Kitchen Essential

I suggested to Smallbone of Devizes that they let me develop for them the concept I had been working on over the previous ten years — the unfitted kitchen; a kitchen made with furniture. The essence of the idea was to design an individual piece of furniture to suit each function. In order to help Smallbone retail the collection, I prepared a set of guidelines for their sales staff to use. Continue Reading »

Start with a well-designed kitchen; mix that with a carefully thought-out colour scheme and personal decorating touches, and the result will be an individual and interesting room that will be in keeping with the rest of the house.

While the working parts of the kitchen are vitally important, so too are the decorative aspects — you want to create a room that you feel happy working in. There’s no point in having all the latest appliances and high technology if you’re miserable every time you set foot in the kitchen. Think just as carefully about colour and the decorating of the room as you do about every other aspect. Continue Reading »

With such an enormous variety of stoves, ovens and cooktops (hobs) on the market it is essential to do a little homework before you buy.

Start by making a list of basic requirements. How much can you spend — and does that amount include installation? What fuel do you prefer — gas, electricity, solid fuel, oil? How much space do you have? Do you cook mainly for just one or two, with occasional dinner parties? Regularly entertain on a grand scale? Produce nonstop meals for the family and assorted friends? What sort of cooking do you do — baking, frying, grilling and barbecuing, steaming and stir-frying? Continue Reading »

If you take a look around your well-equipped kitchen at home, with its plumbed-in sink, its spacious oven, its four-ring hob, its refrigerator, dishwasher, electric food-mixer and so on, it is fairly clear that no portable camp kitchen is likely to match up to it for sheer convenience and labour-saving efficiency. It follows, therefore, that when you go camping you should not expect to cook and eat as elaborately as at home. Continue Reading »

Omelette

The secrets of a successful omelette were recently revealed by a friend of ours who showed us a somewhat unconventional but foolproof technique.

Use three large eggs per omelette (never mind the cholesterol problem), a tablespoonful of milk and a small pinch of baking powder. Whisk until fluffy adding any seasoning just before cooking. Heat some butter in a pan and pour in the egg mixture. A moderate heat setting and a little patience will give you a good start. Cover the pan and leave the omelette to set. It normally takes 3-5 minutes depending on your stove, but keep checking it. Once most of the egg has set, place the omelette under a hot grill for about 30 seconds without removing it from the pan. This will set any runny egg at the top as well as brown the omelette. Then add cheese or any other topping of your choice before placing the omelette under the grill again. When sufficiently browned, fold it over and serve. Continue Reading »

Eat your vegetables! This little sentence was drummed into all our heads when we least wanted to hear it. But as the universe is strange, when you move from your mother’s home you suddenly start eating vegetables by choice and you may even become a vegetarian! Most veggies are really easy to prepare, and depending on how you prepare them, they are healthy.

Steaming Vegetables

It is almost always better to steam your vegetables as it is the healthiest method for the tastiest vegetables (you taste the vegetable instead of what’s been added to it). Now if you own a microwave there should be no reason for you to ever steam, boil or cook vegetables on the stove. Most vegetables are quickly and easily cooked in the microwave. Consult your manual — it probably has a very useful table giving you preparation and timing details. Continue Reading »

A wood fire should have no more flames, just red-hot coals. You need to know how hot your fire is as different meats need different heats (see below). The palm test has been handed down through the centuries and is still the best way to test a fire. Hold your hand the same distance above the coals as where the barbeque grid will be, roughly 10 centimeters above the coals. If you pull your hand away before you can count to three (as in one-thousand-and-one, one-thousand and-two, onethousand-and-three), you have hot coals. If you can keep it there for four to five seconds you have a moderate fire, and if you can count to six or seven you have a slow fire. Continue Reading »

