The Essential Great-Start Zero-Status Zero-Snob-Appeal Cooking Tool List
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Update: As explained here, I’ve recently become aware of the fact that Google Search is excluding any pages on this site that have any Amazon Affiliate links on them at all, even though the affiliate account has long expired (from lack of use). They may in fact be penalizing the entire site for that.
The links have been removed, but this is one of two posts I created where removing the links greatly decreases the usefulness and convenience of the entire post. I apologize for that, but it doesn’t appear that there’s anything I can do about it.
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A word about the status and snob appeal: it’s tempting, when starting out, to equate expensive tools with great results and assume that they’ll improve your cooking. It’s tempting to “celebrate” gains in proficiency by buying gadgets (and people tend to give you gifts) that you/they hope will make things a lot easier in the kitchen.
By and large they don’t, much.
Some gadgets can actually hold back your progress. If you’ve never cooked a meal without using a particular food processor, you may find yourself near-helpless when you have to cook one without it.
Truly bad tools can hinder your cooking and make things a lot worse, but in almost all areas good tools, often excellent tools and maybe even the best are available without spending a whole lot of money… and, frankly, 90% of it is skill, no matter how much you spend on tools. In most areas the correlation between cost and actual value is amazingly poor. You are trying to become a cook- you’ll be judged on what you cook, not what tools you use.
Still, some skills, for men in particular, are generally learned by learning the tools, so the tool itself, and its qualities, can be a critical part of the learning process.
Frying pan: I’ve got a lot of frying pans. I’ve got cast iron, including some I’ve been given and antiques, I’ve the stainless-clad aluminum, I’ve got omelet pans and a number of “non-stick” varieties, I’ve even got a rather unorthodox psudo-18th-Century reproduction steep-walled folding steel pan that I used to use when cooking just for myself and that I rather like for its versatility, as it makes a tolerably good frying pan and a tolerably good sauce pan for boiling as well. Some of my pans cost hundreds of dollars.
The one that I use the most didn’t cost much though, I paid about $25. I use others, but this is the most essential in my collection in the short term.
The thing about non-stick frying pans is that you need at least one, probably more (eventually), but they aren’t really a place where you can get value back in quality, and especially longevity, by investing more money in them. They all have a range of qualities that may be more or less important to you, but they all also wear out after a few years of heavy use, even if you’re careful, and my impression is that the best of them don’t last more than about 20% longer than the run-of-the-mill.
Still, as I say, you need one. For fish fillets alone it makes life much, much easier.
This is easily one of the best brands for the money, it’s highly-regarded (and gets very good reviews on Amazon) and it’s so inexpensive that when the time inevitably comes to finally discard it, tossing and replacing it requires no agonizing at all. Mine is getting a whole lot of use, and seems to be holding up very well, but even if it “died” tomorrow I’d be inclined to replace it with another just like it. It does a good job of distributing the heat evenly, it’s very non-stick, and no doubt the built-in temperature indicator is useful, though I’ve never gotten used to checking it.
If you don’t have a 12″ (or larger) non-stick frying pan, I’d suggest you get that size. Even just cooking for two people, a 10″ or smaller frying pan is sometimes too small, and in cooking two largish fish fillets or schnitzels for example you may find it frustrating to get them to brown properly because as the food becomes a little crowded in a pan the pieces tend to steam each other and resist browning. Having a large enough pan for the pieces to spread out a little makes the process go much more easily.
T-fal E76507 Ultimate Hard Anodized Scratch Resistant Titanium Nonstick Thermo-Spot Heat Indicator Anti-Warp Base Dishwasher Safe Oven Safe PFOA Free Saute / Fry Pan, 12-Inch, Gray (link removed)
If I were starting all over again probably my second frying pan would be 10″ or 12″ cast iron… but then, I have a lot of experience with the stuff, know some special things about seasoning them, and I’d probably be looking mostly in antique, junk and consignment shops, because the mediocre cast iron pans of the past were, and are, better than the best you can readily acquire new today.
