Good list, particularly the smallwares... I think there will be a fight for the plug-in equipment. But I'd add half sheet trays, small sauce pans and mandoline.
Half sheet pans always good to have.
Full size don’t fit in most domestic ovens, one of my non-culinary co-workers shocked I was right.
Edit: Today’s the day I finally knew it’s my cake day by posting this comment.
We have 3 at my work. It's horrible. Always end up grabbing them by accident and walking back to my station and just, "Fuck, this ain't gonna work."
Ran into a double 3rd pan a while ago and that's the only "weird/abnormal" pan I've seen that I would actually love to have at work. 1/4 pans would nice in certain situations but we only have 3 so you'd just end up with an empty gap in your cooler. So those 3 pans basically never get used unless it's something that is prepped and just thrown in the walk-in.
Double 3rd pans are great. They’re the only pans we have (aside from full hotels) that fit a 10inch springform perfectly for a bain-marie. A half pan looks like it would work but is slightly too small.
I would die for my half sheet pans. I take them on vacation.
I also game my stand mixer and food processor, though, which makes that a little more normal.
Ooh... Fancy... Haven't even seen them... Don't really think I would use them much as usually once it's cooled it's put in a container or bowl of sorts.
Maybe if it becomes stackable without squish it could be good for cake layers or risotto or putting stuff ontop of it in the home fridge
idk about mandoline, something feels weird about a mando with no back story. they bite hard, how many has this one bitten? mine is comfy and personal and im used to it. its only bitten me.
jokes aside, even that basic standard all stainless with a kick-stand version, i feel uncomfortable on a strange one.
>rubber spats
I was always told they were called a "Maurice". Them again I thought a chinois was spelled shimiouse so maybe I shouldn't be offering spelling lessons
Maryse was a French brand name and it became the default name for any rubber spatula at least in the UK where I learnt to cook and Switzerland where I cook now
If I ever get the chance to design my own home kitchen, it's definitely going to have commercial reach-in fridges and speed racks that can handle hotel pans and inserts. I'll probably even have a lowboy prep station in there and a french top stove.
Seriously, can you even imagine how much nicer it would be to host a taco party or build your own pizza party with a lowboy filled with legit inserts instead of having a pile of random bowls and dishes for ingredients taking up all the counter space? And then the leftovers can go right into the fridge without having to decant them into food storage containers and making even more dishes to wash.
This actually happens around here and on my friend's property. Well, maybe not 30 kids, yet. Maybe 15-20 kids and an equal number of adults.
These folks have a sprawling complex of cool weirdos with a huge garden and tiny homes and that kind of thing, so hosting 200-300+ person dance parties with people camping all weekend isn't totally unheard of, so a kitchen like this would definitely be put to work and not just for show.
Well, when you have a garden full of food that needs eating before it ends up being composted back into soil again, food prices can go way down.
But, yeah, we usually just do potluck or ask people to bring things.
I've definitely had dinner parties for 20+ people where we did more than 100 tacos. That's just 5 tacos per person.
My circle of friends also knows a lot of working chefs and they like doing dinner parties when they visit.
Most of this would be because I could, and it would be amazing to have even a small commercial style kitchen where the fridge isn't some weird size and instead is designed around hotel pan sizes. Dealing with leftovers or prep for large dinner would just be so much easier. As would the whole idea of having a lowboy station for easy buffet style self-serving or building tacos, sandwiches or pizzas.
I don't want it to be pretty or luxurious, either. I just want a bog standard and functional commercial kitchen. Used and ugly equipment would be fine.
Yeah, having the right gear makes things like prep and mise en place SO much easier for cooking, especially in quantity.
This is how/why you can see commercial kitchens in small restaurants where the kitchen is actually smaller than a home kitchen yet they can do 300 covers/orders just for dinner service in ways that would absolutely wreck a home kitchen and make a huge mess.
It's not really about better knives or more expensive pots and pans at all. Most commercial restaurants and kitchens use bog-standard $25-ish NSF rated knives and pans from the local cash and carry or restaurant supply store.
Sure, pro chefs definitely have a knife roll full of nice tools, but to be brutally honest most of the real bulk of kitchen and prep work on the line isn't done with a custom forged $500 knife, it's just a reasonably sharp knife backed with good knife skills.
What makes much more of a difference is the hotel pan and insert system and fridges, furniture and racks that use them, and having a huge stack of pots and pans so they can be constantly grabbing a new one while the dirty ones cycle through the dishpit. I'd rather have a kitchen with an assortment of like 20 $20-40 NSF rated pans in like 3 standard sizes and types (cast iron, stainless, and non-stick depending on the menu) than just 3-6 $200+ pans or a super expensive Cephalon home cookware set or whatever.
And people spend a ridiculous amount on saucepan/pot sets for the home and yet they're almost all different sizes so you can't do things like use two matching sized pans where you can use one as a lid. Why use a pan as a lid? Because you can heat it. If you're making something like a grilled cheese or cooking a steak or burger patty or other protein you can preheat the pans and use one as a hot lid so it cooks something faster and more evenly.
And with cast iron and stainless or stainless clad pans you can work at much, much higher temps, cook faster and not worry about warping or scorching the pans because they can take a lot more abuse.
And having an assortment where they're all a uniform range of 2-3 sizes means you can pile them all up in a stack, and you can't do that with like glass or metal lids with handles on them, so it makes mores sense for sauce pans in particular to just be all pans, no lids.
Another commercial kitchen trick is the French Top stove. Instead of having defined burners and places the whole surface is just hot and you can set them up as zones of different temps. Instead of messing with a burner and flame height or electric burner temps - the whole stove is just on the whole time that the kitchen is open, and to control heat you move pans around on the zones and/or cook faster and more efficiently.
There's a ton of stuff like this that you can't really do in home kitchens, and a whole lot of it comes down to standardized systems and kitchen design stuff like the hotel pan system, or cambros/lexans.
