Best kitchen does not mean to have excess of appliances, gadgets on the market, cookware products etc. while it means to have sufficient and appropriate tools and appliances available that makes your cooking experience easy and faster. By ease it doesn’t mean to have every type of cookware available at your kitchen of all sizes and shapes, on the other hand having a large number of appliances stocked up in kitchen and a lot of cutlery and gadgets overflowing from cabinets and kitchen drawers, for making it a perfect kitchen.
This is not the criteria of a perfect or complete kitchen. The need is to have an adequate collection of tools that are required for your cooking. Among all top 25 basic and essential kitchen tools that make your work easier and they must be present in kitchen are as follows.
Small Appliances:
Small appliances are those which have strength to reduce difficult tasks and cut down in easy one. These not only helps to save our time and energy but also simplify our work. In electronic shops they are present in variety types and different appliances are available, but the necessary ones that must be present in our kitchen are:
1. Food Processor
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Food processors plays an important role in kitchen, it perfectly does chopping, slicing, dicing, kneading, pureeing, grating and etc. it simplifies work in a way to perform its job perfectly and saving our time and energy. We also have a list of best food processors you would love to see.
2. Standing Mixer
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Once you buy a standing mixer, you will wonder how you were living until now without it. It’s the most convenient product that I have come across as it really helps me a lot and through it I always get best cooking and baking results.
It shortens time and energy of mixing bread dough, cake batter, cookie dough, whipping cream and egg whites, whereas mashing batches of potatoes also. Today we have some best stand mixers available which do not take much space instead look attractive on counter.
3. Blender
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Food processors do all jobs a blender can perform, but still we need it because of smoothness and fine results. Blenders are best for Perfect purees, silky soups, and in case of milk shakes and juices fineness and evenness matters a lot. A tall narrow design of blender forms a vortex inside the container that helps in incorporating air and makes quick work for mixing that result in an airy and light puree.
Gadgets:
Gadgets are the highly specialized tools that are used mostly a single purpose and are used least in kitchen, whereas they are necessary and essential too, that none other tool is able to fulfill the purpose fully and perfectly. The discussed gadgets below are essential for every kitchen must have.
4. Bench Scraper
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Bench scraper is a very useful tool. In appearance it seems just like a rectangular piece of plastic or metal usually with a holding handle for ease of holding. It is basically used to scrap leftover bits of dough from counter or worktable.
Moreover it can also be used for dough portioning, shaping sticky dough, cutting butter, leveling cup of flour, cutting of brownies and so much more. I prefer a metal version with an easy grip of wooden handle.
5. Grater/Zester
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Grater is best tool for its purpose. Grating can’t be done finely with any other tool than grater. Their sharp tooth enables it to evenly perform its job. Grating cheese while making a pizza or lasagne ease your experience and gives attractive and yummy results. Grater could be used for grating any vegetable or nuts for specific purpose, especially desserts.
6. Pepper Mill
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We use black pepper in most of our meals. Pepper mill is basically used for grounding a black pepper while can be used for grinding salt also. Once you taste the freshly grinded pepper and the already grounded one from the market, their taste differs. The fresh has its unique taste that is incomparable with any other.
7. Fine – Mesh Strainer
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Fine- mesh strainer is used for multiple purposes such as for creamy soups, a silky pastry cream, a seedless puree etc. whereas it can also be used for sifting dry ingredients such as cocoa, flour etc. and to dust cakes and cookies with fine coating of confectionery sugar.
8. Rubber Spatula
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A rubber spatula can be used to perform number of tasks such as for making scrambled eggs, gently mixing of delicate ingredients, folding egg whites into souffle, scraping out the crannies and crevices from the containers and etc.
9. Tongs
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For an expert cook and chefs are mostly in habit of using tongs a lot for moving hot pans, grilling steaks etc. It is also used commonly by most of the people that prevent hands from direct heat or flame or from short length.
10. Vegetable Peeler
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Vegetable peeler is very useful tool, not just for peeling vegetables, whereas shaving chocolate and Parmesan, removing zest from citrus and curling butter. It also enables to scrap chocolates in curly shaped flakes for cake toppings and desserts garnishing.
