Jake Cohen Shares 11 Kitchen Tools That'll Make You A 'Modern Mensch'

What does a young chef need in the kitchen? We asked one of our favorite professional cooks and Instagram personalities.
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Courtesy of Jake Cohen
With more than 346,000 followers on Instagram, Jake Cohen has made us all want what he has.

“There are four items that home cooks need,” chef Jake Cohen told HuffPost. “A Dutch oven, a non-stick skillet, a cast iron pan and a pot for pasta. If you have these four items, you can cook almost anything and build up your roster from there.”

But on top of that, there’s a whole lot more that’ll make cooking fun. The 27-year-old culinary guru is a reliable source, with a résumé that includes stints at Saveur, TastingTable.com, Time Out New York and TheFeedFeed.com (and even HuffPost) all before recently publishing “Jew-ish,” his debut cookbook featuring “reinvented recipes from a modern mensch” (think cacio e pepe rugelach, short rib cholent and oh-so-delicious sabich bagel sandwiches). 

He also happens to be an Instagram star, not in short measure thanks to his entertaining daily posts about cooking in his Long Island City apartment, hosting Shabbat dinners and living with his husband, whom he delightfully guides toward finding his inner gastronome on live video. 

Here, Cohen shares some of his favorite at-home kitchen tools ― also revealing the way he likes to organize his very own cookbooks.

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1
Le Creuset Heritage Stoneware Rectangular Dish
Williams-Sonoma
“When invited to a housewarming, I like to gift the host some sort of casserole dish but also make something in it and then just leave the dish there. There might be something shady about giving something slightly used — but it was used to make something for the hosts themselves!”

Get the Le Creuset Heritage Stoneware Rectangular Dish, 9”x12”, for $80
2
An Always Pan
Our Place
“To cook Persian food well, the giant Le Creuset Dutch oven (see below) is perfect when making khoresht. But if you’re making tahdig, the Always Pan works really well.”

Get the Always Pan for $145
3
Le Creuset Oval Dutch Oven
Williams-Sonoma
4
Staub Ceramic Canisters
Staub
“I have tons of counter space and have canisters all over. I use these Staub ones for all my kitchen tools.”

Get the Staub ceramic canisters for $39.95
5
A SodaStream
Amazon
“I love seltzer but my husband was always very pro San Pellegrino ― but after we watched the David Attenborough documentary 'A Plastic Ocean' on Netflix, we said we’re not going through bottles anymore. So we have a SodaStream.”

Get the SodaStream Jet sparkling water maker for $79.99
6
Nordic Ware Naturals Sheet Pans
Crate and Barrel
“People don’t have enough sheet pans! I use them for everything: from organizing things to heating food up. When I’m entertaining or hosting any sort of dinner, I like for everything to be done and rest on sheet pans.”

Get the Nordic Ware Naturals Sheet Pans (set of 3) for $34.99
7
Squeeze Bottles
Amazon
“I have tons of squeeze bottles. They are great for plating, for your oils and vinegars. They make life so much easier. The cheaper you find, the better.”

Get the Belinlen 8-pack 12-ounce plastic squeeze squirt condiment bottles with twist-on cap lids for $10.99
8
A Vitamix
Vitamix
"I don’t have a food processor but I have a Vitamix, which I find is amazing.”

Get the Vitamix 5200 Standard for $449.95
9
″Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies" by Najmieh Batmanglij
Amazon
“My books are organized. The top shelf is home to the cookbooks I use the most, including ′Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies,′ the most iconic Persian cookbook ever, plus ′Sababa' by Adeena Sussman and ′Mamushka' by Olia Hercules. I then have a separate section for Jewish food, and the books in the back are either from friends or some that I love but don’t use often.”

