Kitchen essentials How much kitchen equipment you need depends on how well equipped your kitchen is and how much cooking you think you’re going to do.

MUST-HAVES

A large, preferably nonstick, frying pan, not just for fry-ups but for quick meat and fish cooking, too. It should be deep enough to do a stir-fry.

A large lidded saucepan or steamer for cooking pasta and making large batches of soup.

A small/medium nonstick pan for scrambling eggs, heating soup, making sauces, boiling eggs . . .

A chopping board. Plastic is easier to clean, and cheaper.

A set of knives: a small one for preparing veg, a larger one for cutting up or carving meat, a breadknife.

A couple of wooden spoons.

A fish slice or spatula, for lifting fish, fried eggs.

A can opener.

A large mixing bowl, which can double as a salad bowl; a small mixing bowl for salad dressings.

Far more teaspoons than you think you could possibly need. They’ll disappear at a frightening rate.

USEFUL BUT NOT ESSENTIAL

A wok, which also doubles as a large saucepan.

A hand-held blender is great for whizzing up soups, dips or spreads.

A potato masher. Worth getting if you’re heavily into mash. Kitchen scissors. For opening packs of bacon and anything else sealed in plastic.

A grater: for cheese, carrots, fresh ginger. The square box-style type is easiest to use.

A garlic crusher.

Metal tongs. Very useful for turning sausages, bits of chicken, etc.

A colander and/or a sieve to strain your pasta.

A measuring jug, graded with solid measurements as well as liquid ones.

A pepper mill. Freshly ground pepper makes the world of difference to the taste of your food.

A biscuit tin. To stop your biscuits going soft and soggy.

Oven gloves for hot pan handles.

Thomasina Miers and Amanda Ursell are away

Money matters

The average student spends only £21.60 in the supermarket on food per week, or just over £3 a day.

On average, another £16.30 is spent on eating out.

In total, the average student spends £1,578 a year on food – and that’s before you take alcohol into account.

THE TOP 10 STORE CUPBOARD INGREDIENTS

1. Garlic What would life be like without garlic? Buy it fresh; it will keep for a week or two. If you don’t want smelly hands, you’ll need a crusher, too. Asian grocers are the cheapest place to buy garlic, about half the price of supermarkets.

2. Black peppercorns They give a real flavour and spicy lift to dishes. You will also need a grinder, but you can buy plastic ones quite cheaply, with an initial supply of peppercorns.

3. Olive oil Yes, it’s a treat, but it’s good for you. Ideally you should have two bottles; a basic one for cooking and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil (kept locked away from your housemates) for making salad dressings and drizzling over pasta and veggies.

4. Oregano The most useful all-purpose herb, which doesn’t have that obvious dried-herb taste you get with cheap mixed dried herbs. Good for Italian dishes, especially pasta. Best bought from Italian delis.

5. Moroccan spice mix A great all-purpose spice mix, which you can make yourself. Combine 2 tsp each of ground cumin and ground coriander (again buy from Asian shops where they’re half the price they are in supermarkets) with ½ tsp turmeric and ¼ tsp of hot chilli powder or smoked paprika (below). Blend well and use in place of curry powder or with Moroccan-style recipes.

6. Smoked paprika Good for rounding off the flavour and adding a bit of a kick to bolognese.

7. Marmite Even if you loathe the taste, buy it to use as stock – 1 level tsp per 225ml of boiling water. It’s great for gravy or stews.

8. Light soy sauce Forget expensive stir-fry sauces and use this instead. You can buy big bottles in Chinese supermarkets for roughly the same price as a small bottle in a supermarket.

9. Thai sweet chilli sauce Proof that there is life beyond ketchup, though admittedly this isn’t as good with bacon or sausages. But it’s fabulous with chicken, fried eggs, anything fishy, including fish fingers, stir-fries, noodles or as a dipping sauce.

10. Marigold Vegetable Bouillon Powder The base that I use for virtually all my soups and stews or for making rice dishes such as risottos and pilaus. It has a much more natural flavour than any stock cube I’ve come across.

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