There are very few items I consider essential in the kitchen. As a minimalist, I kept my kitchen equipment to the bare bones when I was single.
My husband, on the other hand, now finds something that I must have and purchases it for me for birthdays and Christmas gifts. Some women get jewelry. I get All-Clad.
But I have found parchment paper to be one of my essential kitchen tools.
Parchment paper is a thin heat resistant paper that keeps things from sticking. In restaurants, anything cooked on a sheet pan (a large cookie sheet) has parchment layered on first.
For home cooks, usually, you see parchment used in baking applications. This way you don’t have to use as much grease on cake pans, and cookies slide right off and are less likely to burn on the bottom.
But, as a professional chef, I was told to make sure that we didn’t run out of parchment to save our dishwasher. And he meant the person, not the machine.
Now that I am the dishwasher, I truly understand the seriousness of the request. I rarely use a baking sheet without first putting down a sheet because it makes clean up so much easier.
And, anyone that cooks knows that cleaning up is half of the job and sometimes more than half. I will never forget the episode of Rachel Ray, cooking a 30-minute meal. All I saw was someone washing dishes after the show for an hour.
When to use parchment paper, all the time.
Every time a recipe tells you to grease a pan with oil or butter, you can usually use parchment paper instead of the oil.
I will use it to roast vegetables or meat and only have to clean the pans if a little liquid leaks through. Most of the time, I remove the paper and put the pan back in the cupboard.
I use parchment paper in most baking applications. Usually, for a cake or special dessert, you will want to cut the paper to fit the pan. (This is why you can also buy cake pan parchment circles in specialty baking stores.) The easy way to cut a circle is to fold a square piece in half and then quarters, then fold it two more times to make a pie wedge. Put the point at the center of your pan and then cut the folded paper at the edge.
I have set some parchment on fire under the broiler, so be careful with high heat.
A few tips on acquiring this precious resource
If you buy parchment at a regular grocery store, it is usually much more expensive than Costco or online ordering.
If you shop at Costco, I recommend buying it there. However, there is a trick. Costco considers parchment a seasonal item, and you will only find it in the fall, starting in October until they run out around Christmas. If you miss the season to find it in the warehouse, you can order it online from them. I figure even once you account for the cost of shipping, it’s still less expensive than the smaller rolls.
But regardless of the financial cost, this one tip will save you hours of work cleaning pans in the future.
There is nothing better than making clean up easier to get you to cook more often.