Vol. IV · Knives, Tools and the Work Space Plate 8 of 10kitchen equipment, pans, pot, scale, thermometer, pan size, crowdingTH

A Working Kit.

Buy few tools and choose their sizes well. The size of a pan decides whether the food in it browns or steams.

A home cook can do almost everything in this course with a short list: a chef's knife or a Chinese cleaver, a paring knife, a large board, a heavy frying pan (cast iron, carbon steel or clad stainless, 26–30 cm), a non-stick pan for eggs, a 4–6 litre pot with a lid, a smaller saucepan, a sheet pan, a digital scale, a probe thermometer, tongs, a spatula and a sieve. A wok if you stir-fry often. Everything else is convenience.

Size is the choice that matters most. A pan too small for its load crowds the food: it releases more water than the pan can boil off, and the food stews instead of browning (XV.3). A useful rule is to cover no more than about two-thirds of the pan's base. The workshop sizes a pan for a load.

Below: the pan diameter needed for the pieces you want to sear at once, keeping the food to the share of the base you choose; and how many batches a 26 cm pan would need.

What you will learn
Workshop
Pan diameter D = √(4 · n · a / (π · c)) for n pieces of a cm² each covering a share c of the base (usable base taken as the full diameter). Batches in a 26 cm pan = ⌈n · a / (c · area of a 26 cm base)⌉.

Few tools, the right sizes

Four steaks of 150 cm² each, kept to 65% of the base, need a pan about 34 cm across; in a 26 cm pan they would cover 113% of it — crowded, so cook them in 2 batches, or use two pans. The same arithmetic sizes a sheet pan for roasting vegetables: spread in one layer with space between, they roast; heaped, they steam.

Spend on the things you use every day: the knife, the heavy pan, the thermometer, the scale. Gadgets that do one job — garlic presses, avocado slicers, egg separators — are rarely better than a knife and a hand. A Chinese kitchen often has even less: a cleaver, a round board, a wok, a steamer and a spatula do nearly everything.

At the stove

Measure the base of your largest frying pan and work out how many of your usual pieces of meat fit with space around them. That is your batch size; write it inside a cupboard door.

The traditional Chinese kitchen tool set — 菜刀, 砧板, 炒锅, 锅铲 and 蒸笼 — has changed little in centuries, and cooks a cuisine of great range.

Terms

Crowding
Too much food in a pan, so that it releases more water than the pan can evaporate and steams (XV.3).
Batch
One panful of food cooked at a time.
Sheet pan
A flat, rimmed metal tray for roasting and baking.
Probe thermometer
A thermometer with a thin metal probe for reading the inside of food (I.4).
A small kit of good tools is enough. Size the pan to the load — no more than about two-thirds covered — or cook in batches.

Sources

  1. A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.