Equipment

A new friend left a comment on a previous post asking what equipment was “most important” for cooking dishes like these. It’s a broad and involved enough question (and I’m verbose enough) that I thought the answer might oughta warrant its own post.

The Alinea cookbook provides a list of some of the more esoteric or unusual equipment readers will encounter in the recipes. This book’s list expounds on each item, but here it is (along with some comments of my own) in short version:

• Acetate sheets — buy these from a bakery or candy-making shop, not from an art store. The former is thinner and more conducive to the uses in the book.
• Chinois — I use this on every single recipe; in fact, I have three of them because I use them so often and am usually moving quickly enough that I don’t want to stop and wash one.
• Cryovac — a vacuum sealer. I use a foodsaver; the one I had in New Zealand was a very low-end white foodsaver and it was great. The one I have now is a silver upright model and it’s way more annoying and wasteful to use…if I had to buy again I’d go with the cheapest one again.
• Dehydrator
• Food Processor — had a nice one in New Zealand, here I have a tiny post-college-graduation personal one that works fine, but I haven’t used either of them a ton.
• Hemispheric molds
• High-Speed Blender –definitely a very useful thing. I have a Blendtec, and it’s 98% awesome, the 2% loss is because it shuts itself off after 50 seconds and doesn’t have a variable-speed knob. If I had a million bucks and had to buy this again I’d get a vitamix. But I still love my Blendtec.
• Immersion Blender
• Juicer
• Microplane
• Mortar and Pestle
• Silicone Mats — very useful.
• Soda siphon and cream whipper
• Spice Grinder
• Syringe
• Tamis
• Tweezers — specifically go for “jeweler’s tweezers”
• X-acto knife
• Antigriddle — two sheet trays with dry ice between them does the trick fine
• Heat Sealer — built into the foodsaver
• Japanese Rotary Slicer
• Meat Slicer
• Pacojet —  I use a Cuisinart ice cream churn
• Paint Stripping Gun — I use a creme brulee torch usually
• Refractometer
• Paint Spray Gun
• Tabletop Wine Press
• Thermocirculator — insert your favorite sous vide solution here. I use a small rice cooker and a Sous Vide Magic.
• Volcano Vaporizer — find a friend who likes smoking pot and borrow theirs. Seriously, there’s no other use for this thing.

I have most of these items, but couldn’t say one is more important than the other really (with a few exceptions I’ll get to below). Usually I just pick a recipe and see what’s required, and buy equipment based on that.

There are other things not listed here that I find remarkably useful, both for this and for everyday cooking. Again, I tend to let need dictate how I acquire these things, I haven’t bought anything arbitrarily:

• Chinois — Listed above, this thing is extremely useful for getting the smooth textures that a restaurant like Alinea favors. You can use a strainer, but your purees will just be a little more rustic. They won’t taste any different. One of the best lessons I learned from this thing was how to pay attention to texture (I didn’t buy one until I noticed my purees were grainier than I wanted).
• Silpats/silicone mats — Save heaps of time scrubbing sheet trays.
• Silicone spatulas — these might as well be an extension of my hand. I use them for EVERYTHING. I have several different sizes and shapes; they’re great for stirring and transferring stuff from pots to bowls, etc.
• Whisks — I have two stainless steel ones, I also use them relentlessly for breaking up or aerating mixtures.
• Rubbermaid containers — nothing in this book is prepared completely a la minute: everything is usually pre-made and then assembled for plating, so you need lots of storage space. I have around 20 plastic containers in various sizes. Make sure the lids are airtight…if they aren’t, things will go stale and degrade.
• Sealable jars — I keep most of my ingredients in Ball jars. I can see what’s inside and how much I have, and they seal airtight so things last a long time and no moisture gets in. I had some plastic containers in New Zealand that were not airtight and the humidity caused the hydrocolloids to clump and mat together. Gross.
• Thermometers — I  keep an oven thermometer in the oven at all times so I can make sure its calibrated properly, and I have another that’s used for melting sugar (it’s a candy/deep fry thermometer).
• Tea Towels — I make an absolute mess in the kitchen every time I cook. I dirty towels like its nobody’s business. Seriously, I’ll motor through a towel an hour, wiping up things or drying stuff or pulling things off the stovetop.
• Chef’s knife — the ‘best’ chef’s knife is the one that’s most comfortable for you to hold.  Go to a cooking store and ask to hold every knife they have, and pay attention to how it feels in your hand. No knife stays sharp forever, so the idea that you’re picking on the basis that it’s going to stay like a razor forever is misguided. Just pick the one that feels the most natural, and be prepared to learn to sharpen or it have it sharpened.

I have a whole host of other odds and ends, most of which are convenience items. My multi-wheel cutter, for example, makes cutting sections of melted sugar easy and precise, but it’s not a necessary thing. I bought a cherry pitter because pitting olives with a paring knife is a pain in the ass, but I wouldn’t say the cherry pitter is a vital tool. Etc. Usually if I use something I think is interesting enough to point out, I’ll include a photo of it in my posts.

Anyway, I’m happy to talk more about specific brands or answer more questions if anyone wants to ask (either in comments or via email).