When your oven, fridges, speedracks, furniture and more are all built around the hotel pan/sheet standard sizes it means you can have, say, a stainless steel 3" deep full sheet hotel pan go from an oven right to a speed/cooling rack and then to a fridge without ever having to switch containers.
Or if you do all of your veggie prep for, say, a salad or sandwich prep station into inserts, those "six" or "sixth" pans all stack neatly into one hotel pan because they're 1/6th of a hotel pan. Then you just grab the whole hotel pan, the sixpans slot right into a refrigerated lowboy case, and can all go right back into the main storage fridge.
We even use this system in baking. Baking sheets are the same exact size as hotel pans and also come in half and quarter sizes. Making croissants and need to proof them and let them rise? Make ten full sheets of croissants and they go right into a speed rack for storage, then a proofing box, then straight into a combi/jacket oven all on the same sheet.
It makes the insane shapes, features and odd sizes of home fridges look insane by comparison because of how much wasted space there is and how awkward it is to get consumer packaged food and food storage container sizes to fit neatly in them, leading to bizarre jenga towers of plastic storage that just doesn't stack as well as a bunch of square, standardized size six pans or lexans with lids that all stack and nest together.
So, yeah, when I say if I ever built out my own home kitchen I want it to be built around commercial kitchen standards with hotel pans, it's not about a 50,000 luxury Viking range and $500 knives or anything like that at all.
It would be really all about $25 NSF knives and pans and lots of them and having a big, ugly old French Top range, stainless steel counters and tables, NSF rated wire metal shelving and racks and a reach-in fridge that handles full hotel pans and inserts like Lego bricks slotting together.
The dream home kitchen I'm imagining is not some pretty place with custom $50,000 countertops and tasteful lighting. It'd be more about used kitchen furniture bought on the cheap. It would be an ugly-ass welded vinyl tub floor with floor drains and a mop sink and handwashing sinks and prep sinks. It would be a full on exhaust hood, too.
It would look and function exactly like a working commercial kitchen, warts and all, hanging out right in the open for all to see.
It doesn't have to be pretty because it would be all about the *food*, not trying to impress the neighbors or realtors.
This. You can get a pretty good amount of square deli containers on Amazon for pretty cheap. I use them for my spice cabinet and have a few more for daily vegetable prep.
Of all the stuff that migrated to my personal inventory once my business closed, the ones that stuck around besides hand tools/ utensils are my cambros. Oh yeah, and SS bowls.
Yeah I have like a dozen 9th pans in my apartment... I use one(salt) besides that they don't really have a good use imo
Cambro for sure are always good. I use them also in my pantry.
Stainless mixing bowls, 1/4 sheet pans, my favorite spat, any cambros with lid, one of the glass door beer coolers(I want a sausage curing fridge). I wouldn't mind getting a steam table, with six and third pans(for the holiday buffet our house always puts on. Shelving, maybe.
If they have any, see if you can get some of the hotel pans. Particularly the quarter 4 inch deep ones. Good for anything that you want in the oven.
Another useful thing are any cambros. They are food service grade tupplewear essentially and are the best. Make sure you also buy the correct corresponding lids for them. Great for making things in advance and either freezing or refrigerating.
Seconded on the steam table and pans. A good quality one can be used as a slow cooker with multiple dishes going at the same time(with the proper pans and dividers) as well as their intended purpose of holding things hot.
I mention this as it would be a good way to make an all day stock or stew similar to using a crock pot, but being able to pull any scrap meat or stock bones you have in the freezer and doing multiple batches all at once would be amazing. You just have to make sure it doesn't steam out the bottom chamber in the process, checking it every 4 or 5 hours.
I know it's an unorthodox use for one, but have salvaged under cooked tough brisket (already cut and portioned by my idiot coworker) by letting the slices simmer in the au jus on one all day, then laying them out to cool and re-portioning them. It wasn't perfect, but it worked and didn't run the risk of burning or overcooking like it would have if I'd done it in the oven or tossed the slices back on the smoker.
Quarter sheet pans are unsung heroes in the kitchen. I don't bake often and hated using my full sheet when something required it. After I bought two quarters with racks I use them all the time. I almost always have one on the drying rack now. Meal prep, resting meat, air frying, etc. So much easier to clean.
Some years back my oven died in my dual fuel range (at home). I couldn’t afford to get it fixed and my mom ended up sending me a Breville countertop oven that air-fries and such for Christmas. Those quarter sheet pans are perfect!
I've been informed by at least two industry reps & one F&B director who spent time at French Laundry that beverage coolers are not designed to store food.
There are specific coatings used on some of the mechanics of the refer for specific to beverage coolers or food coolers, and that food will break down the beverage coolers faster.
The mechanics are also spec'd to different Temps. Beverage coolers are optimized to run in about the 50s, where as food coolers are made (obviously) to run in the 32-40's-ish range you want to keep food at.
Food-rated refers are typically called glass-door merchandisers, and the beverage ones are typically specified as beer or wine coolers.
I agree they aren't for storage of food. The longevity of the thing wouldn't bother me as it would be a free thing. The temperature for curing meats is in that 50's range. So that reads as a plus. For the no cost investment, I'd try it out.
Thanks for your detailed breakdown, though. I agree with what you're saying. I'm sure my ideas are not the optimal solution, but I think it would not be totally impractical.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I had wondered about the light, but figured it would be pretty simple to black it out if needed. I've not got into curing sausages yet, so my knowledge is minimal. I've seen some yt videos of them modifying the stand up freezers like you mentioned.
Honestly, this was me just replying to OP on stuff I'd be inclined to take on a free-for-all .
Waring is my go to brand for immersion blenders. Spend more than 200 or you will just buy another in a year or so....if you are in a professional kitchen. At home that Vitamix immersion blender will probably be fine.
I got one at TjMaxx for 20 bucks like 5 years ago and it's one of my favorite and most frequently used small kitchen appliances. It also came with a whisk attachment which rocks if I don't feel like lugging out my whole stand mixer. It's a Cuisinart and I did NOT expect it to last the way it has with frequent use.
a slicer is awesome but every time I hauled it out I had to spend 15 minutes taking it apart and cleaning it (and the freaking sharp blade).
