I am in the process of adding a section to the site with links to some of my favorite kitchen gear.  Kitchens are a funny place – stuff accumulates with the same mysterious ways as crop circles pop up on the land (maybe their both aliens messing with us), and much of it is not actually useful.  So much if the gear is useful for little other than taking up space.

Much if it is designed to ‘make life easier’ in the kitchen – As Seen On TV.  Unfortunately, most of the time the bits of kit just don’t work, or worse take twice the time to use and clean up than just doing the ‘old fashioned’ way.  Alton Brown is my hero when it comes to what he calls ‘unitaskers’.  And the only permissible unitasker in his books is the fire extinguisher.  I tend to agree.

That said, there are a few items that every cook should have in their kitchen.  The first is an instant read thermometer.  A top quality instant read thermometer is something you will use pretty much every time you cook.  A cheap imitation will be buried in the back of your drawer faster than you can say “this piece of garbage…”.  My favorite, and the one that is generally considered to be the best, is the Thermopen .  Available by mail order only, it is indispensable in my kitchen.  I use it to measure the temp of water to bloom yeast (105-115 degrees), the temp of baking break (200+), to check meat on the grill or in the smoker, or to gauge poultry in the oven.  Tonight I used mine to make sure the smoked burger patty in the frying pan was fully cooked without having to cut into it and let the juices out.

The Thermopen is quick, accurate and has a very small tip that makes the smallest puncture in your food, which preserves juices and keeps it from looking like it got cooked on a dart board.

You can check it out here at:

http://www.thermoworks.com/products/thermapen/

I will add some more items that I find indispensable in the days to come.

Next Up – Digital Kitchen Scale