Cooking to Beat The Clock-Equipment
I can’t imagine having tested the recipes for this book without my hefty 12-inch nonstick skillet. A good 12-inch skillet—or larger if you have the stovetop space—is the most important and versatile tool for 15-minute meals. It usually enables you to sauté enough meat for four people without crowding the pan. Crowding steams the meat instead of sautéing it. Large skillets also allow liquids to reduce faster for sauces because they have more surface area. More significant is the thickness of the metal. A heavier gauge metal (especially one with an aluminum core) conducts heat more evenly. This is important because you’ll be cooking at high temperatures most of the time. A nonstick surface enables you to use less fat.
A wide surface area is also a good reason for getting a large deep skillet (also known as a sauté pan), one with a diameter of 12 inches and a capacity of 4 quarts or more. It should also have a cover and a short handle opposite the standard long handle for easy carrying to the table or counter. This larger capacity skillet will enable you to do braised dishes, stews, and soups in record time. Again, you’ll want a heavy gauge metal and preferably a nonstick surface.
I like to use 9-or 10-inch cast-iron skillets for frittatas and Spanish tortillas, the two omelets that go under the broiler. For breads like the pita breads in the Middle Eastern Lamb with Cucumber Salad and the baguette slices in the 15-Minute Bouillabaisse that also go under the broiler, I use a shallow baking pan or baking sheet.
My wok has sat permanently on my stove for years, which should give you some indication of how often I use it. It is particularly good for fast meals because, in addition to being used for stir-frying, sautéing, braising, and steaming, it can be used as a mixing bowl. Invert the ring that comes with the wok so it sits closer to the flame, giving you greater heat intensity. I’ve found that electric stoves at full blast provide more heat than gas ranges.
I generally use only two saucepans, one with a 2-quart capacity for rice and the like, and a larger heavy pan for polenta, risotto, and pilafs. For smaller jobs like warming the milk for the Turkey Cutlets with Garlic Smashed Potatoes or the liquor in Steak Diane with Parslied Potatoes, it’s good to have a 1-quart saucepan.
An 8-quart capacity pasta pot is essential, not just for pasta but for boiling, steaming, and poaching as well. Smaller pasta pots can boil over while you’re performing another task. You might also consider a pasta pot with its own colander insert. That way you can easily dump the drained pasta next door into the wok and just as easily add some of the cooking water to the preparation, which several of the pasta recipes require. Failing that, a large, separate colander (about 12 inches in diameter) will work. When draining the pasta in the sink, I put a large stainless steel mixing bowl underneath to catch the cooking water if some is needed for the recipe. (Or you could quickly stick the pasta pot underneath.)
Though I advocate getting a butcher to pound meat like pork tenderloins or chicken breasts into medallions and cutlets for faster cooking, not all of us have that luxury. So you’ll probably need a meat pounder. This is a flat piece of heavy metal that may be round or rectangular and is attached to a handle (not to be confused with a toothy meat tenderizer). The side of a weighty cleaver will also do the job.
A salad spinner whips moisture from salad greens through the slats of an inner chamber into an outer chamber where it falls to the bottom. It works much faster than draining on a colander. For greens that are not particularly gritty, you can also soak them in the spinner, rather than using the sink. This also saves time.
A food processor is no longer a luxury. And for quick meals it’s a necessity. For chopping and puréeing and for making no-cook sauces and dressings, a food processor can’t be beat. I use the stainless steel blade 90 percent of the time but I also recommend using the shredding and slicing attachments. If you don’t have a food processor, you’ll need to add a few minutes to the preparation time for recipes that use it.
While the microwave oven is in over 90 percent of households, many people use this device only for defrosting or reheating. But the microwave does a good job cooking vegetables and it cooks rice, potatoes, and bulgur faster. (It also makes easy polenta, though not as fast as instant.) The microwave also frees up more room on the stove. Still, I don’t use it extensively and I give conventional cooking methods as alternatives when I do. Most of my microwave cooking is done in a two-quart glass casserole with a cover that can be used on the stove.
You should have several mixing bowls, ideally a set of stainless steel mixing bowls with different capacities, including at least one that is quite large for fast mixing of main-course salads. In a pinch you can use a pasta pot or a wok.
The only knives you’ll need are a sharp chef’s knife about 8 inches in length, a similarly well-honed paring knife, and perhaps a serrated knife for things like tomatoes and bread. It’s important that knives always be sharp. Nothing slows cooking down more than dull knives. Most of us don’t have the time to get our knives sharpened professionally, so I recommend a sharpening machine like Chef’s Choice. Merely using a sharpening steel isn’t enough.
Peeling, except for garlic and onions, goes a lot faster with a swivel-bladed vegetable peeler, especially one with a fat, easy-grip handle. For peeling garlic I use a garlic peeler, a rubber tube that removes the peel with a quick back-and-forth motion. (A rubber jar-cap opener can be substituted.)
Other utensils include a four-sided grater, (for cheeses and vegetables), a small colander or strainer for draining and rinsing canned beans, a heavy-duty can opener, tongs for turning meat, a wide metal spatula, a potato masher, a timer (preferably magnetized), a hand juicer, rubber spatulas, wooden spoons, wire whisks, a pasta fork, glass measuring cups for liquids, stainless steel measuring cups for dry ingredients, stainless steel measuring spoons, and a pepper mill.
Nice but not essential: an egg cutter, which can be used to slice kiwifruit and mushrooms, a nutmeg grater, and a cocktail fork to extricate capers from a jar.