At home we have nice thick metal measuring cups and spoons galore—they rattle around in our cupboards and drawers like a pocket-ful of change. But, just like all those pennies that you can never seem to spend, we hardly ever use them. Instead, we measure by weight: it makes it easy to double, halve, and quickly throw together, recipes from around the world. We couldn't live without our kitchen scale, which lives on our counter with an index card full of conversion factors taped to the ...
deserted island
An Oil Brush — Deserted Island Kitchen Item #7
Alright, alright, we have a couple of heavy cast-iron pans on our deserted island kitchen list already—clearly we're going to get a work-out lugging our stuff there! Sadly they would be absolutlely worthless without some oil and a brush. It's true that when seasoned these pots have top-notch release, but stuff is still going to stick without a little grease. We don't really have anything against a little fat in our diets—the average person needs 60g a day, and as vegetarians, that's a number we ...
A Flat Pan – Deserted Island Kitchen item #6
We eat flatbread at least once a day—crispy many layered parathas, crépes stuffed with fruit or made savoury, and delicious whole wheat chapati are some of our favourite things to eat. Our favourite thing to cook any of these things on is a flat cast-iron or carbon-steel griddle. Cooking in a walled skillet, it's hard to get your spatula under what you're cooking—and things also hold on to too much moisture, which means they may cook unevenly. We bought our first flat pan when Tazim and I ...
WMF 6.5 l Pressure Cooker — Deserted Island Kitchen #5
We've written about pressure cookers before. Perhaps a little obsessively—check out this series. So it's probably not a surprise that a pressure cooker is something that we'd drag with us, even all the way to a deserted island. In fact, we carry one everywhere, we even have a smaller version that we take camping—they're great for cooking at altitude. It's our go-to pot for everything from soup to chickpea curry. Because pressure-cookers are a closed system, they're an extremely fast and ...
A “Fuzzy Logic” Rice Cooker – Deserted Island Kitchen #4
Though over the years we've spoiled ourselves with conveniences—from stand mixer to mini-chopper, there aren't a lot of kitchen appliances we couldn't live without. But I don't know what we'd do without our "Fuzzy Logic" rice-cooker. We bought ours in Chinatown in 2001. 10 years, several countries, and 8 moves later, it's still churning out perfect rice. Right, you're looking at me funny—rice? seriously? What is there to rice? But if you've ever wondered at the fluffy, whole, every-grain ...
A Special Spatula – Deserted Island Kitchen #3
Looking in your average kitchen shop, one might be forgiven for thinking there are far too many utensils in this world. Perhaps the most prolifigate amongst these is the spatula or the turner—from cheap black plastic that melts a little every time you use it, to silicon implements that promise the moon but are too flexible to life and turn anything. We hunted through all those many thousands before we found this one which we quite like—the OXO Good Grips Large Flexible Turner (what a ...
Bodum Enamelled Cast Iron Wok – Deserted Island Kitchen Item #2
We bought our first cast-iron wok in Chinatown many a year ago. It was straight up pig-iron, came pre-rusted, and cost less than $10. Once we got it seasoned, it worked alright. Then one day a move from gas-burner top to stainless steel counter turned out to be too much of a shock, and it split with a thundering crack. We looked at the wreckage of a Thai curry, watching delicous red curry gravy pour all over the counter like magma, and vowed we wouldn't be quite so cheap in seeking it's ...
Wusthof Silverpoint Bird’s Beak Paring Knife — Our Deserted Island Kitchen #1
Do you ever ask yourself what you would take with you to a small deserted island? What about on a long holiday-or just visiting your family? I'm almost embarrassed to admit that we carry a few of our kitchen things with us, wherever we go-from India to New Zealand. We thought about this just today, unpacking after a stint house-sitting for a family member. Over the next few days, we'll share our deserted island kitchen. The ten things we just can't live without. Here's number one: The Wusthof ...