Get the Gear

Equipping a kitchen for good, basic, fun cooking is less daunting than you might think. Start with the essentials, and go slow accumulating the rest. Remember that you don’t need to buy the newest and the fanciest tools—or even anything new at all. Scour garage sales and thrift shops. And let all your relatives and friends know that you are in the exciting process of setting up a serious(ly fun) kitchen, so that they will keep you at the top of their hand-me-down list whenever they upgrade. Remind them, also, of your birthday, and promise to invite them often for dinner. That should help. Here’s a starter list that should pretty much get you through every recipe in this book.

KNIVES

Chef’s knife: This is where it all begins. You can—and should—do most of your slicing, dicing, chopping, and mincing with a single knife. It’s known as a chef’s knife or utility knife, and has a blade that’s 6 to 8 inches long, without serrations. A good knife is one that feels comfortable in your hand, heavy enough to let you chop assertively but light enough to work with easily. There are many styles and options, and you need to find the one that feels right to you, but this is a good place not to scrimp, so visit a cookware store and get some advice.

Paring knife: You will also want a sharp paring knife (also straight-bladed, not serrated), which is way smaller than the chef’s knife and thus invaluable for cutting diminutive things (like shallots) or doing fine work (like peeling and seeding fruit and vegetables).

Honing steel: High-quality knives will last you a lifetime if you maintain them properly. To that end, you’ll want to invest in a knife-honing steel. This is a long rod with a handle. Here again, get advice at the cookware store, and ask for a demonstration. Use the steel to hone your knife frequently, and if you notice that the blade is getting dull and the steel isn't helping, take your knives to a professional sharpener. It’s a good idea to do this once or twice a year, depending on how much of a workout your knives get. Bread 

knife: A long-bladed serrated bread knife is good to have for slicing bread. A high-quality bread knife will stay sharp for years. It can’t be honed on a steel, but you can have it sharpened professionally. And speaking of serrated knives, you might also want to have a smaller one on hand for cutting citrus and tomatoes.

CUTTING BOARDS

Buy a few wood or plastic cutting boards—you can’t have too many, and they take up very little space. I recommend having a dedicated one for onions, garlic, and shallots, as these flavors are difficult to get rid of and tend to keep imparting themselves to other things that get cut on the board long after the fact. That’s okay for vegetables, but really frustrating when your fruit salad is inadvertently seasoned with a hint of garlic. You should also have a separate plastic board for raw meat, poultry, and seafood to avoid cross-contamination with other foods. Make sure you clean it with soap and hot water—and thoroughly dry it—after each use.

SOUP POT OR DUTCH OVEN WITH A LID

You will use this a lot! Let it double as a pasta cooking pot to save cupboard space. The pot and its handles and lid need to be ovenproof; you will often start a recipe on the stove top, and then cover the pot and put it in the oven. Since you’ll often be browning things in this pot as a first step, it’s essential that it have a heavy bottom. (A thin metal pot will scorch food rather than browning it evenly.) Look for a substantial pot, such as one made of enameled cast iron, and treat it with respect, using wooden utensils to avoid scratching its surface.

SKILLETS

A 10-or 12-inch skillet is likely to be one of the most used pieces of equipment in your kitchen, so here again buying a good one matters. That doesn't mean it needs to be expensive. A cast-iron skillet will work well. If your skillet comes with a lid, all the better. If it doesn't, look for a heavy lid that will fit it (garage sales and thrift stores are sure to have a selection). A 6-to 8-inch skillet is handy for cooking eggs and small amounts of food. It’s good to have both sizes.

OTHER POTS AND PANS

You will need a medium-sized (around 2-quart) saucepan with a tight-fitting lid and a heavy bottom, a 9-by 13-inch baking pan (metal or glass), and a few good, heavy baking trays.

WAFFLE HEAT ABSORBER

This is a small, round, corrugated metal insulation pad, also known as a Flame Tamer or heat diffuser, that you can put under a pot on the burner. It allows your lowest setting on the stove to become even lower for long simmering of foods, like rice and soup, that you want to cook through very slowly without burning them on the bottom.

OVEN MITTS AND POT HOLDERS

Keep these near the stove, in a drawer or hanging from a hook—and make sure they stay dry. If they get wet, they’ll conduct heat and this will painfully (to you) defeat their purpose.

BOWLS

Collect various sizes from large to small—and various shapes (deep and shallow) for marinating, tossing, beating, combining, and serving. Nesting sets are nice for space-saving. And in general, when it comes to bowls, between holding ingredients, mixing, and serving, you can’t have too many.

