a pack of colored chopping boards so you don’t use the same board for cutting raw meat and vegetables.
Bowls and cookware
You need a set of different sized bowls for serving, mixing and soaking food. Along with your bowls you will need a set of different sized saucepans, a heavy frying pan, a wok if you like Chinese food and at least one baking dish and one casserole dish. Buy the kind of casserole dish that can be used on the hob as well as in the oven.
Tongs and spatulas
If you have ever tried to pull something from a hot pan with your fingers, you will recognize the need for kitchen tongs. A spatula is incredibly useful for getting under things and flipping them over so that they are cooked evenly on both sides.
A grater
Even if you don’t follow recipes you will need a grater for your cheese and for anything else where grating is needed for the recipe.
Small kitchen utensils
Try to remember that a good can opener is the no cooking cook’s best friend. If you intend to fry eggs at some point or cook yourself some fish, you will need a fish slice to turn things and lift them out of the pan. It’s a good idea to have a draining spoon, even if you do only use it to take your boiled egg out of a pan.
Potato peeler and whisk
You need a peeler for getting the skin off of potatoes and for paring it away from apples if you don’t like the skin. Using a peeler is a lot easier and better than using a knife as the blade is thin so you won’t lose half of the ingredients when peeling them. You don’t have to be a great cook to need a whisk, even if you only resort to packet sauces, you will need a whisk to remove the inevitable lumps from those and from your gravy.