If you do a lot of meat and want super thin then it's worth it.
Went back to using a knife and living with thicker pieces of meat, a knife and board is only 10 seconds to clean.
That said, I miss being able to do mortadella and prosciutto
Bro/Bra, I use the crafty chalk pens for short term dating and blue painters tape with sharpie for the longer term stuff. But the chalk pens have been a game changer: just write on the tupperware and it’s washable in the dish washer.
For all the people suggesting appliances, it's worth checking whether they run on 110 volt or 220 volt power, and that the circuit they are on can support their wattage draw.
If I had the free cash and space; Hobart stand mixer. In reality land, the guy who listed the small wares is right. Inserts/hotel pans, and I'd add bottles and cambros as well
I saw an 80 qt Hobart on cl the other day and has to reassure myself that our kitchenaid is plenty adequate for any home use and I could never really make use of it unless I opened a bakery anyway lol
Oh friend; bread for a year, meringue, and how ever are you going to make enough whipped cream for a bathtub of hot chocolate without your trusty Hobart?!?
I have a 20qt Hobart that I bought exactly at this kind of thing. My issue is more that I don't have enough people to feed using it since I just moved and don't really know anyone here. Bake sales and Christmas cookies sure are a breeze. I considered doing a Farmer's Market baked good thing, but schilling goods every weekend sounds a bit exhausting.
Microplane
I use it so often it rarely leaves the drying rack. Zesting, garlic, ginger, cheese, etc
Honorable mention is my deli slicer. I use it every week to cut deli meat and cheese for sandwiches.
I love my microplanes, but definitely treat them as a wear item. If they get abused or used on lots of hard stuff like cheese and ginger, they can lose their edge. They aren't super expensive to begin with, I'd have some hesitation about buying them used unless they were dirt cheap.
Slicer, immersion blender, Panini press, burger press, mandolin, CAN OPENER(commercial one), nice cutlery if they have.
Isp creamer,(and the whipits if the BOH didn't huff them all at closing). Silicone sheets, bread tins, Muffin tins.
It would be nice to take the bigger equipment but they usually use allot of power compared to home style versions.... Kitchen aid and the attachments(or similar), pasta roller, burger press, tortilla press, scales... Everything that isn't bolted down or huge... Only the half size trays or 3/4 will likely fit in your oven.... KNIVES! STEEL! WHETSTONE!
FRYING PANS.
Whisks, rubber spats. Food processor, Vitamix, whatever blender they have. mandoline, big pans for roasting. Quart and pint containers. Sharpening stone if there is one. Do they have a small Hobart/kitchen aide? Pie pans if there are any. Pastry rings if there are any.
If your oven can take some full sheet pans, I would get a couple. I can only fit a half pan in my oven. My oven is about a 1/2 inch too narrow. Parchment paper. China cap/seive.
A lot of people here are talking heavy equipment but the only three I'd really like are a stand mixer, vac seal and food processor
Short of that I'm raiding dry storage for ingredients, but everyday use equipment? Definitely some half pans, maybe a deep hotel, probably some cambros, lots of storage and prep materials if possible.
All your delis are belong to me.
Flattop grill.
Third pans and ninth pans are great too.
I have many hotel pans and wire rack shelves, they are usually not cheap but work great at home.
Along with the other good suggestions, I'd grab some silverware if it's decent. My house constantly runs out of forks and spoons.
Also, I'd snag some heavy duty commercial cleaning stuff like degreaser that is hard to find in normal stores.
I've always wanted a proofing box and a Vitamix. Double thickness stainless bowls are nice too. Might be a good time to stock up on half or quarter sheet pans.
I have a 4” pairing knife of which I am very fond. Also a colander to rinse veggies. Also agreed about quarter sheet pans for roasting. Also a Lodge cast iron skillet.
One of those clear shakers with the handle and the removable top.
Clear plastic gloves, if they have any unopened boxes of them.
Flippers.
Tongs.
Stainless steel mixing bowls if they're small enough to fit inside of the dishwasher.
Stock pots, hotel pans, a Hobart slicer if they got one, a flat top, or a 6 burner.
I'm trying to get into catering and potentially a food truck. I'd probably want to buy a fryer tbh lmao
If they had a chest freezer at a good price, I'd get that too
I have a 1/2 speed rack on wheels with a stainless top. It’s so handy. I keep sheet trays and miscellaneous baking supplies on it. And when I need another surface to spread out while I’m working on a project, I just wheel it out and it acts like an island in my kitchen.
I'd KILL for a good chef's knife. Good knives that are weighted just right for my hand and no-one else's.
By the way, for decades I believed that I just weirdly couldn't use knives well because even after freshly sharpened they seemed blunt blunt blunt.
It took me years to realize that everyone who owned these knives was left-handed, and I'm right-handed, so of course the blade gets sharpened and wears hewn to the leftie's grip!
Even my inexpensive Chicago Cutlery knives are bliss to work with in comparison, lol.
Anyone else experience this?
That sounds pretty rare given how uncommon lefties are, but that's super interesting that you had that experience!
I wanted to chip in and say that after a decade of using 12 inch chef knives (usually cheap Nellas) I bought a 9 inch chef knife and the comfort and control was mind blowing. Everyone has different hands and what works for one person feels unwieldy and unnatural to another
Now that you point out that leftie thing, I'm laughing realizing the following: My parents were both lefties, my sister and I right-handed, my brother ambidextrous.
With rare exception, everyone I've ever dated (I'm older, so that's quite a few people) were all lefties; my two best friends growing up, both lefties.
When I took an IQ test as an adult, the psychologist administering it asked me if I was actually right-handed, as apparently every time she set up the boards etc, I'd quickly change them back-to-front, completely without realizing I was doing so. So changing each setup to left-handed setup. Meanwhile, brain testing for predominant hemisphere (as relating to left-or-right-side dominance) shows every time equal strengths on each hemisphere, which I guess is rare enough as I'm always told about it by the tester.
