In a small kitchen, you don’t need a lot of equipment to cook great food. Still, you do need some pots, pans, utensils, and dishes–obviously. In the BGSK book, you’ll find a bare bones list of necessary equipment, but I’ve long wanted to bring you a similar resource on the web.
So we’re going one by one, stocking up our virtual pantries and maybe our real ones too.
Today I want to talk about the electric kettle
. I own a DeLonghi Kmix Kettle. I use it every single morning of my life to boil water for coffee. That’s a no brainer, not having to deal with fire before having had my caffeine. Water comes to a boil quickly, even when watched. And that means the kettle comes in handy for other reasons, too.
Along with the mini food processor, the kettle sits out on our counter. When I know I’m making pasta or blanching kale for dinner, I’ll fill the kettle up with water as soon as I walk in the door. By the time I’ve changed into sweatpants, the water is boiling, and I can go onto the next step in my dinner plan.
Since a lot of electric kettles are plastic, and I don’t like to mix plastic with hot things, I also love that this kettle is made from stainless steel.
Here are some of the dishes where you’ll find that near-instant hot water makes following the recipe much easier.
(For the chai, you’ll have hot water to steep the tea and spices; for the mousse pie, you’ll make coffee really quickly, which you need to amp up chocolate flavor, and for the couscous, you can pour hot water right over the grain and let it rehydrate while you sauté the sausage, saving a pot.)
