Congratulations on fulfilling your life-long dream of opening your own restaurant. Or maybe you always had one and it’s time for some upgrades. Or maybe, just maybe, you only cook in your kitchen but you take cooking very, very seriously.
Here’s the thing. Three things make a kitchen truly great. The chef, the ingredients and the cooking tools and supplies. You may be wondering why cooking supplies are rated as highly as the professional chef and the vital ingredients. Well, watch how a professional chef looks after his kitchen tools and you will know how important they really are to a chef.
The perfect kitchen setup is hard to achieve. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of money. Below are some of the first few things you should invest in when buying your kitchen supplies.
1. Knives
Haven’t we all felt jealous looking at the knife set that the chef on TV and in movies brings out before he works his magic in the kitchen? Having a professional knife set can cost a lot of money, but they are also some of the most frequently used items in the kitchen. Make sure you have all the different kinds of knives you will need and that they are made of good materials. You don’t want your knives to have plastic handles that can crack, or the knives made of materials that can rust.
2. Cutting Boards
Did we say knives are the most used item in a kitchen? Oh, we meant the cutting board. The cutting board is almost always the most roughly used piece of equipment in any kitchen. It also does not command the kind of respect that an expensive knife set does. Which is why it often sees the most wear and tear too. Thus, it becomes important to not only buy long-lasting cutting boards but also buy them in multiple numbers.
3. Baking sheets
Did we say the cutting board does not get a lot of respect in the kitchen? Oh, we meant the baking sheets. The baking sheets are used for all various things and are often exposed to high temperatures frequently. With baking sheets, the checklist is short and simple. Buy something that is non-stick and something that looks sturdy. Remember, you will be using it to cook all kinds of food. Ensure that the baking sheet material is something that can handle that kind of variety. And before we forget, make sure you buy them in a lot of sizes and shapes too.
4. Frying pans
Have you reached that Zen mode of cooking when all things are going exactly the way you planned? And then it happens, it always happens. You realize you have used all the frying pans. People don’t realize how many frying pans professional kitchens go through every night. And like the baking sheets, frying pans also come in all sizes. Restaurants also have designated pans for designated use for make sure when you buying, you are buying them in large quantities.
5. Spoons and Whisks
There are whisks, spoons and spatulas – all with their own set of uses. Again, there’s size and shape options here to choose from, so make sure you have the kinds you are most likely to use. From heavy duty whisking to delicate food transferring, spoons and whisks are required for a variety of things in the kitchen. So make sure you invest in the ones you can really rely on.
It is always a good idea to keep a running list of commercial kitchen equipment. It will help you gauge how many of them you go through in a month and will help better plan your repurchasing of these things.
