As my boyfriend and I are discussing about moving out of our current place, I can't help but start wondering what items to buy if we get a unfurnished rental as our next place. So I started to wonder what are the top 10 items I can't live without in the kitchen.

10. A good pair of oven gloves
You will be so surprised how essential this is. I always manage to burn myself with the oven one way or another. I like these from KitchenGrip®. They are not only heat resistant, they are also slip resistant. You can get them at De Bijenkorf.


9. A trio of pots in sizes ranging from soup for 2 to soup for 6
I make soups quite often and I find it very useful to have 3 different sizes. When making soup for 4, you don't want to have the smallest pot filled three quarter full when you are using a handblender. Not fun cleaning up.

8. Two oven dishes of different sizes
Actually we had one large lasagne dish. But recently I started to make oven dishes for 2 and my boyfriend decided to buy a smaller one. Now we cook just enough for 1 meal. So we make sure we don't eat too much left overs.

7. A whisk
For the many pancake mornings we have, including those at K & R's when I crashed over at their place after 1 night of Malushkas.

6. A multi-cooker
I am Chinese and I like to eat rice. So I bought the multi-cooker actually only to cook rice. But I find that it is actually pretty useful. You can stew, reheat and steam with this little thing. Set it on a timer and it switches to "keep warm" mode after the cooking is done. So after your shower, you can still expect to get soft warm rice. I got mine from Philips but I think the Japanese brands such as Zojirushi are better.


5. A set of 3 mixing bowls.
Again, very useful. You can use them for making dough, serving a salad, and even serving chips at a party. I like these Melamine ones from World Market.


4. Small and large frying pans
This is pretty obvious.

3. A wok
Actually my parents used to cook everything in a wok. They even steam using wok. So actually a wok is even more useful than frying pans and multi-cookers. If you ask any Singaporean, they will say that the wok is the best. In hawker centers in Singapore, every hawker owner has a huge pot. They cook everything from fried noodles to chili crabs in it.

2. A good set of knives
I get so tired from cutting using blunt knives. I don't need many knives. Just 3. Bread knife, a large blade knife and a fruit knife. Everything else is extra. My dream is to own these beautiful Japanese knives from Global®. This is also a hint to anyone who has no clue what to get me for Christmas.
1. A stable chopping board
Very common but not very obvious. There are so many cheap and lousy chopping boards around. You can spend anything from €3 from Ikea to €40 made from organic bamboo. My only criteria is that they do not warp in the dishwasher. I opt for these from JosephJoseph™. They are not called Big Foot™ for nothing.
That's it. So what is your top 10?