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Nancy Silverton is a cooking icon. She’s constantly been a force, from her start as the opening pastry chef at Wolfgang Puck‘s Spago, to developing the cult-favorite artisan bread-baking La Brea Bakery, to her world-famous dining establishments Campanile, Pizzeria Mozza, Osteria Mozza, and chi SPACCA. Silverton is likewise the author of 9 must-read cookbooks. Talk about a cooking legend!
E! got to ask the trailblazing chef our burning concerns, consisting of which kitchen area devices deserve it, how to offer an excellent kitchen area present, and the very best method to delight in mozzarella–Nancy states it’s “bufala mozzarella with Spanish anchovies,” by the method.
The exceptional chef even informed all of us about an $18 kitchen area product that altered her life.
Silverton is no complete stranger to life-altering recommendations. In 2023, the Los Angeles- born chef composed the cookbook The Cookie That Changed My Life Now she states there are 2 kitchen area products out there that she discovers “life changing.” The initially being the microplane.
“What I love about it is that it doesn’t plug in. I am not a fan of any kind of kitchen gadget that plugs in, so it’s right in my wheelhouse,” she describes.
“I love that there are so many configurations now to the holes themselves. So there’s a small, medium, and large which all have their places. There are also ribbons and slashes. I probably own six of every single kind of microplane and I’m always looking for a better handle and a better weight to them, but they’re all great. I use them for anything from zest, to cheese, to grating garlic. I love it all!” she states.
The Osteria Mozza chef likewise called out her veteran love of the mortar and pestle, dating all the method back to her cooking school days at Le Cordon Bleu in London.
“It’s a porcelain-made mortar and pestle. I love making things in mortar and pestles. I use them for making all my pounded sauces, like pestos and nut-based sauces, to green sauces, to using just the heavy bowl of that mortar with a whisk to make any kind of emulsified dressing or mayonnaise-based dressing,” she describes.
The chef states the heavy porcelain mortar is really more perfect for blending dressings since light-weight blending bowls tend to “flop around the counter” if not appropriately protected. However, Silverton, who is among HexClad’s Chef Ambassadors, did call out the HexClad blending bowls with rubber on the bottom as a “great” choice since they do not tend to move.
Silverton is likewise a fan of the brand name’s pizza steel, in addition to their cooking pans.
“I was always anti-teflon; I only had them to make scrambled eggs in,” she exposes. “What’s great about HexClad is that even though it’s teflon, it’s stainless-steel based, which makes a huge difference for conducting heat. I think that they are really terrific, well-made and have a lifetime guarantee, and that’s a huge asset when it comes to pans.”
Because Silverton is “not a big fan” of things that plug in, when asked what the most overrated kitchen area device is, she chuckles and states, “the electric can opener. Do they even make those anymore?”
However, there is one plug-in product she discovers worth it, and if you’re searching for a housewarming present or perhaps a wedding event present for somebody you enjoy, this gadget gets the Nancy Silverton stamp of approval. “I’ll make an exception, I do love my KitchenAid mixer,” she states.
“When it comes to making doughs and batters, it’s very hard to get away without having a proper whisk to whisk egg yolk and things like that. It’s a great one to gift.”
And if you require more gifting inspo, take Silverton’s exceptional gift-giving recommendations: “I find all sorts of things I love and I’ll give them out.”
She calls out her collection of wood spoons as “a beautiful gift to give someone.”
“I really love flat, heavy-duty wooden spoons, or I call them spatulas. I think that those are great gifts. I’ve recently found a brand of peelers that are really great. I also really love rolling pins that have the right heft to them.”
