kencooking

What equipment do you really need in a kitchen? Some of that depends on the cuisines you enjoy, but it really is just a few things:

• A good knife (note the singular tense!)
• A surface to cut things on
• A few pots and pans
• A few utensils
• A heat source (i.e. a stove)
• A handful of spices and liquids

That’s it! I’ll cover the spices and liquids separately, but this page is to help you with the very small number of items you really need. Sure, more pots and pans and utensils will let you do more things at the same time, or have a more convenient size for a particular task, but those can be added later.

Knives

No matter what cusines you like to cook, you’ll need a knife. I do all my cooking with 3 knives:

1. A 7″ Santoku knife
2. A 3-1/2 inch paring knife
3. A serrated knife (occasionally)

That’s it. I’ve had several knife sets, I actually have some amazing Japanese knives, including a vegetable knife and a sushi knife and a heavy chopping knife. I don’t use them often.

The Santoku knife. This is the primary workhorse of my kitchen. It chops veggies, debones chicken, cuts fat off meat. Everything I need to do involving cutting, it can do. This can also be the classic chef’s knife, and really will be a personal choice for what works best for you. This is a good-sized, heavy duty knife that can easily chop carrots and celery, slice through large cuts of meat, as well as finely chop garlic. This is where to spend your knife-budget. After buying some cheap knifes to find out what style works for you, invest in a top-end version of that knife. I’m a Wusthof/Henckels fan, just make sure the blade is full length (including the length of the handle) and comfortable for you.

The paring knife. This knife is very handy for finer work. I use it to de-seed smaller peppers (habaneros, serranos), I use it to punch holes in roasts so I can insert garlic and spices, to butterfly shrimp, to do any decorative cutting of veggies. A high quality knife that holds a really good edge is a requirement, or the paring knife will mangle more than it cuts.

The serrated knife. This is a nearly optional 3rd knife, but for what it does, it does it far better than the other two. If you need to cut slices of crusty bread, this is the utensil to do it. Also, if you’re trying to delicately cut thick skinned fruit, such as firm tomatoes, a serrated knife can be the difference between mush and slices (but, you can likely cut the tomato from the inside towards the skin with a Santoku and get the same results). My take on this knife, unless you’re baking your own crusty bread daily, no need to splurge on an expensive knife here.

Sharpening.

You must keep your knives sharp. Very sharp. Dull knives cause accidents and are dangerous in the kitchen. Sharpening is a highly debated topic, and it’s intimidating. “Sharpen at a 22-1/2 degree angle”. How on earth do you do that? Well, you don’t. Here’s the trick. 90 degrees is a right angle (an “L” shape). 45 degrees is 1/2 of that (like a “V”), and 22-1/2 degrees is one half of that. Eyeball it. If you stress about getting an exact angle, you will not sharpen your knives often. Worst case, you can always have your knife professionally resharpened, you won’t break it.

So, what do I use to sharpen knives? I won’t get into the gadgets and guides and the ideal selection of a series of sharpening stones. I use a steel. It’s stored with the knives, and I use it as I’m starting to cook. Every time. 10 passes on each side, and somewhere around 22-1/2 degrees. More or less. If you want to do the absolute best job, learn how to use sharpening stones, and use them as needed. You won’t likely use whet stones every day before you cook, but if you use them “periodically”, along with a steel to hone that fine edge, that’s the best practical balance. Search a little online, there are GREAT tutorials out there on sharpening knives like this one.

And, if a sharpening gadget works for you, use that. Just keep those knives sharp.

But what about the serrated knife? Well, it’s a lot harder to sharpen a serrated knife. I’d get it professionally sharpened, unless you’re up to using a serrated knife file and spending a bunch of time sharpening each serration.

Oh, and if I forgot to mention it, keep your knives sharp!

A surface to cut things on

We’re talking cutting boards here. Another hot topic. I use poly cutting boards because they’re cheap, hold up in the dishwasher for sanitation, and are easy to put where I want. A board around 12×15″ works well. If you eat meat, it’s handy to have two, one for meat, one for veggies, and label them. That way when you’re making a meal, you won’t cross contaminate. Just put cutting boards in the dishwasher on a hot wash to sanitize. Another area where you can do your own research, and make your own choices, but two poly boards will set you back maybe $15-20. Small cutting boards can be handy to chop garlic and peppers and just move it to the pot and put it in, wood cutting boards have their place too, but that’s fine tuning if you have the money, space, and organization to have more “stuff” in the kitchen.

A few pots and pans

Companies love to sell cookware sets, and those can be great, and you can get some really good deals on a collection of sizes rather than buying them individually. But, you can also overpay, and end up with cookware that never sees a stove. Pots and pans are a kitchen item that if you have a lot of them, in a huge variety of sizes, you can pick just the right size for what you’re cooking, and you can prepare multiple things simultaneously. However, we’re talking about all you really need here, so I’ll reduce it to the absolute minimum. For many dishes, it could take all day to prepare them if you don’t have enough pots and pans, and some dishes will require smaller or larger pots to cook correctly, so consider this is a starting point.

And, this really does depend on the type of cuisine you’re making. If you’re making a lot of Asian food, you almost certainly need a wok (and a gas heat source!), Italian food, a large pot for pasta. Here are my most-used pots and pans:

• Essential
  • 2 quart mid-sized pot with lid
  • 5 quart saute pan with lid

• Really handy
  • 5 quart dutch oven
  • 12″ saute pan

If you can afford it, get high-quality, stainless steel aluminum core cookware. Your pans need to conduct heat evenly, and cheap, thin pans just don’t cut it.

A note, this is a picture of a 12″ non-stick saute pan. If you get a non-stick pan, make sure to NOT use metal utensils with it. Wood or nylon/plastic utensils only. The care instructions that come with the cookware will give you details.

A few utensils

It’s all too easy to get carried away with utensils. Special utensils really are handy for the thing they do well, but once you have several drawers full of utensils, you’ll wonder why you bought them all. Here’s some essentials:

The Big Three

• Spoon
• Slotted spoon
• Turner

• Tongs
• Measuring spoons
• Measuring cup
• Box Grater
• Collander/strainer
• Cookie pan/baking sheet

Really, that’s the basics. Of course, multiple measuring cups, and multiple spoons means less cleaning while you’re cooking, and so really are more of a necessity than a luxury. Then, depending on what you cook most often, other utensils save you so much time, you just keep them handy: a hand grater in addition to a box grater is really great for zesting and grating things right over the pot, a whisk, rather than a fork, is much better for blending dry ingredients with wet, I use a LOT of garlic in my cooking, and so I use a silicone tube garlic peeler nearly every meal, which saves me a lot of time. I also use a garlic press a lot. But, start simple, and as you discover how you’re handling different ingredients, slowly add utensils. I like to have a drawer with utensils I use at least monthly, and then “everything else” goes in a different drawer or a box.

And you’ll pick up some random things as you progress… pot holders, trivets, creamers shaped like cows. Many people start with a dish towel as both a pot holder and trivet, then get fancier later, I’ll leave those accessories to your imagination.

You can make all the recipes on this site with only the items on this page, you really don’t need a kitchen full of equipment to cook good food!

Sidenote: Tabasco didn’t sponsor anything here, I just used it as a well-known indicator of scale because it was handy.