Culinary Equipment

Having the proper culinary equipment is always necessary for cooking well.
Some of the basic culinary equipments that an average kitchen must have are listed below.

Baking Pans- These pans are generally available in aluminium and other varieties of non-stick materials. The convenient sizes that are necessary are, one round pie pan of 9 inches, two loaf pans of 9×5×3 inches, 2 twelve compartment muffin pans of 2½×2½×2½ inches, two round cake pans of 8 inches, a jelly roll pan of 15×10×1 inches,  two cookie sheets of 13×9 inches.
Baking dishes- These dishes come with matching lids in different materials like oven proof ceramics and glasses. The convenient sizes that are needed are 1, 1½, 2 and 4 quarts. To make tarts and quiches, round ceramic dish of depth 10×1½inches is also needed.
Cake tester- This is a thin wire of metal which is inserted into the muffins and cakes to know if their baking has finished.
Blender- It is used for grinding the nuts, sugar, breads, etc finely and also for blending some soups and sauces.
Citrus peeler/zester- This equipment is used for removing the citrus fruits’ outer peels and leave the white, bitter pith behind.
Citrus juicer- These plastic juicers of two parts are used for preparing small amounts of freshly squeezed lime juice and lemon juice. For doing heavy duty juicing from grapefruits and oranges electric juicers should be used.
Cutting boards- For mincing and chopping small items like herbs, small cutting boards made of wood can be used. To cut meats, large cutting boards of tampered glass are used and larger cutting boards of wood can be also used for kneading and rolling out dough of biscuits and breads.
Colander- These are used for draining vegetables and pastas and washing the fresh lettuces and herbs. They are available in both plastic and stainless steel.
Coffee Grinder- They can be used for grinding small amounts of spices and herbs.
Double broiler- Puddings and delicate sauces can be cooked using these.
Knives- Different sizes of sharp knives are needed for peeling, cutting and chopping various food materials.
Grater- A hand held grater of stainless steel is necessary for grating small quantities of vegetables and cheese.
Food Processor- These are used for grating larger quantities of vegetables and cheese and they come with a number of attachments. They are used to mix together dough, sauce and various batters. Also, items such as pesto can be made using this.
Egg slicer- They are used for cutting uniform egg slices that can be added with salads.
Garlic slicer- It is used for making uniform garlic slices.
Garlic press- You can use them for crushing garlic cloves and making their paste.
Hand held electric mixer- It is necessary for beating egg whites and whipped creams.
Measuring cups- Two types of measuring cups are needed, dry ingredient measuring cups and liquid ingredient measuring cups. The dry ingredient measuring cups are generally made of stainless steel or plastic. The liquid measuring cups are used in measuring liquid ingredients. These cups made of glass can be used to heat or melt small quantities of ingredients like margarine or butter in a microwave. You should always have a 4 cup capacity and a 2 cup capacity of these liquid measuring cups.
Measuring spoons- They are made of plastic or stainless steel and come in graduated sets. They are used for measuring small amounts of liquid or dry ingredients.