My 10" cast iron Lodge skillet. It's great! And don't believe all the people who claim that you have to devote most of your life to taking care of your cast iron. They're cast iron for God's sake! Pioneers took them all the way across America in their Conestoga wagons. Just don't leave them wet or stick them in a dishwashing machine, and you're fine!
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Iron lodge is great. I have a 12" stargazer that weighs almost 7 lbs. I developed crazy forearms just handling that beast.
I can't imagine how a smaller person could cook with one of those things. It's all I can do to lift it to dump out whatever I've been cooking.
I saw a much bigger Lodge skillet in a department store; maybe it was 15 in, maybe more. Anyway, I couldn't even shift it with one hand. It took two hands just to move it, and it wasn't easy!
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Anyone here that hasn't said silicone spatula better get online shopping right freaking now. SILICONE SPATULA SUPREMACY 🙏🙏🙏🙏
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I got a really simple one, but it's been incredibly helpful. Get the biggest damn bowl you can find, like unreasonably large, that is your new mixing bowl. I always find myself half way through a recipe with no bowl space left, therefore more dishes. My bowl looks like it could be an outside dogs water bowl it's so big. Now with big bowl, I grab it every time and never have to switch, the only downside is finding somewhere to hide it.
Oh yes! I love my giant bowls for washing voluminous leafy greens and fermenting fruit vinegars.
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Ceramic knives, fish spatula, and the immersion blender.
A ramekin full of salt on the counter.
Vitamix, instant pot, and air fryer. All almost equally. The versatility of just these appliances is insane and can't imagine a kitchen without them.
We have two stoneware baking sheets that I use almost exclusively for putting things in the oven. They're great for reheating stuff in there and kind of like cast iron, they get more and more non stick as you use them.
My most used kitchen items are also my coffee setup. Gaggia classic and eureka mingon. Used at least once a day
Kitchen Aid mixer. Versatile as hell, we use it for so many things. Making pulled meat is a LOT easier to toss into the bowl and flip a switch than it is to do by hand.
It never crossed my mind that you could use a stand mixer to pull meat… I’m going to try that next time! Thanks for the tip.
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My cast iron pan. I use it for everything that doesn't need to be done in a pot. Even things I probably shouldn't do in a cast iron like stir fry I do anyways because it's just already there and convenient.
And they are so much easier to take care of than all the cast-iron fori/subs/articles yammer on about. I “neglect” my ancient cast iron terribly, and it’s doing just fine.
I just scrub it, rinse it out then cook the empty pan to get rid of any moisture. it's easier than cleaning anything else I own and will probably be around long after I'm dead.
5 mini silicone spatulas. It was cheaper to buy 5 than 1 on Amazon and at first I was like I don't need this many mini spatulas, but they're super helpful and great at scraping and I don't have to worry about washing them between jobs since I have several I can swap between. I find them more versatile than having one big spatula.
My Breville Toaster Oven. I rarely use my regular oven since it's so much more efficient, and fits 90% of what I cook in a house of 2 people. The air fryer function works really well (obviously not quite as good as a dedicated one).
My carbon steel pans are used almost every day. I've got a 32 cm wok for stir frying, deep frying and blanching big portions. And i got a 28 cm debuyer mineral b for searing meat and fish.
Chefs knife. It’s virtually the only knife I use outside of a bread knife.
Probably just my chef knife. But that's an obvious and boring answer.
My choice would be my hand blender. I use it for making any dips, many sauces (it is made out of metal) and it also got a blender attachment for shredding vegetables. One of the best investments I made for my kitchen.
Chef's knife is definitely not boring and may not be as obvious as you think. I come from a family that has only ever used cheap paring knives for everything that have never even been in the same room as a sharpener. Meanwhile, I haven't made a single dish without my Henckels since I bought it 5 years ago. My GIR silicone turner is a close second
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Microplaner.
I love throwing garlic in my food. Grab two pieces, put them through the planer, and bam, you got fresh garlic paste.
Plus hard cheese, citrus zest, all the good stuff. Cleaning is also a breeze.
