Gourmet Meals in Crappy Little Kitchens Read Free

spatula
    Usually made of silicone, a heat resistant spatula won’t scratch your pans, melt, or catch fire. It takes the place of the wooden spoon and the metal spatula. A heat-resistant spatula flips eggs and burgers beautifully, and it will scrape every last drop from mixing bowls.
    Whisk
    One 12- to 16-inch, thin wire whisk is the only whisk you’ll ever need. Whipping cream, working butter into a sauce, creaming eggs and sugar, sifting dry ingredients, and even whipping up mashed potatoes are all utilities of the whisk, so I do recommend owning one.
    Tongs
    In a professional kitchen, this is the most used utensil. You can turn meat, stir, move pots with hot handles around the stovetop, pick out food from poaching liquid, and you can even juice a lime with it. It’s a great serving utensil for salad or asparagus, too! A nice lightweight aluminum pair of tongs is a great piece of equipment, and if there’s no room left on the pot rack, you can hang it from a nail on the wall.
    Spider
    No, not an arachnid, but a nifty Asian-style utensil that looks like a shallow wire basket with a long handle and is great for lifting vegetables and pasta out of boiling water in fairly large batches. It keeps you from having to pull out broccoli one by one from blanching liquid or pouring out all your boiling water into a colander and starting over. If you need to strain the fat from a few pieces of meat or gently lift poached eggs, this is the tool to use.
    Pastry brush
    These guys are incredibly cheap, and I haven’t found an acceptable substitute for brushing on butter, egg wash, and sauces. I can’t think of a better way to apply glaze to a duck breast. You can also use it to spread herbs and spices, pesto, or condiments like whole grain mustard over your culinary creations. It’s a great tool for spreading oil on your sheet tray, too.
    Vegetable peeler
    A vegetable peeler is great for peeling cucumbers, apples, and potatoes.
    It’s also an excellent tool for shaving hard cheeses and slicing carrots into ribbons for a colorful salad display.
    Knives
    You only need three basic knives to perform every slicing and dicing task you can imagine as a gourmet chef. This discovery liberated me because knives can be one of the most costly items in your kitchen. Everything else the knife guy tries to sell you is either a glorified steak knife that belongs in the silverware drawer, or unnecessary equipment that will be perfectly happy taking up needed space in someone else’s kitchen.
    I keep my knives on a magnetic strip on the wall where I can easily grab them. This storage method is not only more hygienic than the old school butcher’s block (knives may drip dry naturally rather than sit in a puddle inside the storage block) but also, a huge space saver. Imagine the great big chunk of counter space you’ll save by not having that ugly block of wood on the counter. This way, the knives don’t take up space, and you don’t have to worry about getting grazed by a sharp blade or point as you would if you stored them in a drawer with other utensils. Look for the magnetic strip in a kitchen goods store. It’s a snap to install and is a handy item you’ll use every day.
    6- to 8-inch chef’s knife
    This is the perfect utility knife, with a distinctive shape made famous by movie serial killers like Michael Meyers. Besides cutting, chopping, and slicing, you can use it to crush and peel garlic, carve meat, and even fillet a fish. When choosing a knife, hold it in your hand to see if it feels comfortable. If you have very small hands, a Santoku-style chef’s knife will be perfect, because it has a shorter blade and a slightly curved and smaller handle. Always go with a stainless steel knife because it won’t rust, and it holds a sharp edge very well, is relatively inexpensive and easy to sharpen if it does go dull. I use a very inexpensive handheld knife sharpener that has guards to