Food Essential kitchen tools....

how do you use cast iron incorrectly?

 

if it's not seasoned correctly things will stick. or if you clean it with anything but water, or if you don't preheat the pan.

 

wow.... I think we need to start a TFP cooking school because some of these things blow my mind to have but make so much sense now....

 

Kitchenaid just has so much more power and the quality is just amazing compared to most of the competition out there. Keep in mind I say most and not all - there are some other big names out there too that are comparable. I love my stand mixer I only wish I had gone with the big one instead of the small artisan model. I have the exact same unit as pictured above.

 

You have a lot of people on here who have either cooked professionally (WK is classically trained and I went to the school of Trial By Fire) and home cooking enthusiasts. You got the best of both worlds on Tfood.

 

I'm curious what a scale is used for... in my house sense.... I saw one in the kitchen "area" at Walmart and it peaked my interest...

 

Scales are good for dieting and baking. Dieting you can measure out portions better and keep track of your calories. Scales rock for baking, because you can measure everything out to the gram. More precise amounts than using measuring spoons.

 

What about a wok? Generally whats the purpose and whats the difference between a good and bad one.... to me, it just looks like another frying pan (sorry if I insulted anyone over that)...

 

Well, the shape is different and they tend to be quite thin metal. Usually they are used to cook thinly sliced stuff very quickly. The bottom area tends to get super hot and you move things around a lot so everything gets cooked. I use mine all the time.

I have a basic steel wok from a Chinese grocer. It cost me about $10 almost 20 years ago. As long as you oil it after washing it, it won't rust.

 

Scales, as has been pointed out, are great for baking. It's really only in North America that people bake by volume. In the UK and elsewhere, baking is done by weight. Doing so is a lot more accurate. I am always using my scale.

As for a wok, the reason you want a wok is for a specific type of high heat, quick frying. The best woks are the steel ones as they are durable and disperse the heat well. Like cast iron, you really should season a wok properly before using it.

Woks are nice to have but, I would suggest, not essential unless you are going to be making a lot of Asian dishes, on a regular basis. For the occasional stir fry, a good sautee pan will suffice. In fact, I would suggest that most North American stove tops don't get hot enough and aren't really set up to use a wok properly. For example, all of the stove tops here have at least one burner that is much larger than the rest and puts our a lot of extra heat (BTUs). The ring above the gas flame is also larger and made to hold the specific shape of a wok. I can't remember seeing non-commercial stove tops in North America like this.

 

Charlatan.....does it matter that I have a gas stove?

 

5 cast iron pans and wooden tools

xoxoxoo

 

I haven't seen it mention, but I absolutely love my porcelin knife. It can be a bit fragile, especially at the tip, but I've been cutting with this one for 6 years, and it doesn't need sharpening yet. The previous one was great, but the tip snapped off after about a year (user error). Then it shattered when it got dropped in the sink (again, user error). It's easily my favorite knife.

I also love my wooden spoons. There's one in particular that gets used for every dish.

 

We had a class in High School called "Food Service" that we cooked and baked in, then sold the food to pay for more supplies.
We had a couple of stand mixers that had bowls almost as big as kegs. (that was fun, moving the bowl to the counter) If I recall correctly, we used scales for the majority of our baking.
I remember one time I forgot to zero out the scale and it messed the recipe up somehow. Luckily it wasn't a huge batch of whatever it was we were baking and the teacher just looked at it and said try again.
(I always hated to disappoint that teacher. She was a nice lady.)
Apropos of nothing, I remember one guy stole a whole frozen chicken and hid it in various places until school let out. I'm not sure what happened to it or him.

Anyway, I've never used a scale since, but I'd like to buy one and a mixer, and see if I can bake something worthy of the "Get Baked" thread.

 

Oddly, I went to use my scale yesterday and it's broken. I think something happened to it in our move.