Everything under control

Task planning: before cooking comes organising

A delicious meal is the high point of any evening together with friends or the whole family. A creamy soup, pasta al dente as the main course, and a little chocolate cake make a lovely, straightforward menu. If your preparations go to plan, then the actual cooking is a breeze. As such, good kitchen organisation, well planned worktops and smart accessories are absolutely essential. After all, when cooking, you’re not spending most of your time at the oven. Setting out the kitchen utensils, washing and chopping ingredients and stirring sauces take up much more time than the simple cooking process. Professional chefs are well aware of this. ‘Mise en place’ is the technical term for the perfect preparation for kitchen tasks in award-winning restaurant kitchens. This allows the chef to maintain an overview and have everything to hand, allowing him or her to cook effectively.

Creating levels: don’t stack things too deep

Don’t just plan your kitchen horizontally, but also vertically. Think about your salt shaker, pepper mill and egg timer – boards above the worktop can provide space for all of the utensils that you reach for time and time again when preparing food. Cooking appliances that you rarely use can be stowed away on the upper shelves. This means that you can always see the things that you really need in the kitchen. All kitchen aids that are easy to hang up can be positioned on a kitchen rail along the wall. You’ll have your spatula, ladle and egg whisk immediately to hand. Another advantage is that this leaves your worktop freer and gives you more freedom of movement when preparing dishes.

BLANCO multi-level bowls allow you to use several levels of your sink at the same time: the unique ETAGON concept makes it possible to set down pots and pans to cool, or rest them for the time being on rails that are easy to attach to the bowl. At the same time, one level up, you can be chopping more ingredients on a cutting board that fits exactly over the bowl. On the bottom, third level stand thawed or freshly washed ingredients, waiting to be used. As such, you can keep the back and forth to a minimum and avoid any tiresome spills.

Planning: smart kitchen equipment

If you like using an ice-cream marker or thermal mixer, then you’ll want to have that appliance immediately to hand. However, it should take up as little of the worktop as possible. What if you could simply make larger appliances disappear into the worktop? A corner lifter allows you to lift the respective appliance up at the touch of a button. Once your task is done, you can make it disappear back into the base cabinet until it is required again. Large push-to-open drawers are also a must in any cleverly planned kitchen. They can be opened by pressing them gently. How about if you have cake batter sticking to your hands? It’s no problem at all with the sensor mixer tap BLANCO SOLENTA-S Senso, which features a start-stop function that allows you to wash your hands without making the mixer tap dirty.

Induction cooker: optimal preparation for fast cooking

The induction cooker has brought about some changes in the kitchen. Like a gas stove, it offers an incredibly fast cooking process. No sooner have you added a pot of water for your pasta than it’s bubbling away. A conventional electric hob, by contrast, heats up water at a very leisurely pace. If you're using an induction cooker, you’ll have to coordinate your kitchen preparations to the speed of the cooking stage. The faster the pasta boils and the meat cooks, the more important it is to have all of your ingredients and utensils immediately to hand. Again, it is practical to have the food and herbs you need within arm’s reach. If your kitchen is set out in an optimal working triangle, your sink will be within easy reach. Many BLANCO sinks allow you to attach clever corner-caddies, where you can store food until you need to use it. Freshly washed vegetables and pre-cooked food can be stored here until you need it on the stove.

Space planning: short distances save time

If you’re in your kitchen a lot, you’ll know that systematic kitchen organisation is a must. If the worktop is too far from the sink, things will soon get dirty. You want to transfer a freshly washed pepper from the sink to the worktop, but water drips straight onto the floor. It’s just as inconvenient if the waste container is too far from the worktops, so that you have to carry food cuttings or dripping tea bags across the kitchen. For optimal cooking preparation, it therefore makes sense to keep the important routes between the oven, sink, worktops and waste bins as short as possible. Waste bins work particularly well when positioned directly beneath the sink, as this is where most waste occurs.

Multifunctional: sink accessories make your work easier

You use the sink to clean fruit, meat and other ingredients, but the bowl can do so much more to keep your kitchen organised. Sliced vegetables or berries can be stored in the multifunctional colander hung in the sink until you need to use them. You can also use the Top-Rails, which are attached to suitable sinks, for this purpose. Hot pots and pans can also be placed on this extra level before or after cooking, while other ingredients thaw out or dirty dishes soak underneath.

Optimising the different functions of a sink allows you to handle the many working steps within the kitchen faster and more easily. BLANCO sinks with the right accessories give you:

• Extra worktop space:
  By attaching cutting boards or Top-Rails upon which you can place cooking pots, you gain valuable workspace.
• Space for storing food while doing other tasks:
  Multifunctional colanders that can be attached to the sink provide space for prepared food.
• Easy draining and washing up:
  Floating grids in the sink serve as trivets, allowing dishes or food to drain there at the same time.
• Practical waste disposal:
  When combined with the specially developed sorting bowl, the central sorting bowl of the BLANCO COLLECTIS offers a convenient space to handle organic waste in the kitchen. Thanks to the cross-product functional concept, the bowl can also be fitted exactly to certain BLANCO waste systems.
• Sink and steamer – the perfect team:
  Some BLANCO sink models fit perfectly with the dimensions of steamer dishes, making it quicker and easier to prepare and serve meals. Exact-fit cutting boards can be pushed back and forth as required, thus allowing you to work conveniently into the attached container.

The sink: the centrepiece of your kitchen

Your sink is the pivotal point of your kitchen. This is where food is cleaned and chopped, frozen ingredients thawed, dishes washed and prepared food kept until it is ready for cooking. As such, it may be worth paying more attention to the actual hub of your kitchen. After all, a sink isn’t just a sink. For instance, if you like using a steamer, choosing a sink with the right dimensions for it will prove practical. The BLANCO steamer bowls allow you to prepare your ingredients on a cutting board placed over the top. Right beside it, steamer baskets can be attached to the sink so that you can transfer the ingredients straight into them, without having to walk here and there. After the cooking is finished, you simply hang the cooking containers in the sink to drain. This saves space in the kitchen and ensures that the working areas remain as clean as possible while cooking.

Creativity needs space: extra-large bowls provide greater freedom of movement

If you want to make the most of every inch, your sink has a lot to offer: the multifunctional accessories save you a lot of worktop space, allow you to work in a structured way thanks to the functional levels, and ensure that you can keep control of your kitchen organisation. XXL-size sinks also offer additional convenience before, during and after the preparation of dishes. An extra-large bowl also offers enough space for cleaning large objects like baking sheets and grilles.