Here is a list of cooking utensils and kitchen gadgets that I have at my disposal. Having had to equip my Parisian kitchen from scratch, this represents mostly things I think are indispensable. (Items I had shipped over from home because I knew I couldn’t live without them are marked with an asterisk.) Paris is a great place to buy kitchen stuff, as you might imagine, so expect this list to grow.
Apron
Can opener
Ceramic baking dishes – rectangular, oval, large fluted round
Coffee grinder
Colander
*Corkscrew – (2) I prefer the “sommelier” or “waiter” models.
Cutting boards – 2 large flexible, large plastic, small plastic, bamboo
Dish towels/tea towels
Dishes – service for 6 – dinner plates, salad/dessert plates, pasta bowls, breakfast bowls (when in Rome…)
Dutch oven – enameled cast iron is the only way to go.
Foil
French press – 1 large, 1 small
*Garlic press
Glasses – juice, pint, wine, champagne, mugs, anything that comes free when you buy booze.
Graters – *Microplane, got these nifty grater/tupperware combo deals at IKEA (where else?)
Hotpads
Immersion Blender
Knives – Boning, Chef’s (one 8″ Sabatier, *one 7″ Wusthof), Cleaver, *Offset serrated, Oyster, *Paring (2), Serrated paring, Tourné/Bird’s beak
Ladle
Measuring cups – *American dry-measure, glass liquid measure (metric and English systems), plastic multipurpose
*Measuring spoons
Mixing bowls – 1 medium glass, 3 nesting melamine
Oven mitt
Paper towels
Parchment paper
Pastry brush
Peeler
Pepper mill
Plastic baggies – can double as a pastry bag in a pinch.
Plastic wrap
Potato masher
Rolling pin – wooden dowel-style
Saucepans with lids – 1 liter, 2 liter
Sauté pans – 11″ traditional, 11″ nonstick, 1 universal lid for both of them
Scissors
Sharpening stone
Sheet pan – aka “jelly roll pan”
Silverware – (ok, stainless steel ware) service for 6 – forks, knives, soup spoons, coffee spoons
Spatulas – Metal, rubber, *silicone, heatproof plastic (actually I have yet to find this one here – all the plastic utensils are safe up to 210 C. They melt if you use them in a hot pan. Useless.)
Spoons – large metal, slotted, wooden
Spoon rest
*Steel – for keeping my knives in tip-top shape
Stockpot – 5 liter with lid, also good for boiling pasta, cooking beans, etc.
Strainer – also good for sifting flour
*Thermometers – instant read (that goes up to 550 F!), digital probe w/ alarm
Tongs – *traditional locking, nonstick friendly
Trivets
Tupperware – ok, it’s from IKEA, but you know what I mean.
Whisks
Wine bottle stopper/vacuum seal – yeah, like this ever gets used (it came free with a bottle of wine).
Originally published on Croque-Camille.
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“Wine bottle stopper/vacuum seal – yeah, like this ever gets used (it came free with a bottle of wine).”
This cracked me up. So true.
Also a pressure cooker is really good to have, especially for French cooking – they love pressure cooker recipes 🙂
I know – what’s up with that? Frankly, pressure cookers kind of scare me. I get these visions of my superheated dinner splattered all over me and the kitchen. Kind of like my irrational fear of losing an eye to a champagne bottle…
I don’t know! They scared me too until I started dating someone who’s French and a wizz with one. It actually keeps more flavor in the vegetables and stuff, I find, and of course cooks things faster! But yeah, I’m still scared of opening it because I always think I’m going to do it wrong and explode the kitchen. Apparently that’s rare though 😉
i WOULD LIKE TO HANG MY UTENSILS FROM THE CEILING. CAN YOU HELP ME FIND SOMETHING
THANK YOU
Swiss made Kuhn Rikon pressure cookers are awesome and I recommend them and give them as gifts. These are not our grandmothers pressure cookers.
And yes I also use and love my French Press for coffee. And I love my Breville juicers because I use a lot of citrus (Tarte au citron). And I love my non stick Madeleine pan.