Save the top-class, expensive multi-layer stainless-clad frying pans for later- if ever. They are a staple of commercial kitchens and are valued because they last forever under hard use, but you may find as you progress that you don’t really need their particular qualities. I use an expensive clad-stainless frying pan myself mostly when I’m going to make a gravy or sauce from the “fond”, the browned bits and goo left over from frying the meat. In other words, I use it when I actually want the meat to stick somewhat. You might take some caution from that fact.
Knife: This is an intensely personal choice, and you can spend hundreds or thousands on a knife and have something that you’re terrified to use, or that needs 20 minutes of attention after every use. I’m a “knife nut”, I’ve spent a great deal of money on knives, but… I’m not a chef. I don’t spend ten or twelve hours a day with a chef’s knife in my hands, I don’t have assistants to do the prep work and cleanup while I go hone the thing with progressively finer Japanese water stones in some sort of Zen ritual. I just need to cut food with as little fuss and overhead as possible.
You probably, eventually, want three knives. For most folks a “chef’s knife” of about eight inches blade length is the most important and the first type you’ll want to acquire, and it’s the one I use more than 90% of the time. The other two are probably a good paring knife, which some folks use a lot more than others, and last, and least-used but a worthwhile luxury to have someday is a really good bread slicer… an 8″ chef’s knife can usually substitute for that one if it’s kept sharp enough.
This is my current zero-status zero-snob-appeal working knife. It’s a frank Chinese knock-off of the classic German-pattern chef’s knives, some of which, I can tell you from experience, are soft– they don’t hold an edge nearly as well as the knock-off. I think some of the European knives hearken back to the days when butchers and cooks used soft knives and touched them up with “sharpening steels” constantly… the “steels” being about file-hard themselves, which is too soft to do anything at all on a lot of modern knife edges… in fact, the edges of some knives are probably harder than the “steel”. Things have changed, but a lot of European traditions die hard.
This is not a fine, lovingly-crafted personal instrument that you’ll take huge pride in- save that to reward yourself when you become a famous chef. It’s a little clunky, a little heavy, but I’m a big guy and I don’t use it all day, I don’t need it to be as light as possible. The balance is acceptable only if you’re in a good mood.. but it works. Kept sharp it slices and chops well, and it holds an edge pretty well.
No doubt I’ll acquire cooking knives I like better over time, but for right now this does plenthy well for my purposes, and just as importantly requires very little attention and time. I think I paid something like $11 on sale. I have much more expensive chef’s knives that I don’t use anymore- this one I do.
Winco Chef’s Knife, 8-Inch (link removed)
Here’s one that is recommended a lot, but that I haven’t tried personally. It’s Victorinox, the Swiss Army Knife company, and I suspect will share some characteristics of the steels they typically use- highly stain-resistant, capable of taking a very sharp edge, but a little on the soft side- not a bad tradeoff for a kitchen knife. I have little doubt that it’s much lighter than the one I’m using, and the lack of a bolster, aside from reducing weight, makes it easier to sharpen at the “heel” of the blade. I can’t personally vouch for it, but lots of others do, and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy one myself if I felt the need. It might well be the one I’d pick as a gift to someone just starting to seriously cook on their own.
Victorinox 8 Inch Swiss Classic Chef’s Knife (link removed)
Knife sharpener: Again, this is a zero-status, zero-snob-appeal functional solution. I can get knives “scary” sharp, but it takes time and multiple gradients of abrasive in some form. This doesn’t do that, but it does do a surprisingly good job for a quick-and-dirty kitchen sharper.
Just follow the directions. The sprung “fingers” are diamond-encrusted, so it will sharpen the hardest steel and it doesn’t take much pressure at all. The first time you use on a knife you might need a dozen passes/strokes or so to “set” the edge, that is to re-do the secondary bevel to match the angles of the fingers… after that, three or four strokes every once in awhile is plenty. The resulting edge won’t cut a silk scarf in half from it’s own weight when laid on the edge, and it won’t push-cut hickory, but for practical tasks like push or draw-slicing tomatoes it’s plenty. Even if you decide you wan to go to a better sharpener for your favorite knife or two someday, I’d say it’s still worth having on-hand for those knives that you just don’t care about that much.