11. Whisk
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Balloon shaped whisk has plenty of use at stove-top, for making pan sauces and hearty cream sauces. It is also used at counter for whipping an egg whites and small amount of creams. It can also be used for mashing potatoes, combining dry ingredients and for folding egg whites in a batter.
12. Salad Spinner
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Wet green vegetables are hard to store as they become soggy very quickly and doesn’t look as fresh ones if kept in paper towels also. Salad spinner is best for this purpose to restore freshness and storing easy. It dries up wet green vegetable within 30 sec spin.
Cookware:
Cooking is not possible without cookware. There are various shaped and sizes of cookware available. After shortlisting from all essential cookware are described below.
13. Roasting Pan
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Roasting pans are used for roasting a meat on stove top with a little gravy, and easy for handling and serving food.
14. Skillet (12 inch)
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When to cook meat or flavorful rich sauce skillet is best for the purpose. It can easily accommodate couple of steaks with ease.
15. Non-stick Skillet (12 inch)
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Non-stick skillets are useful for many things that includes, stir fries, sauteing vegetables, for cooking pancakes, omelets, golden brown fish and etc.
16. Dutch oven
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For stews, braises, soups, sauces are dependent on cooking procedure of moist heat and begins with browning procedure, that flimsy stockpots cannot do. It is also preferable for frying that avoids oil spilling out.
Cutting Tools:
In culinary, the first lesson taught is about using different knives for different purposes. Fillet, slicing, boning, carving, etc. dozens of choices are available that are accomplished through different type of knives. But three basic knives are able to accomplish the work of entire knife set. Those are as follows:
17. Chef’s knife 8 inch
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Chef knife 8 inch long is the most popular one in the kitchen which is used for mincing garlic, slicing prime rib, chopping vegetables, cutting up cheese and etc.
18. Paring Knife
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For smaller cutting tasks paring knife is used. Such as for peeling and slicing turnips; coring tomatoes; peeling and mincing shallots; peeling, quartering and coring apples; stemming mushrooms; peeling and sectioning oranges; cutting up small pieces of coconut; slicing limes, lemons and hard cooked eggs; peeling and mincing fresh ginger; and etc.
19. Serrated Knife:
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It is as useful and accommodating as a chef’s knife. There are certain tasks that it does not perform well but still it’s very much useful for other purposes. It slices evenly through delicate pastries and cakes with ease. Serrated knife has a saw-toothed edge that makes it seems like that it would be sharpened forever. The teeth grab hold of whatever you are cutting and don’t let go.
20. Cutting Board
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Cutting board works as partner of knife. There are varieties of cutting board available, clear acrylic, glass, plastic, and wooden ones.
Measuring Tools:
In kitchen, guesstimates have no place; precision is required for acquiring best and consistent results every time. Adding spices to the dish just on rough estimates could make a difference between subtly seasoned and shockingly spicy. From measuring spices to measure actual heat these tools and utensils are used for the purpose.
21. Measuring Utensils
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Measuring utensils are different for wet and dry ingredients. For liquids jar like cups are used, that are mostly of Pyrex, while for dry ingredients bowl like cups are present in different sizes to measure ingredients appropriately.
22. Digital Scale
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Digital scale is used for weighing, mostly baking items, meats such as chicken or parts (as sometimes our recipe just mentions the weight of the meat), as well as to weigh fruits and vegetables that need to be cooked.
23. Instant Thermometer
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Touch, instinct and the sight are the age old ways to measure when the food is done, but for getting consistent results, nothing is as reliable to check the internal temperature of food. Different thermometers are available in the market for measuring temperatures for different purposes, but this one can be used with most of the food items easily.
24. Oven Thermometer
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It may have zero glamor, low visibility and limited use, but still it’s an important tool that must be present in the kitchen. It sounds redundant sometimes to track temperature of ovens, but for cakes and baking items consistent and fixed temperatures are required for standard results.
25. Digital Timer
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It’s a very useful tool for perfect cooking experience. We may forget our food sometimes while doing other work simultaneously, so for that purpose it’s a best tool for reminders. Timers could be set each time you place any food for either cooking on stove or baking in an oven, for best and quality food.
