Welcome back to another instalment of our 'In the Wild' series. This time I'm taking you inside my kitchen and highlighting my absolute kitchen essentials, and now it's all about cookware!
At this point most of my cookware is from KNIFE. From pots to pans to cutting boards, my kitchen has essentially turned into a smaller KNIFE showroom. I still have a few pots and pans that aren't from the shop but my favourites are definitely the ones I picked up here.
I only have one size of the Yukihira pot but I use it almost everyday. It's the perfect pot for soups, sauces, and boiling noodles. I've also gotten away with sweating some onions and garlic in the pan before adding liquid but you want to do this carefully and on low heat. The great thing about the Yukihira pots is how incredibly thin they are - makes boiling a breeze but you need to make sure it doesn't burn!
My most used pan is definitely the 26cm Kirameki Pan. Not only are these pans super easy to season and take care of, but they are perfect for so many different foods. From eggs in multiple styles, grilled cheese, perogie, and some perfect sauteed vegetables, this pan is incredibly versatile.
Some of you may have already read our full review of the Kirameki pans so I'm not going to be as in depth here. If you'd like to read more about care and use, please check out this post here.
That being said, I am going to talk about my 30cm Kirameki because I actually messed it up a bit! I got lazy and distracted one day and left my 30cm pan in the sink with water inside. Surprise, surprise, it rusted. I did my best to scrub it off with a typical sponge but that obviously wasn't aggressive enough. This is a job for a Sabitori/rust eraser. These magical little tools remove rust, all you need is lots of water and patience.
After scrubbing the life out of the pan and removing all of the rust, I dried it off and put it on a burner turned to medium-low heat to make sure it dried completely before re-seasoning. Once the pan started to smoke a bit I poured in some neutral oil (grapeseed in this case) and let that heat up, too. I decided to repeat this process, minus the scrubbing, a couple of times before using the pan again. This way I know that all of the raw iron that I uncovered is nice and coated in oil and (hopefully) won't rust again.
One of the most essential items in my kitchen is my Hasegawa cutting board. Not only is this guy way easier to clean but it also does a fantastic job of keeping my knives crisp and sharp for a long time.
I do have a much larger, beautiful Walnut cutting board that I absolutely love, but it's really big and my tiny apartment kitchen isn't cut out for that! My small Hasegawa is perfect for my needs and is way easier to maneuver in my sink.
It has gotten a little stained over the years but I don't mind too much. I used the handy Hasegawa scraper a couple of times and it took most of the stains off super easily!
While my kitchen is mainly stocked with KNIFE essentials, I still have to mention one of my favourite kitchen tools that isn't from the shop - the $2 bench scraper I bought from Tap Phong! I absolutely love that thing and can't believe I spent most of my life without one. Best $2 I've ever spent - thanks Tap Phong.
Thanks for reading all about my cookware essentials!
Stay tuned for the next instalment of 'In the Wild' - Accessories!
LB