How To Master Your Kitchen

In case I haven't mentioned it before, it is my mom is the one who taught me how to cook and bake. I learned everything I needed to know about the kitchen from her. There are two legacies that she has passed down to me, first is her love for God and the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus and the second is cooking and cooking from scratch more importantly. The saying may go, everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten but my saying is everything I needed to know about the kitchen, I learned from my mom. 

Why am I doing this series? I believe that knowing how to use kitchen tools properly is important and will help you make better food. Knowing how to master your kitchen is like your job, you must have certain appliances to help you do your job better and kitchen tools are the same. This series is about knowledge and then hopefully help you realize that cooking isn't all that bad, it is just about knowing how to use your tools properly.

Check out the previous installments about a zester, food processor, dutch oven, stand mixer, and a metal steamer, and a peeler.

In this next installment, I am taking about the good old fashioned tongs, a tool I never used much, gave much thought to, or never said to myself, "man, I wish I really had a pair of tongs right now." However, I am glad I put them on our wedding registry and someone was kind enough to purchase them for us because I use them a lot, a lot more than I ever expected.

A few uses for tongs could be when browning meat and you need to brown the other side or sides. When cooking chicken, tongs will help you to flip the chicken. Tongs are great for pulling corn on the cob or eggs or ramekins out of boiling water. Tongs are not ideal for soft foods like fish. A popular vegetable this time of year, asparagus can easily be taken from a saucepan or steamer with a pair of tongs.

If you are serving pieces of fruit, or cubes of cheese, tongs are a great serving tool. Tongs can be great stirring devices like spaghetti noodles in the sauce. Tongs are useful devices if you dropped something in between your stove and the counter and your fingers are too big to reach. If you need to reach something in the back of your cupboard and your arms aren't quite long enough, reach with the tongs.

Tongs came in stainless and stainless nylon varieties. Be careful if you have all-stainless tongs, don't rest it on a hot surface for a long time the heat will transfer into the tongs.