5 things you need to be a MasterChef in the kitchen - CHOICE

Here are five appliances that will help you dominate in the kitchen.

Do you agree with this list? What would you add/remove?

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Great to see that 5 of the 6 recommended brands of olive oil in the link are Australian

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Number 6. (one of a few worthy options)

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I think I could do without the pressure cooker . I use a couple of raw cast iron Dutch ovens and find they do the job for me . If I was working full time and not retired I would certainly look at a pressure cooker as i would be more time poor.

As the Rolling Stones song says " Time is on my side ."

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Mixer
This is important, a good mixer saves much work and does things that most of us would not have the strength/stamina/time to do. If you can use it properly it will make a difference to both food quality and ease of use in your kitchen.
Food processor
Optional. The slicing, dicing etc can be done quicker and better with a knife and a good box grater if you have the skill, unless you are making large volumes. For a small amount of 3 or 4 veges in various sizes that you don’t want to mix the knife wins every time. A food processor can turn food that requires texture into homogenous mush in the wrong hands. It will completely ruin some things, eg baba ganoush.
For small volumes the time to set up, work, clean up and put away exceeds doing it manually. A few things like biscuit pie crust are hard to do manually. A mini blender that comes with a stick blender will do your curry pastes, pesto etc and is less washing up. Nuts are better in a mortar and pestle as they just form a paste around the edges of the blender/processor so you have to keep stopping and scraping down. An overrated appliance that is not the panacea shown in advertisements.
Stick blender
Handy sometimes, I use the mini blender more than the stick itself. You do not need one to make egg mayonnaise. The ideas that emulsified sauces are the province of professionals, take a long time and are risky are all nonsense.
Pressure cooker
Handy sometimes but inconvenient unless you can put all the ingredients in at once. In my opinion for exchange cooking (eg stews) long slow cooking is tastier than fast high pressure cooking.
Staples
It goes without saying that the quality of food is very much dependent on the quality of ingredients. Just don’t fall for paying out too much for ‘magic’ ingredients unless you can actually taste the difference. I would give long odds that 8/10 home cooks cannot tell basic table salt from fancy expensive salt by taste.
What’s missing?
A knife. A good knife and the skill to use it will do more for your cooking and time saving than all the gadgets in the shop put together. You don’t need the very pricey blade that was prayed over by monks each time it was hand tempered in their urine and the $25 set of 4 from Colesworths won’t cut it. Maybe read the Choice review.
Get a medium price chef’s knife, that is an all purpose design. For women with larger hands and most men a 20cm will suit, if you have very small hands maybe 15cm. It has to feel good in your hand; you cannot buy on looks, the weight, the balance and the grip must all suit you. Remember that hardness is a compromise, too soft and it will not hold an edge, too hard and it will chip or even break. Learn how to use it and how to keep it sharp and your cooking will move up several notches and you will enjoy it more. It will outlast you unless you ruin it. Once you are confident you may want to buy more specialised knives but for the great majority of purposes one will do.
Which brings us to fun. Cooking is a mix of art and science that anybody can do reasonably well. Serving good food to those close to you is very rewarding and, for many, so is the process of cooking. Washing up and loading dishwashers are none of these things. Keep this in mind when tempted to buy gadgets.

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Definitely, the stick blender is recognisable as the Masterchef of the kitchen insisted on the best and most expensive and stylish option. Some things are hard to forget! It can also be useful for a number of tasks, and may be less damaging if mishandled.

The other items are dimly recognisable.

Agree a good knife is essential, as is a micro plane and sometimes a mandolin.
A set of scales and measures and an iPad to look up the recipe also help at our level of mastercheffery.

Probably all available for much less the cost of any one of the others in the list?

Moral of the story:
Driving an Ferrari might help you feel like an Formula One car driver. It is unlikely that you are one.
Perhaps the same principle applies in the kitchen when it comes to having the latest and greatest in gadgets?

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I only use a good knife for chopping and dicing etc., and a hand mixer for
whipping fresh cream and for mixing and beating cake mixture.
I was glad when the safety valve on my pressure cooker stopped working, it had terrorised me for long enough. The pot has a thick and heavy base and I can use it for any slow cooking, topped by a ‘normal’ lid.
I use Evoo and any Cooking salt.

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Amen. Here endeth the lesson :slight_smile:

Except to say, maybe a a few good knives - for me that is a couple of Swibo’s and a real steel, butchers saw, and a selection of from carvers to peelers - if they don’t hold an edge or take an edge throw them out …

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If we are only taking appliances (things plugged into the wall), then I would have thought that a rice cooker would have been one of the 5…possibly rather than a pressure cooker.

We have a stovetop pressure cooker we use from time to time, but the same effect can also be done with a slow cooker or a heavy enamelled cast iron pot.

A rice cooker is very convenient and cooks the rice the same way every time and is far less hassle free than other rice cooking methods.

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I love my Crockpot or Slow Cooker…

Would be lost without it, I can cook so much in it!

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