A twelve-piece set contains four pieces you will use and eight that exist to make the box look better value. Buy the pieces instead, and buy them one at a time.
The five pans
1. A heavy frying pan, 26 to 28cm. Cast iron or heavy stainless. This is the one that browns properly, because thin pans lose their heat the moment food lands. Cast iron is cheap, lasts forever and needs drying and a wipe of oil. Stainless needs a hotter start and a little patience before things release.
2. A nonstick pan, 24cm. For eggs, pancakes and fish. Treat it as a consumable: medium heat only, no metal tools, replace it when it stops working rather than scraping at it. A worn nonstick pan is a bad pan, not a character-building one.
3. A saucepan with a lid, 2 to 3 litres. Rice, sauces, blanching, half the weeknight. Heavy base, or everything catches.
4. A casserole or Dutch oven, 4 to 6 litres. Stews, braises, soup for a crowd, bread. Oven-safe with a heavy lid. This is the piece worth spending real money on, and it will outlive you.
5. A rimmed baking sheet. Heavy gauge so it does not warp. Roasting, traybakes, biscuits, catching drips. Buy two; you will use two.
That is it. A wok if you stir-fry often, a stockpot if you make stock in quantity, a small milk pan if you like a small milk pan.
The three knives
A chef's knife, 20cm. Ninety per cent of the work. Buy the one that feels balanced in your hand rather than the one with the best story; a comfortable mid-priced knife you sharpen beats an expensive one you are afraid of.
A paring knife. For the small jobs that a big knife makes awkward.
A serrated knife. Bread, tomatoes, cakes. It cannot be sharpened easily, so this is the one to buy cheap and replace.
Skip the block of fifteen. You will use three of them and the rest will blunt each other in a drawer.
Keeping edges
A honing steel before you start straightens the edge that daily use rolls over. Actual sharpening, on a whetstone or by someone who does it for a living, a few times a year. A knife that will not bite into a tomato skin without pressure is asking to be sharpened, and a blunt knife is the more dangerous one.
No dishwasher, no soaking, no storing loose in a drawer. Wash, dry, magnetic strip or block.
The small things that punch above their price
- Digital scales. The single best value item in any kitchen, and non-negotiable for baking.
- An instant-read thermometer. Removes the guesswork from meat, bread and frying.
- A microplane. Garlic, citrus zest, parmesan, ginger, nutmeg.
- Tongs. Heatproof hands.
- A big wooden board that stays on the counter, with a damp cloth under it.
- A fish slice you actually like and two mixing bowls.
What you can skip
Garlic presses (a knife is faster and washes cleaner), avocado tools, egg slicers, herb strippers, single-purpose gadgets in general, and the "professional" 24-piece knife block. Also: a second nonstick pan bought to replace the ruined one before working out why the first one was ruined.
Buying order, on a budget
Scales, then a chef's knife, then the heavy frying pan, then the baking sheet, then the saucepan. The casserole last, because it is the most expensive and the most tempting to buy first.
Second-hand cast iron is the best deal in cookware. A rusty pan from a market stall cleans up with steel wool, oil and an hour in the oven, and then works for another fifty years.