COLANDER

Your colander should be large enough to drain a batch of pasta. You might also want to have a smaller one for washing and draining small amounts of vegetables, fruit, herbs, or other ingredients—or use a strainer for this purpose.

STRAINER

A medium-mesh strainer is useful for everything from sifting powdered sugar over foods to draining and rinsing a can of beans.

WOODEN SPOON SETS

These are very inexpensive and effective. Usually these sets come with several wooden spoons and a few wooden spatulas. I use them all the time. It’s handy to keep them in a pitcher or vase by the stove for easy grabbing. Keep some whisks, tongs, and other frequently used items in there as well.

RUBBER SPATULAS

They’re cheap, so get a few of various dimensions. Invest in heatproof ones, which cost a bit more but won’t melt into your scrambled eggs.

THIN-BLADED METAL SPATULA

This tool is indispensable for when you want to loosen and then flip a burger or other skillet food and don’t want to leave any of the crisp parts in the pan.

WHISKS

Get yourself a set of whisks—small, medium, and large—and you’ll be able to handle anything from whipping cream to whipping up a salad dressing.

TONGS

Spring-loaded tongs that you can use with one hand are indispensable. Watch any professional cook in action, and you’ll see why.

SCISSORS

Buy a pair to use just for food and keep them in your kitchen drawer. You will be surprised at how much these will get used—from snipping chives and other herbs to cutting fish and poultry. Like your knives, your kitchen scissors will last longer and perform better if you have them professionally sharpened from time to time.

LADLE

Get a 4-to 6-ounce ladle for soups and stews and for ladling pasta water from the pot into a sauce.

GARLIC PRESS

When you see a recipe that calls for minced garlic in this book, you can either mince it with a knife or press it through a garlic press, which saves time.

BOX GRATER

A good, heavy-duty box grater is indispensable for grating everything from vegetables and potatoes to cheese.

MICROPLANE GRATER

These ultrasharp graters, sold in cookware stores, are fabulous for fine-grating citrus zest and ginger, hard cheeses like Parmesan, and chocolate (for sprinkling on desserts or drinks as a garnish).

PASTRY BRUSH

Useful for spreading olive oil on baking trays or brushing food with oil or melted butter.

VEGETABLE PEELER

Look for a good, sturdy one, either Y-shaped or straight. A cheap, flimsy peeler will slow you down and won’t do as thorough a job.

INSTANT-READ THERMOMETER

If you will be cooking meat or chicken, this is your “when is it done?” insurance policy (see Chapter 6: Chicken, Fish, and Meat).

MEASURING SPOONS

Treat yourself to a nice, heavy-duty set. Actually, treat yourself to two. I find that having two sets really helps when you are measuring both dry and wet ingredients in one go-round and you want to keep them separate.

DRY MEASURING CUPS

These are used to measure dry ingredients, such as flour, and have flat edges, so that you can fill them and then scrape the excess off with the back of a knife blade. This gives you a more accurate measure for dry ingredients than a liquid measuring cup (see below).

LIQUID MEASURING CUPS

These are usually made of glass with measurement lines on the side. Get two heatproof glass ones with spouts for pouring—one 2-cup and one 4- cup capacity. These can be used both for measuring and for heating/melting ingredients (like milk or butter) in the microwave.

OTHER HELPFUL TOOLS AND GADGETS

Salad spinner

Dish towels

A heavy-duty apron or two

Citrus juicer or reamer

A hardworking peppermill

ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES

Blender and/or immersion blender (see Chapter 1: Soups)

Hand-held electric mixer

Toaster oven

Microwave

FOR STORAGE

Containers: Collect food containers with tight-fitting lids in various sizes (store them stacked, with covers in a shoebox on the side). This is better for the environment than using plastic bags and plastic wrap. Also, save those plastic tubs with tight-fitting lids—the ones left over from when you binged on a bulk cookie purchase at the club store. They’re great for storing grains, beans, nuts, and dried fruit, and they stack well for space saving. 

Jars with lids: Wash and save jars. Small ones are great for storing all your brilliant homemade salad dressings. Larger ones are perfect for keeping dried fruit and nuts, or beans, lentils, and grains. 

Resealable plastic bags: Lay in a supply of freezer-weight and regular-weight bags in various sizes. (If this goes against your environmental values, just stick with the leftover containers, above.) 

Plastic bags: If the ones you brought home from the produce section or the farmers’ market are clean and dry, keep them for further use. 

