Q5 - kitchen essentials

Is there a kitchen implement you simply couldn’t live without?

After scrutinising the jumbled contents of my little blue kitchen, I’d probably have to say my American measuring cups.

A good number of the cookbooks piled up around the flat are from America – a nation which had the absolutely brillant idea to ditch the cumbersome scales and use cups instead. I’d say that I cook from these recipes at least two or three times a week at the moment, maybe more. So having the right measuring cups is pretty essential.

It’s quicker, there’s less fiddling around and, because it’s a measure of volume not weight, I find it easier to guess-timate what a ‘cup’ of anything would look like if I’m buying ingredients, rather than, say, 200 grams. That’s just the way my brain works.

The kitchen implement that I don’t have but intend to make my next purchase is a microplane grater. Anyone I know who has one says it’s fantastic/something they can’t live without. Goodbye to trying to chop ginger into tiny pieces but being thwarted by its pesky fibres. Ditto crappy dicing of garlic. Hello to effortless prep.