Folds up flat to conveniently store in a drawer.
Furi FUR626 Ozitech Diamond Fingers Pro Knife Sharpener (link removed)
Veggie peeler: Sometimes, rarely, you find that “the best” is readily available and dirt cheap. This was a revelation to me, a whole different experience. These make peeling so quick and easy that I don’t even think about it. The handle design works much better than a traditional potato-peeler, and these things are sharp, and seem to stay sharp. I’ve used this set of three (for less than $10!) a lot and they are still uniformly so sharp that I care not a bit which one I find first. If they do dull, at this point, I won’t hesitate to replace them with identical ones, I have zero desire to go back to anything like the chore that peeling used to be.
Be aware that they come with a thin plastic protective film over the cutting parts that needs to be removed completely. The film is a little hard to see, it’s entirely possible to miss some of it and think there’s something wrong with the tool.
Kuhn Rikon 3-Set Original Swiss Peeler (link removed)
Zester: The chefs who design the meals for Blue Apron never saw a lime they didn’t want to zest. That was new to me- not the concept, but the extent- and I don’t want to even think of how long I rationalized that the old box grater was probably “just as good” as the Microplanes I kept seeing recommended, while zesting the limes and lemons became my most-dreaded part of food prep.
It was all unnecessary.
There are many imitations, but this is what they are imitating and it’s rarely much more expensive, though it’s also rarely discounted. Microplane makes a lot of graters, a few of them quite odd or specialized, but at least for your first you want a very specific model, the “Premium”. The next model down, the “Classic”, looks identical and zests exactly as well, the only difference is that the “Premium” has little soft-plastic corners on the stainless blade to keep it from scratching whatever surface that it’s used on- cutting boards, plates, counters. It’s well worth another couple of bucks. Even if you don’t think it’s necessary in your kitchen, what if you ever use it in someone else’s and find that it’s gouged their favorite cutting board?
Most of the more expensive models that Microplane makes are broad-bladed types that are great for cheese but more cumbersome for zesting small lemons and limes. These things are very sharp and a pleasure to use.
The blades are made from 18-8 stainless, a variety known for its corrosion resistance but hardly for edge holding. It seems to work in this application, I don’t see any complaints of them dulling quickly.
I won’t say that zesting lemons and limes has become my favorite part of food prep, but I no longer dread it at all, this is clearly the “proper” tool and (at least comparatively) a joy to use.
Microplane 46220 Premium Zester/Grater (link removed)
There are a whole lot of tongs out there these days. These may not be the best, but they meet all my criteria and work well enough that I’ve had no desire to replace them. I have two pair of these, and I use them constantly.
First the size;,I find the nine-inchers to be about perfect for all-around kitchen use. the twelve-inch tongs are better suited to grilling out, they seem clumsy for handling things in a pan on the range, and the six-inch tongs seem more for plating the food artistically.
The jaws (and other non-metal bits) are not only safe/friendly for non-stick cookware, but they are silicone, far more heat-resistant and inert than nylon. Even though the surfaces of the jaws are soft, they are reinforced by steel within right to the points so that you can exert plenty of gripping force with them. Being all silicone and stainless, they’re dishwasher-safe and clean easily.
Oberhaus Premium 9-Inch Silicone Kitchen Tongs (link removed)
Citrus Juicer: I’ve tried the various hand-squeezing techniques for getting the juice out of limes and lemons, and find them at least tedious and messy. Long ago I’ve tried the old glass-dish style of juicer, but the seeds still end up in the juice with those. Most of those that work on the principle of this one are made from cast aluminum with some sort of coating on it that is brittle and can chip and crack, especially if dropped on a hard surface. My choice may not be the best here, I have limited experience… but it’s big, heavy, seriously sturdy (to the point of being bombproof) and very fast in operation. I do recommend something of the type, it just makes things go much faster- especially in eliminating the hassle of trying to find and retrieve stray lime and lemon seeds from the food.