Barbecues Parties

These are the ideal occasions for using some of the extremely attractive disposable tableware now available — plates, napkins, throw-away glasses or cups and even brightly-coloured plastic cutlery. A barbecue is by nature an informal, family affair, where children can help cook and serve the food, so don’t use precious dishes or plates that might get broken. Stick to very practical, hard-wearing dishes and kitchen utensils. For a large number of guests arrange chairs and small tables around the garden and cover with very brightly coloured paper table-cloths, and use plates, napkins, cutlery, cups or plastic glasses in the same bright colours. For evening barbecues, place garden flares around the garden to give plenty of light. Set up a sturdy table near the barbecue where sauces, mustards, dips, bread and suitable drinks for both adults and children can be placed. Have a pile of plates ready so that food can be served as soon as it is ready. Continue Reading »

Basic Needs

Now for the stores required:

Flour—plain is essential; self-raising highly desirable; wholemeal a slight “extra,” but it makes wonderful scones. Baking powder and cornflour, which is used in many cake and biscuit recipes and also for fillings.

Bicarbonate of soda has its place in many scone and other recipes, and cream of tartar is often wanted for scones, too, and also for some toffees and sweets. Continue Reading »

The traditional Scottish recipe for this, the largest of the British and Scandinavian game birds, states that as soon as possible after the bird has been killed, the crop should be removed, the feet cut off and the bird then buried for a fortnight, by which time one should have forgotten where the bird has been buried. This implies that the caper is pretty ghastly fare, but this is an exaggeration, and similar defamatory statements are often made about the black grouse and its female counterpart, the grey hen, which I and many others consider excellent eating. Continue Reading »

Hamburgers

Equal quantities of good quality beef and pork should be minced and bound with egg yolk and basic seasoning to form cakes. These should be placed on a wire rack, with a dripping tin underneath, in a smoke oven pre-heated to 200 - 225^° F. There should be plenty of dense smoke as the hamburgers will only be in the oven for about 30 minutes. They can either be left in the same position for the whole process, or can be turned halfway through. Continue Reading »

The traditional smoked foods of Britain and Europe are not normally eaten straight from the smoker. In all cases it is usual to allow the food to ‘mature’ for at least 24 hours after smoking, so that the best possible flavour can be enjoyed. Hot smoked foods are almost invariably eaten cold, as are some cold smoked delicacies such as salmon, cod roes and fillets of beef. Others, like kippers, cold smoked mackerel or finnan haddocks, not to mention ordinary smoked bacon, are cooked before eating, but even these products are not used straight from the smoker. Continue Reading »

Notes on measurement

Two ordinary mercury-in-glass thermometers are required with a range of about 50-100° F. They must be inserted through holes in the wall of the kiln a few inches apart so that the bulbs project well into the smoke stream. One of the thermometers (the ‘wet bulb‘) has a muslin bag or sleeve tied round the bottom inch or two of the stem, so that it completely surrounds the mercury bulb.

Before a reading is taken, this bag is moistened by dipping in clean water, preferably distilled water, and after putting back in position, the reading of the thermometer is taken when it is steady after about half a minute. The ordinary temperature of the dry bulb should be read on the other thermometer at the same time as that of the wet bulb. The smoke should not pass over the wet bulb immediately before the dry bulb in case the air gets cooled by evaporation before affecting the dry bulb. Continue Reading »

At its most basic, the kitchen is the engine room that drives the long food processing chain. This stretches from the farmlands and oceans that produce our food to the landfills, rivers, and seas that take the eventual wastes and rubbish. But the chain does not start with the food growers and processors — it starts with you. For it is what each individual consumer decides to buy that ultimately determines the produce — and the price — from the growers and the food industry. The purse is very influential and we, as consumers, have both power and responsibility for making choices. Continue Reading »

The kitchen is the heart of the house, the centre of consumption, the hub of daily life. It is the place where family and friends gather to eat, drink, and chat, share their joys, or solve their problems. It is the base of all domestic operations and the one place where we can “act locally”, and play an active part in protecting the health of ourselves and that of the wider environment.

The kitchen of childhood dreams is a place full of appetizing and tantalizing smells, a farmhouse kitchen, perhaps, hung with polished copper pots and pans and warmed by a glowing fire. However, behind that dream lay the reality for the housewife of long hours of tiring work stoking fires, heating water, hand-washing and ironing, scrubbing and polishing, and cooking. Continue Reading »

These examples will show you some different ways in which efficient planning of kitchen zones can be put into practice.