Large coffee cans: Clean them out when the coffee is gone, and use them to store those plastic bags you saved. 

Permanent markers: Keep a few around for labeling whatever you are storing, with both the item name and the date. You might think this is overkill, but you will later thank yourself for doing this, I promise. 

Aluminum foil and plastic wrap: These take turns being indispensable. 

Shoeboxes: These are great for storing small bags of spices bought in bulk (which reminds me to recommend that you look for specialty food stores that sell spices in bulk, by the ounce, which will save you lots of money over time).

SPECIALTY FOODS

I will often suggest small touches of certain special ingredients—often as get creative additions to the recipes. Note that these are “special” and not “essential.” Here’s some useful information about them, so you can stock up to the degree that your wallet allows. But first, before we get to the fun part, a few words about oil.

You will be cooking with oil a lot throughout this book. Your standard, everyday workhorse oils will, in most cases, be olive oil (choose a nottoo- expensive extra-virgin) plus a second, more neutral-tasting oil, to use when olive flavor is incompatible with the dish. For this second oil, I recommend canola, soy, or peanut oil. Occasionally, but not often, I will also include some butter (which vegans can simply omit). So these are your

daily heavy lifters. Onward to the flavoring ones.

High-quality olive oil: There are many, many imported and domestic olive oils on the market these days, ranging from “pure” to “extravirgin.” As I mentioned above, I recommend using a not-too-expensive extra-virgin for everyday cooking and salad dressings, and keeping an extraextra special one around for special-occasion finishing and drizzling (recommended throughout the book). A small drizzle can have a large and good effect, so you can use this economically.

Toasted sesame oil: This dark Chinese flavoring oil is sold in the Asian foods section of supermarkets. All I want to say is “please get some”—it’s that good, and that important an ingredient. Other roasted nut and 

seed oils: These profoundly flavorful seasoning oils (which include walnut, almond, hazelnut, pistachio, and pumpkin seed oils) are not for cooking, but rather for drizzling onto your cooked food as a “flavor finish” or to supplement the olive oil in salad dressings. You can also use them as a dunk for fresh bread to create an exquisite appetizer, soup accompaniment, or quick snack. Keep all oils stored in a cool, dark place—or in the refrigerator. This is especially true for the “gourmet” ones, so they will stay good over the period of time you are parceling them out. Pure maple syrup: No imitations, now or ever, or you will go to culinary jail. Actually, I’m only somewhat kidding. If you love maple syrup impersonators on your pancakes, I won’t tell you to stop using them there. But please don’t cook or bake with them.

Vinegars: Store these in your cupboard (they keep indefinitely): cider vinegar; a decent, moderately priced balsamic; red wine vinegar; seasoned rice vinegar (make sure the label says “seasoned”). From there, you can experiment with fancier varieties, such as sherry, raspberry, and so on. Pomegranate molasses: This sweet-tart-tangy syrup made from reduced pomegranate juice is available at Middle Eastern food shops and in the imported foods section of many grocery stores. It keeps forever in your cupboard, and a little bit goes a long way, adding flavor and bright color to Middle Eastern dishes and all kinds of other foods, from salads and grilled chicken to yogurt and cheese.

Dried fruit: Keep a supply of dried apricots, prunes, figs, dates, cherries, cranberries, and blueberries (as well as other, more exotic dried fruit, such as pears, papayas, and chili-dusted mango) on hand to liven up salads, grains, entrées, and desserts. 

“Designer” salts: Fancy salts harvested from the sea and mined from the land are becoming more popular all the time. As an alternative to ordinary table salt, kosher salt has a pure, clean flavor and somewhat coarse grains, and it’s a great multipurpose choice that goes anywhere, including the rim of a margarita glass. Sea salt tends to have a more assertive flavor than kosher salt and can be fine or coarse. Specialty salts, like fleur de sel, gray salt, black salt, and pink salt, tend to have a coarse, crunchy texture, which makes them a good choice for “finishing”—that is, sprinkling on dishes like salads or vegetables at the very last minute, so their texture and intense hit of saltiness stand out. Then there are flavorinfused options, like smoked salts and truffle salts. And of course, there’s only one way to know which of any of these you’ll like: buy a few and start experimenting.

Get Preppy

Most cooking involves an initial preparation phase, in which you cut stuff up. Check out the prep videos at get-cooking.com for quick lessons in the best way to handle most vegetables. And in the meantime, on Get Cooking is a quick reference guide to basic prep techniques you’ll be using to make the recipes.