If you are serious about cooking an essential kitchen utensil is the scale so you can measure out your ingredients. There is a large choice here. There is the traditional balance and counter-weight model, which can be made of copper, brass, or stainless steel. Some scales work on the spring balance principle, usually bench mounted with integral bowl. Finally there are battery operated electronic scales.

 If you want to bake pastries, cakes or bread you will need a reasonable number of  kitchen utensils. To start with consider a range of mixing bowls of various sizes, then there are mixing jugs, it is best to have at least 2, one to measure small volumes up to 125 ml and another to measure up to 500 ml. If you are going to be a successful baker there are a number of other kitchen utensils you will need. These are rolling mat or board,rolling pin, preferably without handles, sieves with various sized meshes, fine, medium and coarse, whisk, wooden spoons, cookie cutters, cake trays, shallow and deep, wire cooling stand and cake tins of various diameters and depths. There are many more kitchen utensils you might need to  complete your baking experience, I’ve indicated the basic requirements.

The traditional roast dinner with all the trimmings produces a need for more kitchen utensils like roasting tins of various sizes, baking tray,yorkshire pudding tin, roast lifting forks,  spiked carving dish, carving knife and fork with sharpening steel, oven gloves and meat thermometer. If you want to make gravy from the meat juices, without the fat, a kitchen utensil, which is really indispensable, is a strain and separate jug. This little gem is a glass jug with the spout at the very bottom so that the juice can be poured off leaving the fat behind. There is also a stainless steel strainer for the top.

The essential  kitchen utensils, which I’ve not discussed previously, are the pots and pans without which cooking is impossible. It is well worth while buying the best quality you can afford, as you will get many years use from them. It is usual to have 7 or 8 pans for different tasks. This, however, can be quite expensive (2 to 300 pounds) so it is reasonable to buy 1 or 2 as you can afford it. The choice of materials here is quite large with all stainless steel, non-stick coatings, copper bottoms, and coloured enamelled cast iron, to name a few being available. The usual range is 14 cm milk pan, 16 cm lidded saucepan, 18 cm lidded saucepan, 20 cm lidded saucepan, 20 cm omelette pan, 26 cm fry pan, 22 cm stock pot, 26 cm sauté pan and steamer.

There are several more kitchen utensils which complement the pans, and are very useful, You should consider colanders, pan strainer and saucepan separators.