After years of thinking about getting one, I got a cheap ($12) japanese rice washer. It's amazing! I make a lot more rice than I used to and the washer is so simple and just works so well. It also doubles as a regular colander whenever needed.
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Skillet and sharp knives!!
Appliance: Electric kettle. (they are uncommon in the US) It's well worth the counter space and easier to get boiling water than a pot on the stove, or to pre-heat water I add to a pan.
Non-appliance: Cheapo but sharp chef's knife, spatula, and kitchen tongs (great for grabbing hot lids too!).
I would probably hand over my beloved grind and brew amazing coffeemaker that also had a timer (it’s also my alarm) well before the electric kettle. Not only for tea, pour overs, kombucha, head start on quinoa, pasta, etc, blanching, and so on.
As a Briton, the lack of electric kettles in US kitchens astonishes me - I can't imagine getting by without one. But I remember hearing somewhere that it was related to the lower mains voltage in the US, meaning that they take longer to boil in the US?
I don't think they're that uncommon in the US. They're not ubiquitous like they are in Europe but I feel like the majority of people have them. As mentioned, it's probably more to do with whether you drink tea than anything else, and not as many people drink tea all the time here. Come to think of it, I've never seen anyone boil water for tea on the stove in the last decade. They either use a kettle or they don't drink tea at all.
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In my house I have a coffee maker that probably just keeps enough water for a single cup warm. Otherwise it takes a minute to heat.
US electrical is weird.
We have 240v mains in basically every house (a very small percentage have 480v, which is normally reserved only for industrial buildings).
However, that 240v gets split at our local transformers into two 120v phases, separated by 180° phase. This allows either 120 or 240v (120+120) in our homes.
So yeah, most plugs including those in our kitchens are 120v.
However! A 120v electric kettle still blows out any other heating method, especially gas, gas is soooo slow. Some high-power induction stoves can keep up, because they can dump boatloads of power into a kettle and are really efficient, and honestly even small induction hobs like mine aren't much slower (5 mins instead of 3). But an electric kettle is like $25 and uses less power. They're so useful!
Only slightly longer than a 240v kettle, but still much faster than a kettle over a gas range.
Real reason is that most people in the US don't drink tea and don't have a need for quick hot water on demand.
I've heard that too...of course, I can't compare to 240V but it takes me probably 2-3 minutes to boil about 2 cups of water and probably 5-6 for a full kettle at a rolling boil (rough estimate from memory). It's not much faster than the stove but theres no wasted heat, and no hot pan sitting on a burner after I'm done. Another theory I've heard is that in the US people opt for a drip coffee maker instead of a kettle (for their one spot on the counter? Why not both?), since we don't drink tea that often.
We drink coffee, but prefer an electric kettle for water and then use the pour over method for individual cups or french presses if we need more than a cup at a time in a hurry. Less waste this way and allows for tea and coffee when hubs and I want it. My in laws visit every time and rave how much fresher the coffee is made in small batches, fresh ground, but then looks at us as if we are nuts for not having a standard coffee maker and keeping the electric kettle instead.
My favorite is the rice maker. I’ve had only perfect rice since I got it. But the most used are the gooseneck kettle and the hand grinder for coffee.
What hand grinder do you have? I’m looking for a decent one, hopefully simple and sturdy like my grandma had and used for decades.
It's the Hario Skeleton Pro. Not exactly grandma-tier -- it's got plastic parts on it, including the little dial for setting how coarse/fine -- but gets the job done. Hario also makes some wood/ceramic/steel ones that would probably be more durable (and definitely have that grandma's kitchen look).
Thanks! I’ll look into that. I did find a similar one to hers, made in Germany (and crazy expensive). Hers was an oval wooden box that you held between your knees. Cast iron crank and feeder cone. It had a little wooden drawer that you pulled out to get the coffee grounds. Magic!
My coffee grinder, french press, and electric kettle.
My rice cooker! It takes the guesswork out of making brown / mixed grain rice and the cleanup is 123!
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