Family Cooking Tips

Posts Tagged ‘cooking utensils’

Want to cook like the professional chefs you see on T.V.? It starts with having the right tools for the job – and in this case the job is cooking. Every cook needs a core set of utensils to use to prepare his meals But, in addition to this core set, there are other items, that while not mandatory, make life easier in the kitchen.

Basting brushes – just about every chef uses these brushes to baste fish, veggies, and other foods with fats, stock, wine, or other liquids. Basting brushes are not required kitchen tools because you can baste with a spoon – as many home cooks do on a regular basis. One thing that a  brush does do, however, is to let you baste with the liquids in a more even fashion. In addition, a bush lets you paint the liquid into places that would be hard or impossible to reach by other means.

Vegetable brush – it’s always good to clean your vegetables. A lot of home cooks simply clean their produce by either rinsing them under water or by scraping off the skin and then rinsing them. But there are those cooks who are really into healthy eating. They want to use organic vegetables and they hate disposing of what they consider to be an essential part of the vegetable or fruit. In many vegetables, there are more nutrients in the skin than in the  other parts of the plant. In addition, it contains roughage which is good for you. These cooks will simply use a vegetable brush to clean the dirt off the skin.

Tongs – the really experienced cooks may consider tongs a luxury as they do just fine using forks and even their fingers. For the less experienced cook, however, tongs make it easy to remove those pieces of chicken from the fryer. You’ll find them very helpful as a reasonable replacement for your hands. When a piece of food has cooked on one side, instead of using your hands and fingers to turn the food, use your tongs instead.

And like the items mentioned above, you may feel that you need the best stainless steel grills, or the most expensive calphalon stainless steel cookware, or state of the art natural barbecue gas grills. And often you don’t these things. But they sure make the cooking experience fun.

Many people who cook, do so because they have to. They don’t enjoy it at all. On the other hand, many others enjoy cooking so much that it can basically be considered a hobby. For these people, a part of what makes it so enjoyable is that it’s an outlet for their creative urges. For example, you never have to make the same meal exactly the same. You can prepare a stew one way and a week later you can prepare an entirely different version of it – and one that tastes just as good or better.

Many people who cook as a hobby love to have the best stainless steel grills, or the best unique commercial stainless steel sinks, or stainless steel bar sinks / faucets  that are unique – not because we need these things, but because these things makes the whole cooking experience more enjoyable.

Those of us who love cooking know that if you have the right utensil and tools for the job, cooking becomes much more enjoyable. This is true even if the utensil is not one that we absolutely need – such as kitchen shears or a food mill.

Kitchen shears are a very underappreciated utensil. These are simply heavy duty scissors and they are especially adept at opening electronic products that seem to be always sold in those rigid packages that are nearly impossible to open by hand without injuring yourself. But they’re also good for their primary purpose in cutting chicken bones and the like. But buy ones that are ergonomic in design. You’ll find that they’re a lot easier on your hands.

Food Mills are fun kitchen utensils. They’re perfect for creating foods such as sauces, jellies and jams, baby food recipes, and even simple mashed potatoes. You simply place foods such as tomatoes, potatoes, and so on in the top bowl, turn the handle. The food is ground down into fine pieces, pressed through a base sieve, to produce a lump free product. Everything you can do with a food mill, you can do using other tools, but you probably won’t have as much fun.

Looking at these two utensils, you’ll see that neither of them is essential to the everyday cook. And yet, millions of each product are sold every year in the stores. That’s because, even though we don’t absolutely need them in the kitchen, they all make kitchen life much easier.