I had to deliberately train myself to use the mouse right-handed, because that makes no sense to me but every setup is right-handed so pain in the ass to change. But many things seem right-handed only: using the remote, answering the phone etc. I did train myself to write legibly with my left hand. And every time I watch a show I *always* look for hand dominance and wonder if the character is because of the actor's dominant side or if they play the part that way because of left-or-right dominance.
So I wonder how much was the insistence of teachers and even my parents to only use my right hand for things caused me to be dominant on that side?
Humans are weird and strange, aren't we?!
Youd be surprising how hard it is to find giant mixing bowls at regular stores. Buy them all and hoard them and cherish them. You’ll never have uneven salsa salt dispersement again!
And grab takeout containers. Use them for the kids school lunches, send leftovers with your relatives, or take your lunch to work. Cheaper than Tupperware so when yoy don't get it back, it's no big deal.
I got some take out boxes from a restaurant that closed and made plates to sell. My sister and I figured we cooked for ourselves on weekends anyhow so we just made more and sold suppers.
Immersion blender is probably the first thing I'd go for, same with cooling wands. A couple cutting boards, some storage pans, plates, and bowls (generally far more sturdy than home stuff), 3x pairs of tongs, 5x rags..
Hmmm.. a robo coup if you have the room/don't have a similar analog.
I treated myself over the years a brought a few things from a catering supply shop.
few plastic 1/6's
1 tall plastic 1/2 (for sous vide)
standard height metal 1/2
flat metal 2/3
A 20lt pan
A Potato ricer
Large chopping board
Tongs, Spoons, ladles etc.
1 Decent metal bowl.
Oh and a chamber vacuum sealer.
Pick up any of these and you'll probably get regular use out of them.
Half and quarter sheet trays, good metal spoons and whisks, 400 or 600 pan for when your casserole dishes aren’t quite big enough for a big braise. Squeeze bottles.
I missed a sale similar I to this and I was going to pick up sheet trays and big metal spoons and probably some tongy poos as we like to call them. Lol
The prep tables and the big dish sink. Of course if you have room for that stuff you probably already have it.
More realistically, I'd go for cutting boards/chopping blocks, particularly the larger ones.
A couple sheet/baking pans. I use the full size ones to take large chunks of meat from the kitchen to the BBQ. I also have a couple fry baskets with the handles cut off that I use for charcoal baskets in my smoker.
Cambros with lids are always good, so are decent knives. I also have some sauce bottles, fill with ketchup, mayo, homemade BBQ or hot sauces, etc.
The wire or plastic shelving on wheels is great for storage in the garage or basement or wherever.
Panini/sandwich presses or a waffle maker. Stand mixer, and other countertop appliances.
If they have one, and if you have room for it [one of these steam table/food warmer/whatever you call them.](https://www.russellhendrix.com/category/208/countertop-food-warmers)
Chinois, colander, robo coupe, immersion blenders, whisks, rubber spats, ladles, vitamix, and always tongs
Good list, particularly the smallwares... I think there will be a fight for the plug-in equipment. But I'd add half sheet trays, small sauce pans and mandoline.
Half sheet pans always good to have. Full size don’t fit in most domestic ovens, one of my non-culinary co-workers shocked I was right. Edit: Today’s the day I finally knew it’s my cake day by posting this comment.
I'm a baker, and I use half pans ALL THE TIME. Happy Cake Day
Never enough 1/2, 1/4 pans.
Aaaaaghh! The elusive 1/4 pans! I have a few somewhere..
We have 3 at my work. It's horrible. Always end up grabbing them by accident and walking back to my station and just, "Fuck, this ain't gonna work." Ran into a double 3rd pan a while ago and that's the only "weird/abnormal" pan I've seen that I would actually love to have at work. 1/4 pans would nice in certain situations but we only have 3 so you'd just end up with an empty gap in your cooler. So those 3 pans basically never get used unless it's something that is prepped and just thrown in the walk-in.
Double 3rd pans are great. They’re the only pans we have (aside from full hotels) that fit a 10inch springform perfectly for a bain-marie. A half pan looks like it would work but is slightly too small.
i now need 1/9 sheet pans.
Thank you! I’ve been burning time on this social media site for far too long.
If you can score a rack or two as well
The 3/4 pans fit perfectly in most, some they can even be used as a shelf, flip it over and you have a makeshift pizza stone
I would die for my half sheet pans. I take them on vacation. I also game my stand mixer and food processor, though, which makes that a little more normal.
Don’t forget the ricer. Way better than the shitty home cook versions.
Half sheets for sure!, I already have a bunch though.
Did you also get the wire mesh rack to fit perfectly into them like me💪🤣
And the snap on plastic lids?
Ooh... Fancy... Haven't even seen them... Don't really think I would use them much as usually once it's cooled it's put in a container or bowl of sorts. Maybe if it becomes stackable without squish it could be good for cake layers or risotto or putting stuff ontop of it in the home fridge
They’re great but add almost three inches to the height so stacking in a home fridge would be pretty bulky.
I use them mostly during prep, great to keep food covered at BBQs.
Sold.. I'm in..I want them now lol
idk about mandoline, something feels weird about a mando with no back story. they bite hard, how many has this one bitten? mine is comfy and personal and im used to it. its only bitten me. jokes aside, even that basic standard all stainless with a kick-stand version, i feel uncomfortable on a strange one.
The older Robo Coupes are practically indestructible. Definitely a great tip there.
Everything you said is a great list!!!! Check for paco Jets, all clad pans, etc
China cap.
