Bowls and Basins

Professional cooks prefer stainless steel, but ovenproof glassware is the classic domestic alternative. Bowls and basins are often confused with each other: a bowl is a large and fairly wide-topped container; a basin is a small but deep container. A small bowl would have a wider top than a small basin. The classic British pudding basin has deep sides sloping to a narrow, slightly rounded bottom. Modern basins, used for mixing and cooking puddings, are slightly wider across the bottom: they are not quite as deep and their sides do not slope as sharply. Old-fashioned pudding basins have wide rims for attaching a cloth around the top to cover a steamed pudding, but with foil being the modern alternative to cloth, new basins have only a narrow rim. Having the correct bowl to hand makes the job of cooking infinitely easier.