AT THE HEART OF HELL’S KITCHEN IS HIGH-END FINE-DINING CUISINE, COOKED TO PERFECTION BY PASSIONATE, TALENTED CHEFS. WHILE WATCHING THE SHOW, WE GET TO SEE WHAT REALLY GOES INTO PREPARING THE BEST OF THE BEST. BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO BECOME A RESTAURANT CHEF OR HELL’S KITCHEN CONTESTANT TO BRING THAT JOURNEY HOME. GET INSPIRED FROM THE SHOW, LEARN SOME TRICKS OF THE TRADE, AND PURCHASE A FEW KEY PIECES OF EQUIPMENT AND YOU CAN BRING THE MAGIC OF HELL’S KITCHEN INTO YOUR PERSONAL KITCHEN. LET’S GET STARTED!
Watching Hell’s Kitchen is enough to give any home cook a serious case of kitchen envy. Not one but two state-of-the-art kitchens grace the Hell’s Kitchen restaurant. No wonder the show has produced some serious talent! But some of the greatest food has come out of the tiniest, well-thought-out kitchens, and the bottom line always comes down to what you put on a plate. Master your technique and the ideal workspace is born from organization, efficiency, and a few choice pieces of equipment. The star of a Hell’s Kitchen–worthy kitchen is a just-right chef’s knife (important enough to merit its own section), along with various tools, utensils, measuring devices, and machines dedicated to slicing, dicing, mincing, and so forth. You don’t have to spend a fortune on your kitchen, but you’ll find that quality pots, pans, and knives will be well worth the investment.
Top-of-the-line heavy-duty pots are built to last for the long haul and can transform your cooking. Go a step beyond stainless steel and consider anodized aluminum: stainless steel with an aluminum or copper core. This material provides even heating and control in cooking, while straight aluminum can warp over high heat and is reactive to acidic foods. Copper is reactive as well, and it requires the same sort of maintenance as a copper bowl (see here). Cast iron distributes and retains heat brilliantly and is extremely durable and affordable. On the downside, it’s reactive, it requires regular maintenance, and is extremely heavy. Make sure each piece of cookware comes with a lid.
STOCKPOT: Using homemade stock instead of stock from a box elevates your recipes, so a decent-sized stockpot—at least 6-quart capacity—is recommended for your collection of pots and pans. You’ll use it for boiling pasta and making soups as well.
SAUCEPAN: The workhorse of the stovetop, required for everything from blanching vegetables to cooking risotto. A 4-quart pan will serve many of your needs. A second, smaller pan—1 to 1½ quarts—is extremely handy to have around. Depending on how busy you get in the kitchen, another pot or two in sizes that fit your needs will help you multitask your way to dinner with ease.
DUTCH OVEN: A heavy metal pot, typically made from cast iron, often passed down from your grandmother. You’ll find them coated in porcelain enamel in a range of colors; the coating makes the pot nonreactive and easy to care for. The classic Dutch oven dish is a long braise that goes from the stovetop to the oven; some folks even bake bread in theirs.
CHEF’S TIP: No matter how great the deal may seem, don’t buy a full set of pots and pans unless you’re sure you’ll use every piece.
SKILLET: Also known as a frying pan, this flat-bottomed pan with slanted sides is required for tasks from frying or scrambling eggs to stir-frying and toasting nuts and seeds. A 10- to 12-inch skillet will suit most needs; if omelets are your typical breakfast, an 8-inch skillet will come in handy. Cast iron makes a brilliant skillet, as it’s heavy duty and, with proper care, is nonstick. Alternatively, you can purchase a dedicated nonstick pan to use for egg dishes (don’t bother with nonstick for the rest of your pans). Do not heat nonstick over high heat.
SAUTÉ PAN: This pan differs from a skillet in that it has straight or slightly curved sides, which provides you with a larger cooking surface and better contains your food as it “jumps” over the heat (the translation of the French word sauter is “to jump”). It’s used for searing meat and cooking sauces and such. Choose anywhere from 10 to 14 inches depending on the quantity of food you plan to cook in your pan.
ROASTING PAN: Look for a sturdy, heavy roasting pan that performs equally well on the stovetop as in the oven; handles for ease in lifting are a big plus. Choose a size that accommodates the joint of meat you roast most often. Pass on nonstick roasting pans, as you’ll miss out on deglazing—scraping up the delicious browned bits that form at the bottom of the pan.
Glass, ceramic, and metal are the three most popular picks for bakeware, with metal being the obvious choice for baking sheets. Light-colored metal makes for even browning (darker metal can cause overbrowning), and aluminum is best at conducting heat and reliably produces evenly baked goods. Glass is also a good heat conductor and, unlike aluminum, it’s nonreactive. Ceramic’s attractiveness lends itself to stove-to-table desserts worthy of showing off. This list will cover your basic baking needs:
9 × 13-inch baking dish
9 × 9-inch baking dish
Round cake pans (8- and 9-inch)
Square cake pan (8- and 9-inch)
9-inch loaf pan
Springform pan (can’t make cheesecake without it!)
Pie plates (8- and 9-inch)
9-inch tart pan plus several mini-tart pans
Ramekins (essential for crème brûlée)
At least 2 baking sheets/cookie sheets
A baking sheet, also known as a half-sheet pan in the restaurant world, is rimmed. Cookie sheets are unrimmed; their advantage lies in their large surface area, perfect for fitting in lots of cookies, but their purposes are limited; without a rim, juices can drip out and errant ingredients will invariably escape. If only one type is in your budget, make it baking sheets (and don’t worry, you can bake cookies on them too!).
Choose two or three in various sizes. Plastic is dishwasher-safe; wood has a more natural feel to it. Some chefs like to keep a cutting board dedicated to meat or pungent onions and garlic.
CHEF’S TIP: Place a damp kitchen towel or paper towel under your cutting board to keep it from sliding around while you chop.
A set of bowls from tiny to multiple-quart will get you through your mise-en-place (here) with finesse and help you through dinner service with ease. Nesting bowls are a great choice, as they don’t take up a lot of room and you’ll likely use them all. Throw in a number of tiny bowls or ramekins to hold individual ingredients like chopped garlic, diced onions, or minced parsley (silicone pinch bowls are perfect). Lightweight metal bowls—choose nothing but stainless steel—work for most purposes, from tempering chocolate to creating a double boiler; glass is a nonreactive choice that gives you a clear window into your food, but it’s weightier and susceptible to chipping and breaking. Ceramic bowls look beautiful on the table but, like glass, have some heft and are prone to breaking. Plastic bowls are lightweight and nearly indestructible but can scratch and retain oils. Silicone bowls are nonstick, heatproof, and flexible, the best of several worlds. Their drawback is a tendency to hold onto strong odors such as garlic and onion, and their rubbery texture makes them difficult to grab when they’re filled with liquid. If you love your soufflés and meringues, you might consider investing in a copper bowl, as it will enable you to whip voluptuous volume into your egg whites. Note that copper bowls are quite expensive and require that you clean and polish them before and after each use, so make sure you’re committed to copper before you make the investment.
CHEF’S TIP: If your mixing bowls don’t have a nonskid base, try this trick to steady a bowl: Dampen a dish towel and wring out excess water, then, starting at one corner, roll up the towel to form a ring slightly larger than the base of your bowl; set your bowl inside its towel nest and proceed to mix and whisk securely.
CHEF’S TIP: If you’re buying just one bowl type, stainless steel is your best bet.