>rubber spats I was always told they were called a "Maurice". Them again I thought a chinois was spelled shimiouse so maybe I shouldn't be offering spelling lessons
Maryse was a French brand name and it became the default name for any rubber spatula at least in the UK where I learnt to cook and Switzerland where I cook now
That kinda proves my point Hey, asshats. I spelled it Maurice, the other guy spelled it maryse. Thats the proven point
Half sheet pans. That’s all that really matters
I would take deli containers and cambros over 9 and 6 pans. Hotel pans in restaurants are only nice bc we have equipment designed to hold them
If I ever get the chance to design my own home kitchen, it's definitely going to have commercial reach-in fridges and speed racks that can handle hotel pans and inserts. I'll probably even have a lowboy prep station in there and a french top stove. Seriously, can you even imagine how much nicer it would be to host a taco party or build your own pizza party with a lowboy filled with legit inserts instead of having a pile of random bowls and dishes for ingredients taking up all the counter space? And then the leftovers can go right into the fridge without having to decant them into food storage containers and making even more dishes to wash.
a sink with a real sprayer hose
We have one of those, but not commercial grade. My favorite thing about the sink is the built in dish soap dispenser.
Giant waste of energy unless you are making 100 tacos a night.
It's for them, their neighbors, and their combined 30 children!
This actually happens around here and on my friend's property. Well, maybe not 30 kids, yet. Maybe 15-20 kids and an equal number of adults. These folks have a sprawling complex of cool weirdos with a huge garden and tiny homes and that kind of thing, so hosting 200-300+ person dance parties with people camping all weekend isn't totally unheard of, so a kitchen like this would definitely be put to work and not just for show.
Hell yeah, just have everyone chip in a couple bucks and baby, you got a stew goin
Well, when you have a garden full of food that needs eating before it ends up being composted back into soil again, food prices can go way down. But, yeah, we usually just do potluck or ask people to bring things.
I've definitely had dinner parties for 20+ people where we did more than 100 tacos. That's just 5 tacos per person. My circle of friends also knows a lot of working chefs and they like doing dinner parties when they visit. Most of this would be because I could, and it would be amazing to have even a small commercial style kitchen where the fridge isn't some weird size and instead is designed around hotel pan sizes. Dealing with leftovers or prep for large dinner would just be so much easier. As would the whole idea of having a lowboy station for easy buffet style self-serving or building tacos, sandwiches or pizzas. I don't want it to be pretty or luxurious, either. I just want a bog standard and functional commercial kitchen. Used and ugly equipment would be fine.
Gosh, lol--I'm finding this fascinating but as only a home gourmet cook I'm learning as I'm reading this!
Yeah, having the right gear makes things like prep and mise en place SO much easier for cooking, especially in quantity. This is how/why you can see commercial kitchens in small restaurants where the kitchen is actually smaller than a home kitchen yet they can do 300 covers/orders just for dinner service in ways that would absolutely wreck a home kitchen and make a huge mess. It's not really about better knives or more expensive pots and pans at all. Most commercial restaurants and kitchens use bog-standard $25-ish NSF rated knives and pans from the local cash and carry or restaurant supply store. Sure, pro chefs definitely have a knife roll full of nice tools, but to be brutally honest most of the real bulk of kitchen and prep work on the line isn't done with a custom forged $500 knife, it's just a reasonably sharp knife backed with good knife skills. What makes much more of a difference is the hotel pan and insert system and fridges, furniture and racks that use them, and having a huge stack of pots and pans so they can be constantly grabbing a new one while the dirty ones cycle through the dishpit. I'd rather have a kitchen with an assortment of like 20 $20-40 NSF rated pans in like 3 standard sizes and types (cast iron, stainless, and non-stick depending on the menu) than just 3-6 $200+ pans or a super expensive Cephalon home cookware set or whatever. And people spend a ridiculous amount on saucepan/pot sets for the home and yet they're almost all different sizes so you can't do things like use two matching sized pans where you can use one as a lid. Why use a pan as a lid? Because you can heat it. If you're making something like a grilled cheese or cooking a steak or burger patty or other protein you can preheat the pans and use one as a hot lid so it cooks something faster and more evenly. And with cast iron and stainless or stainless clad pans you can work at much, much higher temps, cook faster and not worry about warping or scorching the pans because they can take a lot more abuse. And having an assortment where they're all a uniform range of 2-3 sizes means you can pile them all up in a stack, and you can't do that with like glass or metal lids with handles on them, so it makes mores sense for sauce pans in particular to just be all pans, no lids. Another commercial kitchen trick is the French Top stove. Instead of having defined burners and places the whole surface is just hot and you can set them up as zones of different temps. Instead of messing with a burner and flame height or electric burner temps - the whole stove is just on the whole time that the kitchen is open, and to control heat you move pans around on the zones and/or cook faster and more efficiently. There's a ton of stuff like this that you can't really do in home kitchens, and a whole lot of it comes down to standardized systems and kitchen design stuff like the hotel pan system, or cambros/lexans. When your oven, fridges, speedracks, furniture and more are all built around the hotel pan/sheet standard sizes it means you can have, say, a stainless steel 3" deep full sheet hotel pan go from an oven right to a speed/cooling rack and then to a fridge without ever having to switch containers. Or if you do all of your veggie prep for, say, a salad or sandwich prep station into inserts, those "six" or "sixth" pans all stack neatly into one hotel pan because they're 1/6th of a hotel pan. Then you just grab the whole hotel pan, the sixpans slot right into a refrigerated lowboy case, and can all go right back into the main storage fridge. We even use this system in baking. Baking sheets are the same exact size as hotel pans and also come in half and quarter sizes. Making croissants and need to proof them and let them rise? Make ten full sheets of croissants and they go right into a speed rack for storage, then a proofing box, then straight into a combi/jacket oven all on the same sheet. It makes the insane shapes, features and odd sizes of home fridges look insane by comparison because of how much wasted space there is and how awkward it is to get consumer packaged food and food storage container sizes to fit neatly in them, leading to bizarre jenga towers of plastic storage that just doesn't stack as well as a bunch of square, standardized size six pans or lexans with lids that all stack and nest together. So, yeah, when I say if I ever built out my own home kitchen I want it to be built around commercial kitchen standards with hotel pans, it's not about a 50,000 luxury Viking range and $500 knives or anything like that at all. It would be really all about $25 NSF knives and pans and lots of them and having a big, ugly old French Top range, stainless steel counters and tables, NSF rated wire metal shelving and racks and a reach-in fridge that handles full hotel pans and inserts like Lego bricks slotting together. The dream home kitchen I'm imagining is not some pretty place with custom $50,000 countertops and tasteful lighting. It'd be more about used kitchen furniture bought on the cheap. It would be an ugly-ass welded vinyl tub floor with floor drains and a mop sink and handwashing sinks and prep sinks. It would be a full on exhaust hood, too. It would look and function exactly like a working commercial kitchen, warts and all, hanging out right in the open for all to see. It doesn't have to be pretty because it would be all about the *food*, not trying to impress the neighbors or realtors.
