Useful Tools for the Kitchen
Having fancy tools such as wireless thermometers that calculate the time it will take to reach a desired temperature is pretty awesome. However, these have not made my day-to-day cooking simpler or better. You don't need much to cook: a knife, a chopping surface and something to cook, whether that's directly over a fire or a pot, pan or wok. OK, maybe some utensils like forks, chopsticks or a spoon would also be helpful. Still, these are the rather inexpensive things I miss when I don't have them, and they have also travelled with me abroad.
As someone who is passionate about tea, coffee and fermentation, scales make life much simpler by taking most of the guesswork out of the process. While there are some very expensive models, I use a simple gram-accurate scale for most things and a cheap jewellery scale for when I need greater precision, e.g. for measuring salt or working with hydrocolloids. While eyeballing is good enough for most cooking, sometimes it's nice to have precise measurements. It's also handy to have the ratios written down when something goes exceptionally well, so you can repeat it or scale to fit the use case.
In a similar vein, a simple but fast kitchen thermometer. Combined with the scales, it brings much more precision and repeatability to the kitchen. Guessing whether the meat or bread is ready? Want to make sure that the rice is cold enough to start growing koji? Easy! Initially, I made the mistake of buying the cheapest one I could find. Those are useless as they take forever to respond and are often imprecise. On the other hand, the really expensive ones aren't really worth it if you don't have a use for them. I'm still happy with the TFA Thermojack for everyday use. However, I'm now on my third one over the last decade, as the previous two broke from heavy use.
Although I have a blender as part of my kitchen equipment, I rarely use it. In contrast, I use my immersion blender almost weekly. I use it for emulsifying dressings and sauces, such as hollandaise, blending soups and even to make whipped cream if necessary. I bought mine when I started university, and it still works as intended.
A dough disk or bench scraper is helpful when working with dough and also surprisingly for a lot of other things. Be it cleaning a table or transferring cut vegetables quickly. I'm still sad that the one I had for many years, got lost in one of the moves. I got a replacement one, but it is not the same.
A Microplane is definitely more of a 'nice to have', but it's such a useful tool. It's great for grating nutmeg, zesting, grating ginger, garlic or Parmesan. If you ever need a gift for someone who likes to cook and doesn't have one, it's a useful option. Over the years, I got a second, medium-coarse one, which is a nice addition.
While the list of kitchen items that I took with me abroad is even longer, most of them are neither inexpensive nor necessary. Case in point: the sous vide machine and the pressure cooker. The former is very good for specific uses, but not really necessary; the latter speeds up a lot of things and you can make interesting dishes such as caramelised carrot soup (yes it's actually worth it). Unfortunately, the nicer ones are definitely not cheap. What kitchen tools could you not be without?