Activity
Take a look at the equipment pictured below. Do you know what each one is called and what it is used for? You can click on each item to check your knowledge!
Wooden spoon
This is used for stirring, mixing, beating and combining ingredients. For example, it can be used to cream butter and sugar, stir pasta when boiling, stir a sauce or beat eggs into a cake mixture.
Mixing bowl
This is a round bowl that is used for mixing ingredients.
Measuring jug
This is mainly used to measure amounts of liquid cooking ingredients. The jug will have a measuring scale marked on it. Measuring jugs are commonly made of plastic, glass or metal.
Chopping board
This is a hard-wearing board that you can place food on for cutting during food preparation. Chopping boards are often made of wood or plastic and come in various widths and sizes.
Grater
This is used to grate foods (such as cheese, potato, carrot, etc.) into fine pieces. Graters can have different sized grating slots, which can be used to satisfy the requirements of a particular recipe.
Sieve
In cooking, a sieve can be used to separate and break up lumps in dry ingredients such as flour; sieving dry ingredients also aerates (adds air to) them. A sieve can also be used to separate solids from liquid (for example, removing lumps from a sauce or gravy).
Peeler
This is used to remove the outer skin or peel of certain fruits and vegetables (such as apples, potatoes, carrots, etc.).
Masher
This is used to crush or mash soft foods – for example, cooked vegetables such as potatoes, swede, etc.
Handy hint!
There are many other utensils and pieces of equipment that you may need to use in the cooking environment. Click here to see more examples.