Dear Jacob,
I wonder if you could do an episode or a segment about…what you would need in a professional kitchen (there is so much junk out there, as you have stated). I just updated my kitchen equipment, and kept it simple. I bought from a hospitality supply store…the stuff I bought will last a lifetime.
Keep the good stuff.
Cheers, Dave
Well Dave, here it goes. My list is broken up into three segments; things every pro kitchen should have, things you should have in your knife bag, and a wish list.
Things Every Professional Kitchen Should Have
First of all, I’m already going to assume that your kitchen has the basics; pots, pans, ovens, etc. Other thing every pro kitchen should have are:
- A Vita Prep- An industrial grade blender that is an industry standard. The Vita Prep gives you insanely smooth purees, is great for making emulsification, and is an indispensable tool for smooth soups and sauces.
- A Robo Coup- An industrial grade food processor. Great for grinding, chopping and chunky purees.
- Juicer- For me a juicer is an indispensable tool in my kitchen. It can be used for making soups, sauces, basis for vinaigrettes, gastriques as wells as foams and fruit caviar. The funny thing is, I’ve been through my fair share of professional juicers and the one juicer that I’ve come to trust is not even made for professional kitchens. I have brutalized my Jack Lalanne Power Juicer in numerous ways, and have seen 3 different professional juicers burn out around it. After 5 years I had to replace it after on of the dishwasher dropped in from a 6 foot shelf for a second time.
- Silpat- Silpats are silicone liners made for baking sheets and are completely non stick. They’re great for any number of baking applications, not to mention sugar and chocolate work. Once you have a silpat, you’ll begin to think how you ever got buy without it.
- Kitchen Aid Mix- A professional grade kitchen aid is a must have in any kitchen. Not only can it be used for making batters and bread dough, but it also works great for whipping air into ingredients, and has tons of different useful attachments including meat grinders, pasta machines and even ice cream/sorbet machine.
- Meat Grinder- Meat grinders are one of the best tools to help utilize your trim and waste product in your kitchen. In short, meat grinders are money makers. Use them to make meatballs, hamburgers or even ravioli fillings with your meat trimmings. This tool will more than pay for itself and will help you keep your food cost in line.
- Chinois and China Cap- If I walk into a kitchen without a Chinois and China Cap I instantly start to break out in hives. How are you suppose to strain your sauces and soups, adding a puree velvety texture, without these classical strainers? Great for straining stocks, soups, and sauces, no kitchen is complete without these.
Thing you should have in your personal bag:
- Knives- Definitely you need a good 10″ chef’s knife and a 7″ utility knife. Other knives that you may want in you bag include a fillet knife, long slicer (if you work a lot with fish or large cuts of meat), pairing knife, vegetable knife and a good bread knife.
- Sharpening Stone and Steele- Having the proper steel and stone in your bag to keep your knives razor sharp is a must have. Don’t count on your employer to supply these because your needs will be different depending on what kind of knives you use, and communal stones and steels get ruined extremely fast. Protect the most important tool in your bag (your knives) and invest in a good stone and steel.
- Offset Mini Spatula- These are great for handling delicate objects such as twills and tuiles, and work great for working with individual desserts. The mini spat is one of those tools that once you get use to working with it, you’ll go nuts when you don’t have it around.
- Culinary Tweezers of Chopsticks- Good, long culinary tweezers or chopsticks are great for those intricate plate ups done in a fine dining restaurant. They’re also extremely sanitary, acting as a pair of long fingers; keeping a barrier between you and the food. Perfect for handling small, piping hot objects that need to be delicately placed on the plate.
- A Couple Good Sauce Spoons- Having some sauce spoons that you know and are comfortable with is must. Each spoon has a different angle, handle, and shape. Using the same spoon over and over to sauce you plates will give you greater control and comfort.
- Zester or Microplane- Zesters and microplanes are great for not only utilizing citrus zest, but also for fine grating things like ginger, onions, garlic, etc. Any time you fine grate something it is much easier to incorporate raw into a dish, and it also has more surface area which means more flavor.
- Digital Timer- Having your own digital timer that no one else touches is always nice because you don’t have to worry about people accidentally stopping your timer while setting their own. Not to mention a in most kitchens you’ll have two or three projects going on at once, sometimes even more, so having a timer to remind you when something needs to be pulled will save you from burning and ruining time sensitive foods. The timer I like has three different events on it, so you can have three different things going at once.
- Digital Scale- With modern recipes becoming more and more precise, a good digital scale is not only great for accuracy but also for producing a consistent product. There is really no other surefire way to make sure your standardized recipe turns out the same every time unless you measure everything by weight.
- Optional Bag of Tricks: These are the things that I carry in my bag that are not necessary, but are nice to bust out when you have that VIP customer you want to impress. These items include Egg Toppers, Syringes For Caviar, Garnishing Tools, and some “secret ingredients,” but that’s a whole different post.
Professional Kitchen Wish List:
These are the items that are great to have in a professional kitchen, but are a luxury and are not really necessary (at least traditionally speaking).
- Thermal Immersion Circulator- Allows you to cook products sous vide. The thermal immersion circulator basically keeps your water bath a very precise temperature, allowing you to cook items low and slow for an extended period of time. Although its been around now for a couple of decades, sous vide is really gaining in popularity due to its ability to produce a superior finished product.
- Vacuum Paker- An important part in the sous vide process, but a vacuum packer does so much more. There are many new age cooking techniques that require you remove air from a product, not to mention it drastically increases shelf life which will ultimately increase your bottom line.
- Paco Jet- A Paco Jet is basically a blender that blends “shaves ingredients” very finely at -10 degrees Fahrenheit. This means that you can make extremely tasty sorbets and ice creams to order, but even more importantly you don’t have to follow the rules of a traditional sorbet and ice cream making. Since it blends ingredients at such a low temperature, it allows you to add less sugar to your sorbets, or make a savory ice cream.
- Anti Griddle- This is an extremely cool piece of equipment that has a “cooking surface” with a temperature of negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit. This allows you to almost “instantly” freeze liquids and foams that are dispensed onto the cooking surface. This is one of those tools were really you’re only limited by your own imagination.
- Liquid Nitrogen Canister- Liquid nitrogen is all the craze among avant garde chefs, and for good reason. With a temperature of negative 320 degrees Fahrenheit, liquid nitrogen will freeze food products almost instantly. This allows you to make extremely creamy sorbets and ice creams because the instant freezing doesn’t give ice crystals a chance to form. Although medical grade liquid nitrogen can be picked up at a welding supply store for about $16 a liter, it will quickly evaporate away if not stored properly. Since liquid nitrogen boils off into a gas at about negative 320 degrees Fahrenheit, you need a special, insulated thermos to store you liquid nitrogen properly.
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