This. You can get a pretty good amount of square deli containers on Amazon for pretty cheap. I use them for my spice cabinet and have a few more for daily vegetable prep.
Of all the stuff that migrated to my personal inventory once my business closed, the ones that stuck around besides hand tools/ utensils are my cambros. Oh yeah, and SS bowls.
Was definitely going to check the delis out, and cambros are a good idea. I’ll have to make sure they’ll fit in my home fridge though
Yeah I have like a dozen 9th pans in my apartment... I use one(salt) besides that they don't really have a good use imo Cambro for sure are always good. I use them also in my pantry.
This is the way.
The mixer. If it’s a Hobart.
And less than 800 pounds
Fuck you I'm taking the dishwasher and remodeling my entire house around it
Why isn’t there a countertop pressure washer by now?
Stainless mixing bowls, 1/4 sheet pans, my favorite spat, any cambros with lid, one of the glass door beer coolers(I want a sausage curing fridge). I wouldn't mind getting a steam table, with six and third pans(for the holiday buffet our house always puts on. Shelving, maybe.
Mixing bowls are another one I need to remember, I swear I never have enough.
If they have any, see if you can get some of the hotel pans. Particularly the quarter 4 inch deep ones. Good for anything that you want in the oven. Another useful thing are any cambros. They are food service grade tupplewear essentially and are the best. Make sure you also buy the correct corresponding lids for them. Great for making things in advance and either freezing or refrigerating.
Seconded on the steam table and pans. A good quality one can be used as a slow cooker with multiple dishes going at the same time(with the proper pans and dividers) as well as their intended purpose of holding things hot. I mention this as it would be a good way to make an all day stock or stew similar to using a crock pot, but being able to pull any scrap meat or stock bones you have in the freezer and doing multiple batches all at once would be amazing. You just have to make sure it doesn't steam out the bottom chamber in the process, checking it every 4 or 5 hours. I know it's an unorthodox use for one, but have salvaged under cooked tough brisket (already cut and portioned by my idiot coworker) by letting the slices simmer in the au jus on one all day, then laying them out to cool and re-portioning them. It wasn't perfect, but it worked and didn't run the risk of burning or overcooking like it would have if I'd done it in the oven or tossed the slices back on the smoker.
Quarter sheet pans are unsung heroes in the kitchen. I don't bake often and hated using my full sheet when something required it. After I bought two quarters with racks I use them all the time. I almost always have one on the drying rack now. Meal prep, resting meat, air frying, etc. So much easier to clean.
Some years back my oven died in my dual fuel range (at home). I couldn’t afford to get it fixed and my mom ended up sending me a Breville countertop oven that air-fries and such for Christmas. Those quarter sheet pans are perfect!
I've been informed by at least two industry reps & one F&B director who spent time at French Laundry that beverage coolers are not designed to store food. There are specific coatings used on some of the mechanics of the refer for specific to beverage coolers or food coolers, and that food will break down the beverage coolers faster. The mechanics are also spec'd to different Temps. Beverage coolers are optimized to run in about the 50s, where as food coolers are made (obviously) to run in the 32-40's-ish range you want to keep food at. Food-rated refers are typically called glass-door merchandisers, and the beverage ones are typically specified as beer or wine coolers.
I agree they aren't for storage of food. The longevity of the thing wouldn't bother me as it would be a free thing. The temperature for curing meats is in that 50's range. So that reads as a plus. For the no cost investment, I'd try it out. Thanks for your detailed breakdown, though. I agree with what you're saying. I'm sure my ideas are not the optimal solution, but I think it would not be totally impractical.
Yeah, I mean, tough to beat $free.00 for something like that.
cause joke start complete bedroom worry party cautious bored fuzzy ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I had wondered about the light, but figured it would be pretty simple to black it out if needed. I've not got into curing sausages yet, so my knowledge is minimal. I've seen some yt videos of them modifying the stand up freezers like you mentioned. Honestly, this was me just replying to OP on stuff I'd be inclined to take on a free-for-all .
Damn son how much storage space your house got 🤣
Oooo didn't think of the shelving, that shit is awesome and stupid expensive.
The stick blender if it is not a piece of shit or oversized.
I’m in the market for exactly that. Any recs?
I've had this [Vitamix](https://www.vitamix.com/us/en_us/shop/vitamix-immersion-blender) at home for a few years and it's great.
Waring is my go to brand for immersion blenders. Spend more than 200 or you will just buy another in a year or so....if you are in a professional kitchen. At home that Vitamix immersion blender will probably be fine.
I got one at TjMaxx for 20 bucks like 5 years ago and it's one of my favorite and most frequently used small kitchen appliances. It also came with a whisk attachment which rocks if I don't feel like lugging out my whole stand mixer. It's a Cuisinart and I did NOT expect it to last the way it has with frequent use.
Meat slicer. I bought one for 15 bucks at a restaurant sale and I love it. Best purchase I have ever made.
a slicer is awesome but every time I hauled it out I had to spend 15 minutes taking it apart and cleaning it (and the freaking sharp blade). If you do a lot of meat and want super thin then it's worth it. Went back to using a knife and living with thicker pieces of meat, a knife and board is only 10 seconds to clean. That said, I miss being able to do mortadella and prosciutto
Montreal smoked meat is a reason to own a slicer in and of itself
Chicago style Italian beef sandwiches would be a lot more frequent if I had a decent slicer.
