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I am now the proud owner of a second nonstick skillet* large enough to brown a pound of ground turkey. Being able to run two of those at once during a cook-for-the-week session is going to be a real win for my tender feetsies.
So far I have learned two lessons with my new skillet:
1: It takes a lot longer to cook stuff if the pan takes a lot longer to heat up.
2: Scraping the meat to one side of the pan and tilting the pan to drain off the fat is downright awkward if your skillet is slicker'n black ice. The meat keeps sliding around!
I am also the proud owner of a garlic press. I am getting more frou-frou by the day. A garlic press! *eyeroll* But by golly I am going to get over my fear of using stuff that grows in the ground as opposed to stuff that comes in jars. (I reserve the right, however, to go back to jars due to the economics imposed by waste. How fast do I have to use up a bulb of garlic?)
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*Those of you who wish to argue that my first large skillet is no longer nonstick will get a fair hearing. I've clearly eaten a lot of Teflon over the years.
So far I have learned two lessons with my new skillet:
1: It takes a lot longer to cook stuff if the pan takes a lot longer to heat up.
2: Scraping the meat to one side of the pan and tilting the pan to drain off the fat is downright awkward if your skillet is slicker'n black ice. The meat keeps sliding around!
I am also the proud owner of a garlic press. I am getting more frou-frou by the day. A garlic press! *eyeroll* But by golly I am going to get over my fear of using stuff that grows in the ground as opposed to stuff that comes in jars. (I reserve the right, however, to go back to jars due to the economics imposed by waste. How fast do I have to use up a bulb of garlic?)
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*Those of you who wish to argue that my first large skillet is no longer nonstick will get a fair hearing. I've clearly eaten a lot of Teflon over the years.
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What I do want to do, though, is get a couple of decent knives. That's even higher priority than the skillet (the skillet was just there, and easy). Working with my knives is like trying to slice an onion with the edge of my hand. I'm hoping for something that could chop chicken or lettuce with equal ease, dishwasher-safe, and in the low two digits.
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I'm not sure there's such a thing as a dishwasher-safe cook-quality cooking knife, though. (But, then, really you don't want to leave them dirty that long anyway.)
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The handles are high-grade plastic, not wood, so they're fine in the dishwasher. The problems (as I understand it) are more that dishwashing a knife tends to bang it around a bit, which dulls the blade. As for hand-washing, the habit that I've tried to develop is that, when I'm done using the knife, I immediately wash and dry it and put it up -- I don't wait until I do the rest of the dishes. Since it's just one knife, and nothing has dried on it, it's just a matter of a couple of sponge-swipes to clean it, and not the significant effort that "hand dishwashing" usually is.
In any case, the worst that the machine-dishwashing is likely to do is dull it a bit more quickly.
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A couple of swipes with a soapy sponge does seem easy, too. O'course, I now have most of my (icky) knives in a crusty ever-growing pile awaiting sufficiently high motivation from me. Heh. Oops. :-)
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I literally have a drawer full of decent knives. The short story is that I'm a packrat with an eye for steel.
I also just bought a kickass electric knife sharpener.
We should have you and Rob come over for dinner some evening.
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One of these days I really ought to buy one of those long plain sharpening steels (or even a stone). Oddly enough, I know how to use one well enough to get by, but I haven't had one for years.
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The quality of a knife depends on its ability to both take an edge and to keep an edge. There is also build quality, such as will the handle stay on?
Then there is the applicability to the job that you're trying to do. If you need a paring knife, a 10" chef's knife won't do a good job, likewise if you're chopping vegetables, a paring knife won't do as good of a job.
There is also a small amount of technique on how to use a knife.
Zab never really believed in the utility of sharp knives until she cut up some onions (that had been kept in the fridge) with a professionally sharpened knife, and it didn't make her cry.
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Size and shape, yeah -- it's too bad you can't get one transformer knife or something. Multiple knives take more washing, more storage space... enough with this piddly 20th-century stuff! ;-)
If it makes chopping onions easier, that'd be a big bonus. Onions can send me to my knees.
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I just bought:
one of these (http://www.amazon.com/Chefs-Choice-Professional-Knife-Sharpening-Platinum/dp/B000CSK0DM).
It's quite possible that some quality time with your knives and a good sharpener would do wonders for them.
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Once a year I take them The Perfect Edge Cutlery (http://www.perfectedgecutlery.com/) in San Mateo and have a new edge put on them. They have a 24-hour turnaround.
A good chef's knife and a good paring knife are all the knives you *need*. An nice boning knife is a bonus. Learn to steel them properly, have them professionally sharpened once a year, keep them out of the dishwasher, and they'll last for years and years.
My knives are Japanese. They fit my small hand better.
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Maybe my shitty knives are worth keeping, purely in terms of workload!
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I usually prefer an 8" but a 6" is usable. A friend of mine always cooks with paring knives, even huge things, I have no idea how she manages.
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