It’s not perfect. Like most of this type, it actually works better if you insert the lime or lemon half “upside down”, with the pulp side toward the bottom of the “basket” part and let the conical jaw turn the lemon or lime half inside out in the process of squeezing it. That’s fine, but on this one not all the juice wants to go though the holes in the bottom, so you have to turn it sideways to pour out part of it. No big deal, that. The only other annoyance I’ve found is that with use, over time, the handles underneath the silicone sleeves get wet or oily underneath and the sleeves start sliding and squirming around on the stainless underneath, which is not only disconcerting but makes squeezing difficult. A couple of times I’ve had to take them off and clean the sleeves and handles with detergent, let them dry thoroughly and put them back on to get them to behave. Again, no huge deal, but I’m actually thinking about just tossing the silicone sleeves- the stainless handles underneath are smooth and polished, and I don’t seem to need whatever extra level of comfort the sleeves provide.
Bellemain Premium Quality Stainless Steel Lemon Squeezer with Silicone Handles (link removed)
Garlic Press: Chefs get quite attached to their favorite garlic presses, often ranking them second in importance only to their knives, and take them from place to place with them rather than relying on each place to have a good one. I do recommend getting a decent one and using it, rather than trying to mince garlic with a knife- it’s just much faster and more effective.
I see a ton of stainless, Chinese garlic presses on the market these days that look similar to this one, and I imagine that they’re all pretty much alike. It works well, and will handle at least two or three typical cloves at a time or one very big clove. It doesn’t seem as easy to clean as one might hope, but it’s not bad, and I’m not sure any others are much better.
I’ve used cast-aluminum garlic presses in the past, and I find that the metal of the grates that the garlic gets pressed through on those are too thick, wasting some of the garlic and making them difficult to clean. This is somewhat better, having a sheet-stainless grate that hinges separately.
They claim that you can drop unpeeled cloves into this and it will squeeze out the clove leaving the peels behind. I tried this and it actually worked pretty well, though it complicated the cleanup a little and more garlic seemed to try to squeeze out of nooks and crannies rather than out of the grate. Still, cooking is often done with the clock ticking, while cleanup is more leisurely, so it might be a good option to have if you are yourself… pressed.
No real complaints, but if I ever see one that seems to have the virtues of this one but is easier to clean I might be tempted.
Innoo Tech Garlic Press Stainless Steel – Ginger Press (link removed)
Prep Bowls: If you’re not in the habit of doing all your prep work in advance, you really need to acquire it. Even for recipes that seem to separate out preparation as a step this means reading the recipe carefully, and not only doing the cleaning and cutting and chopping but also the measuring in advance. This makes the final stage of cooking, where you might have three or four items of food becoming ready to serve at the same time and a whole lot going on at once, much, much easier.
It does require, and dirty, a lot of bowls. I generally use an assortment of bowls for the main ingredients, mostly stainless, but you also end up with a whole lot of stuff that can go in very small bowls than can then be cleaned up much like drinking glasses or cups. Things like garlic, ginger, capers, scallions, pre-measured and mixed spices, garnishes… you can easily end up using a half-dozen or so per meal.
Having a bunch of identical, sturdy, easy-to-clean tiny bowls for this just makes life a whole lot easier.
I’m honestly not sure now how I ended up buying this brand and model, but I’ve got zero complaints. They are clearly high-sodium glass as opposed to borosilicate glass, but that’s entirely appropriate for this sort of use where sturdiness and chip-resistance is more important than thermal shock resistance. I’ve been using them constantly for quite a while and not one has chipped or cracked. I bought two sets for a total of eight, to be honest I could probably use one more to make it a dozen, they’re well worth it.
Anchor Hocking Set of 4 Custard Cups with 4 Lids, 6 ounces (link removed)
There are a whole lot of other tools that I could include, and maybe I will, but… some of them, while important, are used infrequently in normal meal cooking (mortar and pestle, rolling pin) and in the case of some others, frankly, I’m not all that thrilled with what I’ve tried so far, but I’m not actively in pursuit of better right now (pepper grinders come to mind). I’ll update the list as things change.
– Robert the Wombat