Kitchens

[AJB Temple]

I'll have you know I used my spiralizer only last decade, and definately got the fondue set out just last millenium.

Dr B - you need to get with it mate. Spiralizers are coming back into fashion. They are apparently a recommended part of the vegan arsenal and brilliant for turning courgettes into vegan pasta (no egg, or gluten for that matter). My wife has a kitchen garden and produces ludicrous quantities of courgettes, so I have tried the spiralizing thing and can confirm that it produces nothing that resembles pasta except briefly prior to cooking. Courgette salad is fabulous with lemon and chilli if you are vegan and even better a coeliac vegan as a friend of mine is. 'Fabulous' is a term only used by vegans to describe courgette, which is in fact a dwarf marrow and in truth tastes of nothing, just like marrow.

 

[porker]

I am a bit of an advocate of courgetti as I'm on a very low carb diet due to diabetes. Worth trying as its not half as bad as you think its going to be as a replacement for pasta. It takes up the flavour of the sauce. I am usually very wary of anything that proports to be some sort of replacement for something else but they're pretty good. The spiralizer gets a lot of use in our kitchen.

 

[doctor Bob]

My wife went vegan for about 1 year, it was Ok, marrow would be a low point for me along with chick peas and lentils.
Liked the soups and pasta things.
Overall a bit limited on choice but OK.

 

[Ollie78]

Some great stuff here AJB Temple has done a great explanation.
I would say remember the "work triangle" , when cooking you need regular access to the oven/hob the sink/bin and the cutting or prep area.
You should ideally be able to reach all of them without having to walk about. This makes for efficient work and less annoyance.

Consider door opening direction and drawer position when they are actually open.
I have fitted a few kitchens designed by "kitchen designers" where it soon became apparent that I would need to "re-design it a bit" on site because doors were clashing and stupid stuff like that.
Kitchens should be designed by chefs not "kitchen designers / sales fools"

Also don`t forget smaller things like where will the kettle go? knife block? mixer? it would be annoying to have a smart new kitchen and nowhere to make a
brew.
I am not a fan of fitted appliances either, why do the dishwasher and fridge have to be in disguise? When it breaks after 6 years and you get a new one then you can`t get a new door from anywhere because styles have changed and the old door won`t fit the new machine.
Just get one with a reaosonably attractive appearance on its own.

For me if I re-do my kitchen (this will require an extension) I will probably not have hardly any fitted stuff but a fixed cooker and sink part with everything else as seperate furniture and a nice big table in the middle.

Ollie

 

[--Tom--]

I’m with AJB, the designer focused on the look, I made sure it work for me as the cook of the house.

Ours is mostly off the shelf bits but needed some customising to fit my hob, which is huge.

Also worth thinking about noise, not a single designer we spoke to considered it, we didn’t go top end so not that surprising, but things like having an in line motor for the extractor so it could be tucked over the utility out of the way have made a huge difference. Barely anyone I know uses their extractor as it’s so loud, whereas ours is virtually silent on low.

 

[jimmy_s]

I'm in the throws of sorting out a design for our kitchen, but need to extend the house first. I'm the cook in our house but my wife wants to have final say on appearance so its looking like we will be having part fitted and part freestanding. I just do what I'm told in the end and will just have to get on with making it. Unfortunately for me she likes shabby chiq or whatever its called, personally I hate it but no point in arguing.

I think if the kitchen is of a reasonable size then the work triangle idea starts to become impractical and you need to look into stations as AJB suggests. Lighting and decent ventilation are also very important. Try and get the extract fans away from the canopy as they tend to be noisy otherwise.

My wife's vegetarian. I've tried that spiralised green stuff - not sure if it was cucumber or corgette but it wasn't for me. But the wost is the mother in laws squash casserole - not for the mouth of humans I'm afraid. Was akin to eating a thick lump of wallpaper paste with a layer of cheese on top. Good for checking your gag reflex, that was about it.

We've been working on a commercial kitchen recently for a high end restarurant that will be going for Michelin Stars soon, thats the intention at least. The main chefs have been brought in from France. Its the first high end kitchen I've been involved with that has gone completely electric. All the hobs are induction (often its gas or a mixture of gas and induction). The main cooking range was built in france at a cost of about £140k and consists of induction hobs, sous vide baths, griddles and a fryer from memory. The whole thing came over in one bit with a massive stainless steel top, it must be 5 or 6m long.

 

[AJB Temple]

Some great stuff here AJB Temple has done a great explanation.
I would say remember the "work triangle" , when cooking you need regular access to the oven/hob the sink/bin and the cutting or prep area.

Ollie

See my post - it's not really a triangle. That is a kitchen shop misunderstanding. Each process may be a triangle but they require different things for restocking / preparation / actual cooking / clean down. The workflows may overlap but there are several points of contact in a kitchen and designers always ignore prep, which for a cook (rather than a warmer upper of pre made stuff) is the most important and biggest user of space often.

Good point from Tom about noise. I did the same, moving all noisy stuff to well insulated utility area.

 

[jimmy_s]

I see Tom's already mentioned the fan lol

 

[AJB Temple]

We've been working on a commercial kitchen recently for a high end restarurant that will be going for Michelin Stars soon, thats the intention at least. The main chefs have been brought in from France. Its the first high end kitchen I've been involved with that has gone completely electric. All the hobs are induction (often its gas or a mixture of gas and induction). The main cooking range was built in france at a cost of about £140k and consists of induction hobs, sous vide baths, griddles and a fryer from memory. The whole thing came over in one bit with a massive stainless steel top, it must be 5 or 6m long.