This L-shaped kitchen (left) illustrates the way the work triangle of sink/cooker/refrigerator has been adapted to the needs of the family as well asthe constraints of the room itself. The workflow sequence is not perfect, but it does make sense. Perfection would have demanded costly major structural work not essential to safety and efficiency.

The U-shaped kitchen/living room (below) illustrates the way in which the utility, eating and working kitchen areas have been created. Within the working kitchen are the six zones: food storage, preparation, cooking, serving, dishwashing, crockery storage. In this case, as the fridge is close to both the working kitchen and the eating area, the food store is not in the ideal position. However, the needs of the whole family have to be balanced against the needs of the cook, and this is an acceptable compromise. Continue Reading »

Plumbing work

Water by-laws state that any fitting connected to a water supply must not misuse, waste or contaminate the mains supply. If a dishwasher and a washing machine are to be fitted, the hot and cold services may need extending, especially if the existing pipe diameters are too small to carry sufficient water to the draw-off points. It may be necessary to renew services right back to the hot water cylinder or cold water storage tank.

It is essential that access to the stop-cock inside the house is retained wherever it may be — on the wall or in a cupboard. Disguise it if you must, as in photographs (right).

The by-laws also require one tap — normally fitted in the kitchen — to supply drinking water only, i.e.connected to the mains. Continue Reading »

To ensure you have a basic understanding of what is involved in creating a new kitchen — whether you are doing it yourself or handing it over to a team of contractors. You should have an idea whether you are going to extend, knock down walls or make structural alterations of any kind.

First, obtain some graph paper, pencil, rubber and a steel rule. Carefully measure your kitchen area and mark the dimensions to scale on the graph paper. Mark in the heights and positions of doors, windows and any items that cannot be moved, such as pipes or a central-heating boiler.

Divide the room into zones — working kitchen, utility and eating. On a separate sheet draw and then cut out scale outlines of your appliances, or even make models, and move them around the plan to see how it would work. Continue Reading »

Serving

As long as there is sufficient work surface beside the hob, the oven or the free-standing cooker on which to put plates and serving dishes, there should be few problems.

Within the serving area there should be convenient storage for oven gloves, serving spoons, plates and serving dishes.

Dishwashing

This is often a part of the preparation area. However, if the kitchen is large enough, it may be worth considering a separate dishwashing zone, close to the eating area. This zone will accommodate the waste disposal unit or a rubbish bin and, ideally, a dishwasher. Twin sinks should be large enough to hold a grill pan.

The hob should be linked by a worktop to the sink. It should also have ample work surfaces on both sides of it. Kettle, tea, coffee, cups and saucers are best kept close to the sink. Toasters should be on a work surface or shelf near to the bread. Deep drawers for bread storage are preferable to bins on the work surface. Continue Reading »

How should you cook in a healthy and conserving way and yet still be able to enjoy the results of your efforts? Consider in the first place whether the food, in fact, needs to be cooked for lengthy periods of time. A healthy diet depends to a large degree on foods that are as near to their natural state as possible, thus retaining their vitamin content and nutritional value.

Vegetables should be absolutely fresh, preferably young, and they should be prepared with the minimum of wastage. Fresh raw vegetables and fruit are highly nutritious and retain most of the minerals, vitamins, trace elements, and fibre often destroyed by cooking. They are also good for the teeth and digestion. You can eat the overwhelming majority of vegetables raw, after thorough preparation, which includes washing them thoroughly to remove any trace of possible pesticide residues. You should peel some vegetables, including commercially grown carrots, for the same reason. Raw root vegetables, potatoes apart, are excellent grated and have better, more distinct flavours than when cooked. Leaf and stem vegetables should always be perfectly fresh whether you intend to eat them raw or cook them, since the vitamin and mineral contents decline rapidly once they are harvested. Continue Reading »