Starting a cooking adventure is a thrilling undertaking. Mastering advanced cooking techniques and leveraging modern culinary tools can take your kitchen to new heights of gourmet cuisine. However, finding premium kitchen products and accessories to match your gourmet aspirations can be challenging. Personalized utensils offer a stylish solution to this dilemma.
Tongs
A pair of tongs is one of the best kitchen tools for demonstrating culinary expertise. These simple, versatile pinchers can sauce a bowl of bucatini one minute and pick up a thick cut of meat straight from the grill the next. Depending on their intended purpose, personalized cooking utensils come in various designs and sizes. For example, there are serving tongs – often with smaller hands designed for picking up fresh produce and salad toppings on your buffet or food line – and utility tongs that are used in general kitchen tasks such as flipping burgers on the grill or handling hot items in the deep fryer.
Certain tongs have a locking mechanism that allows them to collapse into a small, storage-friendly size when unused. Others have a more traditional design with small pins that slide into slots and then spring back open to lock the tongs in place.
Wooden Spoons
Wooden spoons are a natural material that adds a unique aesthetic to your kitchen. While they may have fallen out of favor with many cooks who opted for plastic or stainless steel utensils due to concerns about bacteria, research has shown that wooden cooking surfaces can be more sanitary than those made from other materials. Like a good cast iron skillet, wooden spoons last a lifetime and improve with age. Wooden spoons can take on the flavors of your favorite recipes and even develop a smooth, oiled patina that makes them feel more than tools in your hand.
To keep your wooden spoons in their best shape, you should regularly sanitize them. Rinse them well after each use, then dry them thoroughly before returning them to the drawer. You can also rub them with food-grade mineral oil to revitalize old, drab-looking spoons and make them look as good as new.
Silicone Spatulas
Silicone kitchen utensils have recently gained popularity because they’re flexible and durable and do not scratch up pots and pans. They’re also heat-resistant and easy to clean. When shopping for silicone kitchen utensils, look for a head shape that can handle multiple functions such as folding batter, scraping, and scooping. You should choose one from non-toxic, food-grade silicone without plastic fillers like BPA.
While wood kitchen utensils are more sustainable than silicone or plastic, they can be prone to scratches and odors. When choosing wooden kitchen utensils, make sure they’re made from sturdy hardwood, like olive or oak, and not from softwoods that easily stain or absorb moisture. Also, consider a utensil made from a single piece of wood instead of being glued together or covered in lacquer.
Whisk
A whisk is a versatile kitchen tool — one that can do a lot of different jobs. From mixing a cake batter or creating a roux for your crab mac and cheese to whisking a hot cup of matcha tea, every commercial kitchen must have the right whisk to complete all your recipes. Whisks come in all shapes and sizes, each designed to accomplish a specific kitchen instruction. Having the right tool in your arsenal will help you create a delicious dish satisfying your customers’ appetites.
The most common variety of whisk is the balloon whisk, made from wires coiled into a rounded bulb shape. This style is best used for mixing dry ingredients or light, fluffy mixtures, like pizza dough or muffin batter. It’s also an excellent choice for whisking egg whites. Another option is the spring whisk, which consists of a single wire coiled into a circular shape. The curved profile of this type of whisk is best for aerating liquids, as it can be pumped up and down instead of swirled around the bowl.
