Stellar cookware (designed in Bristol) is a brand of quality cookware made from rust-resistant stainless steel, ideal for serious & professional chefs. With unique features to make cooking a breeze, all items are sold with a lifetime guarantee.
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people & pets (many human foods are unsafe around animal friends). Heating any cookware (not just Teflon) is not safe around birds, but hopefully if you live with birds, they are in a nice aviary, rather than caged in a kitchen.
rust-resistant stainless steel cookware
The range includes saucepan sets, plus pans for casseroles and a steamer pan set (with a base pan, two steamer tiers and vented glass lid). The dual perforated lids prevent messy over-boiling and make draining water a doddle.
The saucepans are dishwasher-safe (and oven-safe up to certain temperatures) and feature ‘hot forged’ bases to ensure even heat distribution, including induction hobs. There are also internal measures on some pans.
Birmingham bakeware (with lifetime guarantees)
Mermaid is a quality brand of bakeware, all sold with lifetime guarantees. Ideal if you like to create bakes and cakes, as one purchase is all you need. These use the excellent heat conduction of aluminium (which is also light) but then covers with an anodised coating that will never peel, so you can ditch your flaky non-stick trays.
The range is pretty affordable considering everything is sold with a lifetime guarantee and although the company offer a dozen or so products, you don’t have to buy all of them! Just buy the few that suit you best.
The range includes standard baking tins along with fluted tins for quiche, square tins for baking brownies and baking sheets which won’t buckle or warp in the oven. The abrasion-resistant anodised layers are twice as hard as stainless steel, so are safe to use with metal utensils. Oven-safe up to certain temperatures and can also be used on non-induction hobs. Hand-wash only in warm soapy water.
lightweight iron cookware for professional kitchens
Solidteknics Cookware is too expensive for most home cooks, but ideal investments for professional kitchens, as items are made from wrought iron but are half the weight of cast iron cookware and these items carry a multi-century guarantee! This is the toughest cookware you’ll ever know, with no rivets or handle joints that can ever break.
The range includes skillet frying pans, an all-in-one pan, a wok, saute and crepe pans. Some are pre-seasoned in rice bran oil, others you season yourself before use. Made in Australia, these pans sear and hold heat as well as iron and are compatible with most hob types and oven-safe (for induction jobs, ensure pan size matches burner, and warm pan on lower temperature, before turning up to medium heat).
The Quenched range is made by dunking red-hot pans in chilled oil, to create a durable seasoning foundation and protect it and give non-stick properties. Named best frying pan by The Telegraph.
a Japanese-style carbon steel knife
If you’re a serious chef, you may wish to also invest in Solidteknics Japanese-style knife, engineered for super-fine slicing. The patented design prevents ‘sticking friction’, so food slices simply drop away. Made from custom carbon steel to retain a sharp chisel edge, the blade is only sharpened on one side (you have to buy one depending on whether you’re right or left-handed).
Wash by hand using non-scratch dishcloth (with blade pointed away), never leave to soak and dry immediately, rub with food-safe oil. Store in a magnetic knife rack and sharpen with whetstones or InversionEdge Pro sharpening system.
