Recipe – check! Ingredients – check! Dinner guests invited – check! Towel – Che … Wait … What?
Yes, a towel? A must for any chef worth his/her name, one of the top three most important ingredients for a successful meal. If you are going to cook anything you need three essential tools to effortlessly complete your dishes: a very sharp (chef’s) knife, a solid cutting board and one to three kitchen tea towels.
Knife
Almost all dishes require chopping, slicing or dicing; be it juliennes, cubes, slices or herbs.
A solid chef’s knife can accomplish all of the above tasks, and if you want to branch out, smaller and more specialised knifes may compliment this staple of a chef’s repertoire.
Whole volumes can be written about the qualities desired in a chef’s knife, but let’s stick to the basics. Around 8 inches (20cm) in length, 1½ inches (3.8cm) in width, with a solid handle and made out of stainless steel. Balance point should be just before the handle ends, and it should be kept sharp. Incredibly sharp. Always keep a honing steel close to hand and run the knife along it before starting each session.
If you are building up the utensils in your kitchen from scratch, a good knife is worth spending a few extra quid on. For safety purpose, always try to keep your chef knife on the knive’s bag. To find out the best knife roll bag, you can read these knife roll reviews.
Board
Any solid, wooden, cutting board will do the trick. Just make sure that it’s worn in, and coated/saturated with oil to prevent liquids from soaking into the wood. Choose any of the following woods: maple, walnut, cherry or bamboo.
If you want to go the advanced route: have more than one cutting block. Use different boards for raw meat (and poultry), sea food and vegetables/herbs to avoid bacteria spreading between cooked and raw food. Cooking temperatures normally kill anything particular nasty, but we cannot say the same for a salad that is eaten raw.
Towels
The Swiss Army knife of the kitchen. Without it, keeping clean will be a chore instead of a reflex. Clean your hands, knife, board or messy surfaces with a swish, wipe or twist of your handy towel.
If your tea towels have an embroidered proverb and a smiley face, have it as an extra aesthetic trimming for your kitchen. The chef’s tea towel is a workhorse and should be simple yet handsome, and able to withstand quite the punishment. A white colour (because of bleaching) is considered a good start. If you are particularly messy in the kitchen, be prepared to toss your towel in the laundry basket after each use.
But the handy tea towel is not only for cleaning: grab hot pans with it, substitute it for a cheesecloth or even put a damp one under the cutting board to prevent it from sliding around. The versatility is amazing, and once you start using it you will wonder how you ever managed before!
