Three Unsung Heroes of the Kitchen
October 27, 2011
•Le Cordon Bleu
•San Francisco
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Three Unsung Heroes of the Kitchen
Most American kitchens are filled with dozens of gadgets that once seemed like great ideas but are now just collecting dust. Cooking in San Francisco is a trend prone business. You might have been caught up in a certain fusion movement and bought your share of these unused tools. They were either too difficult to use and clean or simply didn’t do the job they were supposed to. Used once, they were tossed into a drawer or the back of the pantry and forgotten.
In honor of those forgotten kitchen warriors, we’ve put together this list of three unsung kitchen heroes that you should have in your kitchen. Their simplicity and utility will help make you a better cook.
Digital Meat Thermometer
There are plenty of valid reasons to be a vegetarian, but one shouldn’t be because you’ve never eaten a properly cooked piece of meat. Whether pork, beef, lamb, poultry, or wild game, the only way to properly cook them is learn their best temperatures and have the tools on hand to measure them. A digital, instant-read probe thermometer is ideal for measuring temperatures for your proteins.
Electric Spice Grinder
Fresh-ground spices are much more flavorful than their pre-ground counterparts. You can have fresh-ground spices anytime you want simply by purchasing an electric spice grinder. Buy whole spices and grind them to order when cooking your favorite recipes. The whole spices hold onto the essential oils that give spices their flavor much better than pre-ground. When you grind the spices yourself, you are releasing those flavors at the time you need them and giving your dishes more taste and boldness. Save some money and purchase a cheap coffee grinder and use it to grind your spices.
Medium-Mesh Sieve
Nothing works better for separating liquids and solids than a medium-mesh kitchen sieve. Use for any job where you need to get liquids and solids to two different places: removing foods from a deep fry, straining pasta, straining stocks and broths, removing seeds and fibers from purees, etc. One of the best uses is for straining the mystery liquid from canned beans. Pour the beans in the sieve, run a little water over them, and, voila, you’ve got ready-to-eat beans without the mysterious, gelatinous liquid.
With these three unsung kitchen heroes by your side, there is hardly a recipe out there that can stand up to your kitchen prowess. Owning, and using, these three tools is like having a culinary arts school in your kitchen drawer.
This article is presented by California Culinary Academy. California Culinary Academy offers culinary arts and pâtisserie and baking training programs in San Francisco, California. To learn more about the class offerings, please visit Chefs.edu/San-Francisco for more information.
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