Essential Kitchen Tools Tips
Read these 16 Essential Kitchen Tools Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Italian tips and hundreds of other topics.
Cheese Grater
A good cheese grater is sometimes hard to find.
There's the traditional cheese grater that comes as a cylinder with a grater forming the lid. As you grate, the cheese falls inside the container. There are also flat, triangular graters whose shape helps direct the gratings where you want them. These are great for grating Parmesan over pasta. There is also the French Mouli grater for quick efficient grating; its design allows you to utilize pieces of cheese too small to hold by hand.
Rolling Pin
The best rolling pins are made of hard, close-grained wood with a smooth finish. The ideal rolling pin is approximately 1½ inches in diameter and 32 inches long. If you have a new one, wash it with soap and water, dry it well, give it a light coat of olive oil, wipe down with a kitchen towel to absorb any excess oil, and then rub a little bit of all-purpose flour over the pin. Do this several times before using and you will have a rolling pin that will give you years of use and satisfaction.
Pasta Pot
Most Italian kitchens will have this…a pasta pot!
A straight-sided pot with an inner perforated draining basket, with handles. Sizes differ, so choose one that suits your needs. A 5 or 6-quart pot is a good size to have; you can decrease the amount of water in the pot if you are only cooking for two. A light-weight one if possible so as not to be too heavy once filled with water. Once water comes to a boil, simply place the pasta in the basket. When done to taste, pick up basket by the handles, shake to drain pasta, and add to sauce. I cannot imagine my kitchen without my pasta pot. It can also be used to prepare stock or to steam vegetables.
Pasta Machine – converting Manual to Electric
If you own a hand-operated machine you can now buy an ingenious little motor that replaces the crank, converting any hand-turned machine into an electrically driven one.
Colander
This is absolutely indispensable in cooking pasta. The pasta colander is a perforated half sphere that rests, curve side down on little feet. Purchase a quality stainless steel one that is large enough to hold 2 or more pounds of pasta…or better yet, consider buying two or even three colanders of different sizes since they are so versatile…they can be stacked, taking up little room.
Food Mill
Surprisingly, many cooks do not have this simple invaluable tool. A food mill is a cone shaped container with a perforated disk fitted at the narrower end; a two-armed propeller like blade clamps tightly over the disk and, as you turn it's handle, scrapes the food across the surface of the disk and forces only the pulp through the holes. A food mill will do what no electric mixer, blender or food processor can do...the best a food processor can do is chop things almost fine, but the food mill will go even further, separating unwanted strings, skins, seeds, and even small bones from the desirable foods going through it's disks. The food mill is a necessity for pureeing tomatoes, as it keeps the seeds separate and saves you hours of work.
Slotted Spoon and Spatulas
In many Italian recipes you will have instructions that may say “ transfer with a slotted spoon or spatula”. It may be when you have to retrieve food from a pan without taking up any of the cooking fat or when pan juices have to be reduced, or when wine must be boiled down and you want to remove the food temporarily from the pot while it is being deglazed. A pierced spatula is handy for flat long things such as scaloppini, while a slotted spoon is good for handling smaller, chunky shapes, like meatballs or stew. Use wooden spoons and forks to stir pasta as it is cooking. Have many of these practical items in different lengths and sizes.
Food Mill – buying considerations
When purchasing a food mill, consider buying the medium or large size, and, although stainless steel is more expensive, it is worth having. It will never warp, crack or corrode and will last you a lifetime. There are American, French, and Italian mills…the American model has just one disk, permanently attached; the French and Italian models have interchangeable disks with small, medium, and large holes that mill food fine or coarse as wanted. In addition, they have practical fold-away clamps on the bottom that allow you to rest the food mill securely over a bowl or a pot while it does its work.
Pasta Machine – manual
The basic manual pasta machine has paired steel rollers of two types: one pair is smooth and serves to compress the dough...a knob can be turned to widen or narrow the opening between the smooth rollers. The second set has parallel grooves that can cut the flattened dough into ribbons. On this set there are always two different pairs, a broad-grooved set that produces fettuccine and a narrower set that makes tagliolini. A movable handle can be inserted into different positions depending which of the rollers is to be turned.
Electric Pasta makers
Electric pasta makers are available that are fast, easy to use, and will do all the work for you. Simply add the properly measured ingredients into the machine, turn it on, and in a matter of minutes all the ingredients are automatically mixed, kneaded, shaped, and extruded from the machine into your desired pasta shape. You can have homemade fresh pasta on your table in 15-20 minutes!
Colander – Uses for
A colander drains, of course, not only pasta but any other ingredient cooked in water, or in its own moisture, such as spinach. Its usefulness doesn't stop there. When you slice and salt eggplants before cooking, the most convenient place to purge them of their bitter juices is around the inside of a colander. When using tomatoes that require draining in certain dishes, like stuffed tomatoes, they may be cut in half and placed along the inside face of a colander to let their excess moisture run off.
Drying Pole or Rack
A 2-inch wooden pole, about 6 feet long, dries pasta nicely; so does a small folding pasta rack. As a child, in my home, the wooden pole used for hanging pasta was almost a permanent piece of furniture!
Dough Scraper
Use this stainless steel square with a wooden handle to bring together the various elements of pasta dough to form a ball. It is also good for scraping wooden pasta boards clean.
Pastry Board
When making pasta it is important to have a large wooden pastry board. It should be at least 2 feet square or even larger. There are pastry boards made of plastic and they can be used with satisfaction as well, but I find they don't look as “homey” as the old wooden ones...but the pasta does not stick to them and they are easier to clean and they don't crack.
Mezzaluna or Lunetta
In many Italian homes you will find the lunetta or the mezzaluna, a crescent-shaped, 2-handled chopper. It effortlessly chops herbs and vegetables by simply moving the blade from side to side as it remains in contact with the chopping surface. It is great for chopping garlic and parsley together and found in most Italian kitchens!
You can also find 1-blade choppers and they work well, too.
Pasta wheels and Ravioli Forms
You should have a straight-edged pasta wheel for cutting tortellini and other pasta and a fluted one for ravioli and pappardelle noodles. Many pasta- makers prefer to use ravioli forms, however I think it is simpler to roll out a strip of the dough, put a spoonful of filling on the dough, fold it in half and use the ravioli cutter to shape them. The ones made this way are not uniform in shape as those made with a form, but I find they are more interesting.
| Guru Spotlight |
| Susan Sayour |