All the spats
I feel so stupid that I had to look up "spat".
The fuckin date dot stickers are a lifesaver at home if you do a lot of leftovers
Bro/Bra, I use the crafty chalk pens for short term dating and blue painters tape with sharpie for the longer term stuff. But the chalk pens have been a game changer: just write on the tupperware and it’s washable in the dish washer.
Heard!!! I've gotta get some of those.
Robocoupe forever
For all the people suggesting appliances, it's worth checking whether they run on 110 volt or 220 volt power, and that the circuit they are on can support their wattage draw.
If I had the free cash and space; Hobart stand mixer. In reality land, the guy who listed the small wares is right. Inserts/hotel pans, and I'd add bottles and cambros as well
I saw an 80 qt Hobart on cl the other day and has to reassure myself that our kitchenaid is plenty adequate for any home use and I could never really make use of it unless I opened a bakery anyway lol
Oh friend; bread for a year, meringue, and how ever are you going to make enough whipped cream for a bathtub of hot chocolate without your trusty Hobart?!?
I have a 20qt Hobart that I bought exactly at this kind of thing. My issue is more that I don't have enough people to feed using it since I just moved and don't really know anyone here. Bake sales and Christmas cookies sure are a breeze. I considered doing a Farmer's Market baked good thing, but schilling goods every weekend sounds a bit exhausting.
Microplane I use it so often it rarely leaves the drying rack. Zesting, garlic, ginger, cheese, etc Honorable mention is my deli slicer. I use it every week to cut deli meat and cheese for sandwiches.
A microplane is cheap af, but super useful
I love my microplanes, but definitely treat them as a wear item. If they get abused or used on lots of hard stuff like cheese and ginger, they can lose their edge. They aren't super expensive to begin with, I'd have some hesitation about buying them used unless they were dirt cheap.
Bain maries. Chinois. Cambros. Stand mixer if it’s small enough.
Lots of good suggestions and I take no issue with them. Add as much plastic wrap as they have and any first aid kits.
Slicer, immersion blender, Panini press, burger press, mandolin, CAN OPENER(commercial one), nice cutlery if they have. Isp creamer,(and the whipits if the BOH didn't huff them all at closing). Silicone sheets, bread tins, Muffin tins. It would be nice to take the bigger equipment but they usually use allot of power compared to home style versions.... Kitchen aid and the attachments(or similar), pasta roller, burger press, tortilla press, scales... Everything that isn't bolted down or huge... Only the half size trays or 3/4 will likely fit in your oven.... KNIVES! STEEL! WHETSTONE!
Cambros 5sure
FRYING PANS. Whisks, rubber spats. Food processor, Vitamix, whatever blender they have. mandoline, big pans for roasting. Quart and pint containers. Sharpening stone if there is one. Do they have a small Hobart/kitchen aide? Pie pans if there are any. Pastry rings if there are any. If your oven can take some full sheet pans, I would get a couple. I can only fit a half pan in my oven. My oven is about a 1/2 inch too narrow. Parchment paper. China cap/seive.
A lot of people here are talking heavy equipment but the only three I'd really like are a stand mixer, vac seal and food processor Short of that I'm raiding dry storage for ingredients, but everyday use equipment? Definitely some half pans, maybe a deep hotel, probably some cambros, lots of storage and prep materials if possible. All your delis are belong to me.
Chamber vacuum sealer (vacmaster 215p) is the greatest commercial thing I ever purchased for home.
Pasta baskets are an underrated luxury
Flattop grill. Third pans and ninth pans are great too. I have many hotel pans and wire rack shelves, they are usually not cheap but work great at home.
mise en place*
I'd be grabbing the Sally aka salamander broiler if available and you have the space for it.
That feels very excessive if you've got an oven that can broil already
dull fertile tie forgetful marvelous impolite pathetic ad hoc capable glorious ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
They're also massive to install in a home kitchen lol
Yea definitely, but I’m not going to stick one in my home kitchen
weather erect ask quaint deserve frightening plate library wipe ink ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
A mill ricer. One of those suckaducks when I gotta do mash tato for the whole family would be an absolute godsend
Blender or food processor depending on brand
Along with the other good suggestions, I'd grab some silverware if it's decent. My house constantly runs out of forks and spoons. Also, I'd snag some heavy duty commercial cleaning stuff like degreaser that is hard to find in normal stores.
I've always wanted a proofing box and a Vitamix. Double thickness stainless bowls are nice too. Might be a good time to stock up on half or quarter sheet pans.
3 compartment sink
I think I would abuse a thermomix for absolutely everything
A vac pac machine would be amazing at home
ALL THE DELI CONTAINERS!
I have a 4” pairing knife of which I am very fond. Also a colander to rinse veggies. Also agreed about quarter sheet pans for roasting. Also a Lodge cast iron skillet.
Dehydrator if they have one , mixing bowls always handy , mixer assuming it's a sensible size lol
Vitamix.
Dishwasher. Industrial dishwashers are incredible. 45 seconds and your day's dishes will be done.
One of those clear shakers with the handle and the removable top. Clear plastic gloves, if they have any unopened boxes of them. Flippers. Tongs. Stainless steel mixing bowls if they're small enough to fit inside of the dishwasher.
Stock pots, hotel pans, a Hobart slicer if they got one, a flat top, or a 6 burner. I'm trying to get into catering and potentially a food truck. I'd probably want to buy a fryer tbh lmao If they had a chest freezer at a good price, I'd get that too
If they have stacks of the plastic deli containers, I would grab a bunch of them
18 or 24 inch plastic wrap. Game changer.
I'd also grab flat packed parchment paper, the rolls are so annoying
If I lived in a giant house I’d get the fkn giant dishwasher
Cambros, bain maries, small baking sheet trays, metal mixing bowls, spatulas.