Get "Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies" for $42.41
10
“Sababa” by Adeena Sussman
Amazon
11
“Mamushka” by Olia Hercules
Amazon

Before You Go

Rosanna Pansino's kitchen picks
KitchenAid Stand Mixer in Pebbled Palm(01 of07)
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As a baker, a stand mixer is a staple. You can add ingredients evenly, and you can let it sit and mix for eight minutes while you prepare other ingredients; it just makes time management so much easier. There’s a bunch of really great stand mixers out there made by different brands, but I’ve always used a KitchenAid. It’s what I started with because that’s what my mom used, and I’m just in love with it.

I actually just got a new one because after 10 years of using my KitchenAid I blew out the engine [laughs]. It started smoking. I bought the matte green one from Target, it’s the special Magnolia brand color called Pebbled Palm. Since it’s matte and not shiny, when I’m cooking on camera I don’t get a big glare, which is great.

KitchenAid Artisan Series 5 Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer, $399.99 (the Pebbled Palm color is exclusive to Target)
(credit:KitchenAid)
Crate & Barrel Stainless Steel Measuring Spoons(02 of07)
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Measuring doesn’t matter as much for cooking, but for baking it really comes down to the measurements and the science, so I’m always using measuring spoons. And these ones from Crate & Barrel are my favorite. I love them because you can toss them in the dishwasher and the measurements are engraved in the metal, which means they don’t wear off over time.

Crate & Barrel Stainless Steel Measuring Spoons, $12.95
(credit:Crate & Barrel)
Smeg Citrus Juicer(03 of07)
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In the backyard of our new home we have 10 orange trees -- they’re humongous! I used to have a manual citrus juicer, but recently invested and got an electric one. I love this juicer. It makes it so easy to have fresh orange juice every morning, and sometimes on the weekends we make mimosas. The sensor is great. I just press down a little bit and it starts juicing.

Smeg Citrus Juicer, $179.95
(credit:Smeg)
Vitamix The Quiet One(04 of07)
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This is my splurge item. I got this a couple years ago to make piña coladas. They’re my favorite tropical drink, and when we went to the Four Seasons in Oahu the chef made the best piña colada I’ve ever had. I got the recipe and tried to recreate it at home, but the texture just wasn’t quite right. So I went back to Hawaii and talked to the chef, and he showed me the equipment they use and it was this blender. It is a commercial blender, but it makes the best piña coladas you’ve ever had and I regret nothing. I use it for other things, like making smoothies, but it’s basically a piña colada machine in this house.

Vitamix The Quiet One, $1,173.68
(credit:Vitamix)
GreenPan Padova Ceramic Nonstick 10-Piece Cookware Set(05 of07)
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I was looking for new pans because mine were getting pretty banged up and we needed something cuter. I started to do a lot of research and came across these on Goop. I thought they were a really cute color, and the more I read about them, the more I fell in love. They’re nonstick ceramic, nontoxic and eco-friendly, and I thought they were a good price.

GreenPan Padova Ceramic Nonstick 10-piece Cookware Set, $250
(credit:Green Pan)
Kootek Revolving Cake Stand(06 of07)
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I’m obsessed with this. If you’re a baker, you probably have a turntable in your kitchen. When you’re icing a cake it really makes it look professional. You plop your cake right onto this turntable, put the icing on, and with an offset spatula you just gently spin it around and around until it gets super-even and your cake looks like it just came out of a bakery. This is my secret weapon for making my cakes look so good, and I use it pretty much every day.

Kootek Revolving Cake Stand, $27.99
(credit:Kootek)
Scotch-Brite Non-Scratch Dishwand(07 of07)
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Because I’m cooking and baking so much, there’s a lot of cleanup that has to happen. I’ve tried different things over the years, like bristles and odd sponges and things, and I just fell in love with this silly little dish wand. You load the soap into it and there’s a button you press to release some of the soap, and it helps me clean up all of my baking pans and everything else so much easier than scrubbing it by hand or using other brushes where I’m having to add more soap. I started using these years ago and I’ve never gone back.

Scotch-Brite Non-Scratch Dishwand, $2.97
(credit:Scotch Brite)

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