Kitchen Essential

Pasta

We believe that pasta may be the one and only reason why we’re still alive and kicking. When all else fails you can always boil some pasta and grate some cheese over it! Quick and easy.

Allow about 3 litres of water for 500 g of pasta, which is enough pasta for 4 to 6 people. Bring the water to the boil then add 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon salt. (Adding oil is a cook’s preference; some say that it keeps the pasta from sticking together, others say this is a myth.) Slip all the pasta at once into the rapidly boiling water. Stir immediately to separate the pieces. Pasta cooks in 8 to 15 minutes, depending on the shape and quantity. Test periodically until cooked to your liking. It should be al dante, which means soft, but not ‘pap’. Continue Reading »

You may never set the table like this (you probably don’t have enough matching cutlery anyway) but should you happen to be invited to one of those really fancy restaurants where you are faced with a dazzling display of silverware and starched white linen as the maitre d’ pushes in your chair, at least you won’t make a fool of yourself when it comes to using said silverware to deliver delicate morsels to your mouth for mastication, swallowing and digestion and whatever follows that.

With formal 3-5 course meals, the dinner place-setting is used from the outside in. When you sit down at a formal table, the side plate on your left is yours. There will normally be a butter knife on top. You will use this knife to butter your bread or roll which you don’t cut, by the way, but break (gently, you’re not a caveman). 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 »

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 »

PASTA MACHINE

For the purist who prefers to make pasta from scratch, this machine has a variety of discs to produce the different pasta types, from macaroni to fettuccine.

DEEP FAT FRYER

Thermostatically controlled fryers cook chips perfectly.

ELECTRIC WOK

These offer similar facilities as standard woks, but they can also be used for stewing, steaming, poaching and simmering.

SANDWICH TOASTER

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