These big commercial islands can be amazing, but super expensive. I've worked on a few (as an amateur) and I like the Athanor ones. When fully specced 3 phase they come with Induction, refrigeration, griddle, fryers etc and ovens if you want. Practically every commercial high end kitchen now uses National multifunction programmable ovens now. I wish I could justify one at home! Michelin level kitchens use a lot of gear these days, with Pacojets and such like now at £5k a pop. All new fit outs seem to use Induction. Makes for a much quieter and cooler kitchen.

 

[Spectric]

Hi

Some great info, I like the way AJB describes his flow, I can relate to that from having worked in some large production enviroments where raw materials and components come in one end, then pre assembly and component prep before the main assembly lines and then waste material disposed of and a final product.

Having trawled for more info it also looks like you can have the functionality with the aesthetics, can have cabinet doors that open to reveal pull out drawers if you prefer the look of doors or doors that look like drawers if you prefer this look so the workflow has to be what guides the design and location of storage and then make it look like what you want.

 

[jimmy_s]

The range on this one was supplied by a company called Enodis, it was made in france. The power supply to the site was already three phase but has had to be upgraded from 250amps per phase to 400amps per phase to handle the kitchen. I am hoping to get a better look at the hobs before it opens as they seem to be inset into a lump of stainless which looks like its been cut on a CNC waterjet machine. The ovens here are Rational jobs - amazing bits of kit. On another forum I frequent I note that they must be prone to breaking down however. The guy on that forum recomended Merrychef Eikons but I'n not sure the 2 ovens are comparable, I was looking into this yesterday.

 

[Spectric]

Hi

While we are talking kitchens, what about frying pans. I currently use the Titanium cookware from Woll and the saucepans I cannot fault but the frying pan has not done as well, looks like it now has small blisters and is not as non stick as when new, it is 4 years old so I would say end of life anyway. So buy another Woll or what?

 

[Spectric]

That kitchen requires 300 Kw of power, no wonder that Al Carte restaurants charge so much, it is to cover the electricity bill.

 

[jimmy_s]

Sorry I can't recommend any non stick frying pans, anything I've bought has failed to last.

With regards to the commercial kitchen - I think they just about had heart failure when we told them, as the upgrading costs are considerable. The connected load of these kitchens is massive. Plus its impossible to allow any sort of meaningful diversity to the equipment as we don't know how its all going to be used.

 

[Nigel Burden]

Hi

While we are talking kitchens, what about frying pans. I currently use the Titanium cookware from Woll and the saucepans I cannot fault but the frying pan has not done as well, looks like it now has small blisters and is not as non stick as when new, it is 4 years old so I would say end of life anyway. So buy another Woll or what?

The best non stick frying pan that we've had in recent years believe it or not came from Ikea. It only cost £5, admittedly it was on offer, about five or six years ago, and has only lost the non stick in the last six months. Just replaced it with another from Ikea. Hopefully that will last as well.

Nigel.

 

[AJB Temple]

The range on this one was supplied by a company called Enodis, it was made in france. The power supply to the site was already three phase but has had to be upgraded from 250amps per phase to 400amps per phase to handle the kitchen. I am hoping to get a better look at the hobs before it opens as they seem to be inset into a lump of stainless which looks like its been cut on a CNC waterjet machine. The ovens here are Rational jobs - amazing bits of kit. On another forum I frequent I note that they must be prone to breaking down however. The guy on that forum recomended Merrychef Eikons but I'n not sure the 2 ovens are comparable, I was looking into this yesterday.

My wife used to work for Merrychef and Convotherm. They are very similar to Nationals (and come from near to each other - I think one was a spin off from the other). The big problem with all commercial ovens is that they get a tremendous amount of abuse and outside of lockdown that use can be more than 18 hours out of 24 if they are also used outside prep and service for an overnight baking cycle or as a SV. From her experiences, it is difficult to persuade kitchen operators to observe the oven service requirements. But they moan a lot when the oven breaks down anyway.

Commercial induction is radically different to even high end domestic. The glass can be up to 8mm thick and I have seen them bring a large diameter pan of water or sauce for reduction to the boil in 20 seconds. (so when you see professional guys on TV say this will cook in 2 minutes you can safely ignore that as you will be stood over the hob for much longer).

Non-stick is knackered inside 6 months commercially, whatever you do. Most people seem to buy a shed load of DeBuyer or the clones and replace as needed. You can make them last if you baby them - no heating dry, no overheating on a big ring, no sticking them under the salamander, no stacking a dozen pans by the stove, no metal tools, no abrasives in the wash room or dishwasher. But then there is the real world.

 

[--Tom--]

Frying pan, get carbon steel and season it, decent pan will last forever, and I find better for most things compared to cast iron

 

[Nigel Burden]

Frying pan, get carbon steel and season it, decent pan will last forever, and I find better for most things compared to cast iron

Yes, my wife has just done that with a wok. Had a non stick previously, the guy in the local Chinese supermarket recommended buying a carbon steel one. They sell them already seasoned if you don't want to do it yourself.

Nigel.

 

[doctor Bob]

How do you season a pan, dash of salt n peepper ................ I suspect not, serious question?

 

[Nigel Burden]

How do you season a pan, dash of salt n peepper ................ I suspect not, serious question?

To quote from Paul Hollywoods Bread book.

"Brush the surface with lard or oil and put it in a hot oven for about an hour. Turn off the oven and leave it overnight."
Olive oil would smoke though, so I would avoid that. I think the Chinese you Groundnut oil.

Nigel.