Talking Food with Cory Bahr: New Year, New Kitchen

I'm Chef Cory Bahr and today we're talking new kitchen, new year. Here you have on this table a selection of some of my favorite things that I think make a really big difference when you're cooking at home. So I'll just start right over here with some of the basics. Olive oil. You need an everyday olive oil, like this one right here from California Olive Ranch. You can use it on anything. It's not very pungent. It has a great flavor. I also love having a really nice finishing oil. This one's from Texas, our neighbor right next door. It tastes just like a very strong extra virgin olive oil. And a little bit goes a long way. To couple with that, having some vinegars that are just unusual. Like this is a Steen's cane vinegar, it's made from what's left over after they press for cane syrup. Or something that has an interesting flavor like this French Grenache vinegar made from the Grenache grape. You know it has a nice fruity flavor and it's low in acidity so it goes nicely with lots of different things.

Next, having things at your fingertips that really help you When you're cooking like a great pepper mill, this is from Peugeot also a salt cellar like this where you just have salted hand. Another thing from Peugeot that I love is the nutmeg grater. You don't see these very often that it's spring loaded and you just turn the handle, it grates the nutmeg, perfectly. It worked out great for Christmas time with all that eggnog.

Kitchen spoons we use these in our kitchens. you can find them at on Trenton street a lot of the antique stores are just old silver plated spoons, they're very well proportioned and they're great for basting, turning, any of those sort of things, saucing a plate. We love our gnocchi boards here we make gnocchi from potato and also ricotta cavatelli with them. They're fun to have at home you get the kids involved making pasta. Who doesn't love that? A great juicer. We love these handheld models because you're really able to get in there and get all that citrus juice out. Kitchen shears. We use these for cleaning mushrooms, cleaning snapper or any kind of fish, taking out the bones, sniffing herbs. You know I love this microplane for hard cheeses, spices, you name it. This thing goes at all. Ginger, garlic, all those things. A great fish spatula that curvature and the thinness of it really helps you lift and turn. These are the three knives I think most people need in their kitchen for everyday use. A utility knife, a slicer and a heavier knife like a chef's knife, but you got to keep them sharp. This is a Mac ceramic honing steel and it's not a sharpening steel. It's a honing steel. So you can just lightly strike your knife on it, and it will take it from being bent like that and it'll straighten it right up. You don't want to put a lot of pressure you just want to make it sing. About like that.

Last but not least one of my favorite things in the kitchen is a mortar and pestle like this made out of marble or some sort of stone. The reason I love it is because it's like an old school food processor. You know, a food processor spins at a higher rate of rotation and it heats up so it causes your flavors to change and your colors to change on like a pesto or garlic sauce with this, none of that changes and you get all of your fresh, vibrant, pungent flavors that you're looking for that come through really, really well. So if you want to improve your kitchen game in 2020 take a few of these tips. Go to our local stores, buy some of these things and learn how to use them.