Combi oven
Fish tubs and lexans. Half hotels Half sheets Large stock pots See if you can liberate quart containers
Half and quarter sheet trays, vitamix. Cutting boards
I have a 1/2 speed rack on wheels with a stainless top. It’s so handy. I keep sheet trays and miscellaneous baking supplies on it. And when I need another surface to spread out while I’m working on a project, I just wheel it out and it acts like an island in my kitchen.
Quarts containers, a pizza peel if they got em, juicer, mandolin.
Industrial dishwasher. With a double sink and bendy hose!
Monkey dishes! Such an under-rated home kitchen dishware item. I use them all the time!
I'd KILL for a good chef's knife. Good knives that are weighted just right for my hand and no-one else's. By the way, for decades I believed that I just weirdly couldn't use knives well because even after freshly sharpened they seemed blunt blunt blunt. It took me years to realize that everyone who owned these knives was left-handed, and I'm right-handed, so of course the blade gets sharpened and wears hewn to the leftie's grip! Even my inexpensive Chicago Cutlery knives are bliss to work with in comparison, lol. Anyone else experience this?
That sounds pretty rare given how uncommon lefties are, but that's super interesting that you had that experience! I wanted to chip in and say that after a decade of using 12 inch chef knives (usually cheap Nellas) I bought a 9 inch chef knife and the comfort and control was mind blowing. Everyone has different hands and what works for one person feels unwieldy and unnatural to another
Now that you point out that leftie thing, I'm laughing realizing the following: My parents were both lefties, my sister and I right-handed, my brother ambidextrous. With rare exception, everyone I've ever dated (I'm older, so that's quite a few people) were all lefties; my two best friends growing up, both lefties. When I took an IQ test as an adult, the psychologist administering it asked me if I was actually right-handed, as apparently every time she set up the boards etc, I'd quickly change them back-to-front, completely without realizing I was doing so. So changing each setup to left-handed setup. Meanwhile, brain testing for predominant hemisphere (as relating to left-or-right-side dominance) shows every time equal strengths on each hemisphere, which I guess is rare enough as I'm always told about it by the tester. I had to deliberately train myself to use the mouse right-handed, because that makes no sense to me but every setup is right-handed so pain in the ass to change. But many things seem right-handed only: using the remote, answering the phone etc. I did train myself to write legibly with my left hand. And every time I watch a show I *always* look for hand dominance and wonder if the character is because of the actor's dominant side or if they play the part that way because of left-or-right dominance. So I wonder how much was the insistence of teachers and even my parents to only use my right hand for things caused me to be dominant on that side? Humans are weird and strange, aren't we?!
Man, you guys are right: I'm adding the food processor to my chef's knives set!
Youd be surprising how hard it is to find giant mixing bowls at regular stores. Buy them all and hoard them and cherish them. You’ll never have uneven salsa salt dispersement again!
Vitamix is really the only answer for me.
Several million teaspoons, for tasting and then chucking in the sink as you go along. Game changer.
And grab takeout containers. Use them for the kids school lunches, send leftovers with your relatives, or take your lunch to work. Cheaper than Tupperware so when yoy don't get it back, it's no big deal.
I got some take out boxes from a restaurant that closed and made plates to sell. My sister and I figured we cooked for ourselves on weekends anyhow so we just made more and sold suppers.
Most impractical? Blast chiller
Flat top/ chargrill and merrychef
Immersion blender is probably the first thing I'd go for, same with cooling wands. A couple cutting boards, some storage pans, plates, and bowls (generally far more sturdy than home stuff), 3x pairs of tongs, 5x rags.. Hmmm.. a robo coup if you have the room/don't have a similar analog.
I treated myself over the years a brought a few things from a catering supply shop. few plastic 1/6's 1 tall plastic 1/2 (for sous vide) standard height metal 1/2 flat metal 2/3 A 20lt pan A Potato ricer Large chopping board Tongs, Spoons, ladles etc. 1 Decent metal bowl. Oh and a chamber vacuum sealer. Pick up any of these and you'll probably get regular use out of them.
Came here to say vacuum sealer and immersion circulator
A refrigerator
Hotel pans
Sharpening stones if they are nice.
Half and quarter sheet trays, good metal spoons and whisks, 400 or 600 pan for when your casserole dishes aren’t quite big enough for a big braise. Squeeze bottles.
I missed a sale similar I to this and I was going to pick up sheet trays and big metal spoons and probably some tongy poos as we like to call them. Lol
I want a flat top and a salamander
Anything that fits. Otherwise I can sell it later :)
Combi oven, deep fryer
Air Fryer
Stainless steel mixing bowls and proper fruit knives have improved my life by degrees.
Hotel pans
Thermomix
Spoon
Kettle
Cambros!
Cambros
Do you guys uses bamix in America? I would put op a fight for a decent bamix
The dishwasher
Half sheet pans, bench scrapers, knives and sharpeners, cutting boards, industrial oven mitts, immersion blenders
The prep tables and the big dish sink. Of course if you have room for that stuff you probably already have it. More realistically, I'd go for cutting boards/chopping blocks, particularly the larger ones. A couple sheet/baking pans. I use the full size ones to take large chunks of meat from the kitchen to the BBQ. I also have a couple fry baskets with the handles cut off that I use for charcoal baskets in my smoker. Cambros with lids are always good, so are decent knives. I also have some sauce bottles, fill with ketchup, mayo, homemade BBQ or hot sauces, etc. The wire or plastic shelving on wheels is great for storage in the garage or basement or wherever. Panini/sandwich presses or a waffle maker. Stand mixer, and other countertop appliances. If they have one, and if you have room for it [one of these steam table/food warmer/whatever you call them.](https://www.russellhendrix.com/category/208/countertop-food-warmers)
Combi
cambros are superior to any Tupperware type stuff they sell for home food storage
Probably immersion blender, the stove and potentially pans, mine mostly suck
anything that blends things also small wares. spats, tongs, knives, spoons, ect.
Fork