Kitchen kit - or just junk?

A recipe for Easy flaky pastry

When I was young and struggling, I ran away to Greece, to a fishing village on the mainland just below Albania.

I went by train, not plane. There was something more adventurous about buying a ticket at London’s Victoria Station to Brindisi, the port at the far end of Italy, where I would catch a ferry onwards to Corfu. At Milan, a change of trains was required. Somehow, I found myself in a compartment with a flock/a bunch/a habit? of Italian nuns who invited me to join their boisterous card game. It was only when we chugged up the snowy Dolomites into Domossola I realised I was on the wrong train. The one back to Milan had left. I hunkered down overnight in the chilly waiting room. It was lucky I only had essential baggage: my school suitcase and a Dansette record player. You need as few encumbrances as possible when striving for the Good Life.

Not long ago, Ruth Reichl, editor of the now defunct and sorely missed Gourmet magazine, asked readers of La Briffe, her Substack newsletter, to nominate their favourite kitchen tool. The response was remarkable - over a thousand replies, ranging from digital scales, bench scrapers and chain mail pan scourers to thermapen temperature checkers and silicone spatulas. I made me wonder about the size of their kitchens (mine is 4 feet x 12 feet) and how much storage they had. My own favourite tool is my clean finger.

I hate gadgets. Very few are indispensable. Already having become a fan of Greece’s gaily plastic-handled, cheap, and ferociously sharp serrated knives, I didn’t pack a knife.

But not knowing what else I would find to cook with in the village shop, I did take what I thought I couldn’t do without. I took a Mouli Legumes.

A Mouli Legumes is a manual blender with three different grating sized discs. Using them on their own, I reckoned the fine one could grate garlic, the medium one cheese, and the large one apples or beets or carrots and more. The right choice of disc inserted into the base would produce a soup or sauce that was either rough or smooth, and restore a lumpy bechamel to silkiness. With my Greek knife, my finger as spatula, my Mouli Legumes and my Dansette turntable playing Pink Floyd, Alabama3, some Mississippi Delta blues, I was in a joyful kitchen in a cottage in a forest behind a mile-long beach.

Gadgets too often remove the cook from the cooking experience. Often promoted as time-saving, the cooking time gained goes instead on carefully dismantling the separate parts for washing. Personally, I’d prefer to pick a recipe that works with the time I’m willing to spend on it with my hands, a knife, and a parer, perhaps - the best time-saver I know.

In 2017, US retail sales of kitchen gadgets and tools amounted to approximately 1.2 billion US dollars. One American journalist recently quizzed 12 chefs on the 17 gadgets and appliances every home cook should invest in. My view follows:

• A sharp and balanced chef's knife. Crucial.

• An all-in-one sandwich maker. Really? Use a versatile cast iron pan (next entry).

• A versatile cast iron pan. A good investment.

• A high-tech sous vide machine. No! You are a home cook.

• The classic KitchenAid stand mixer. If you’re gifted one, I suppose.

• A powerful blender. If you have one of these, you don’t need a stand mixer.

• A sauce spoon that makes plating easy. I am NOT plating home-cooked food. And what’s wrong with a regular spoon?

• A microplane. Essential, particularly if you’re a regular pasta eater.

• A ceramic nonstick pan. Meh…If you have a well seasoned cast iron pan, that does the job.

• A KitchenAid mini food chopper. What’s wrong with a cook’s knife and chopping board?

• A traditional pestle-and-mortar. I love mine! Make sure it has a rough, not smooth, interior wall.

• An immersion blender. I would have this instead of a blender. It does the same job.

• A butcher’s knife. No. Get the butcher to cut your meat. Or use the cook’s knife you surely own.

• A vacuum sealer. For what? If you buy food in small quantity regularly like your granny did, you don’t need to freeze food. At around $1000, is this vital?

• A spiralizer. I CAN’T STAND SPIRALIZED FOOD! But if you do…

• A silicone baking mat. A good and cheap investment.

• Angled measuring cups. What’s wrong with regular measuring cups? Or, for absolutely accuracy, a set of scales with weights.

Travelling through South East Asia, as I’ve done in the years since Greece, the great glory is to sit at a street stall eating some local speciality that lies marinating in a sauce of great complexity produced by grinding spices or finely dicing roots and leaves. Aside from the bowl, mortar, sharp knife and cutting board, all that is required for cooking is a wok or tiny charcoal barbecue.

Even if you suffer from hot hands, making pastry isn’t so hard you need to do it in a processor. Try this perfect and simple recipe for Flaky Pastry, which you don’t touch till the last minute.

225g/8oz flour
170g/6 oz block of butter, frozen hard
Approximately 115ml/¼ pint iced water

Dump the flour into a large mixing bowl. Stand a cheesegrater (a good kitchen gadget!) in it. Grate the frozen butter on the largest holes into the flour, dipping the block into the flour if it begins to stick. Once grated, slash the butter into the flour with the blade of a knife to incorporate. Do NOT not use your hands. Splatter about most of the iced water over all and stir it in with the knife to draw everything together, adding more if it isn’t coming together, then quickly use your hands to make a ball of the dough. Chill for an hour before using.