The Perfect Pantry

Allspice, in rhubarb-apricot chutney

Next time I reorganize my spice rack, I'm abandoning my usual system.

Next time, I will not group the little jars into peppers, salts, baking spices, warm spices and leafy green herbs.

Next time, I'll sort my dried herbs and spices this way:

1. aphrodisiacs
2. miracle cures
3. brings prosperity and good fortune
4. used for embalming pharoahs in ancient Egypt

That covers just about everything on my spice rack, including allspice (a triple whammy: numbers 2, 3 and 4).

The dried berry of a myrtle tree native to the West Indies and Central America, allspice was discovered by Christopher Columbus, who, thinking it was pepper, named it pimienta. Subsequently it became known as Jamaican pepper, because most of the best quality crop grew there; the English gave it the name "allspice", because it mimics the aroma of several spices, including cloves, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg.

According to Herbs & Spices by Jill Norman, "allspice is the only important spice that still comes almost exclusively from its region of origin — which also makes it the only one grown almost exclusively in the New World." Today the majority of the world allspice harvest goes to the food industry, for use in commercial ketchups and other sauces.

One of the so-called warm spices, allspice is the star component of Jamaican jerk seasoning, and often features in ras-el hanout, Syrian spice and the American inventions apple pie and pumpkin spices.

Whole allspice berries should be a dark reddish brown, and rounded, with a rough surface and no musty smell. Ground allspice should be a rich, dark brown with a warm aroma. I always have ground allspice in the pantry, and occasionally there are some whole allspice berries, too, which I use to mix up a pickling spice.

If you prefer to grind your own, five whole berries equal one teaspoon of ground allspice; if you have to substitute, try equal parts cinnamon, ground cloves and nutmeg.

Properly stored in a cool, dry place, allspice will keep for more than a year (whole allspice berries will keep longer, up to three years). Good thing, too, because you'll use it over and over, in muffins, fish in escabeche, grilled pork chops, potato dumplings, arugula pesto, and of course jerk chicken.

And if it brings you a bit of prosperity and good fortune... well, there's nothing wrong with that.

RHUBARB-APRICOT CHUTNEY
I love chutney -- it's sweet and tart and a little bit spicy, and is a great way to add fruit to savory dishes. A perfect accompaniment to roast chicken, grilled fish or pork, this recipe is adapted from Magic Spices: 200 healthy recipes featuring 30 common spices, by Donna L. Weihofen. Makes approximately one quart.

2 cups diced rhubarb
2 cups dried apricot halves, diced
1 small red onion, minced
1 cup honey
1 cup golden raisins
2 cups cider vinegar
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp lemon zest
1 Tbsp minced fresh ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

In a heavy saucepan, combine all ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve warm or cold. Store in a glass jar in the refrigerator (if using a canning jar, replace the metal lid with a plastic one, so the acid in the chutney won't corrode the lid).

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Shish taouk (garlic chicken on skewers)
Cocoa-cumin-allspice rub
Countertop dill pickles
Pumpkin pie
Tomato-nectarine chutney

 

Rice vermicelli, in bun gao noodle salad

An updated post from the archives, with a new photo.

My name is Lydia, and I'm a noodle-holic.

You know the drill.

"Hi, Lydia."

If there's a Noodles Anonymous chapter nearby, please let me know. I need it. I have never, ever, met a noodle I didn't love. I'd like to think I'm picky, like a chocoholic who eschews Hershey bars for cacao with a pedigree. But when it comes to noodles, I'm not picky, and my pantry proves it.

One shelf stocks Italian pasta: rotini, gemelli, cavatappi, spaghetti (much of it low-carb these days). Farfalle and lasagna. Orzo and teeny weeny ditalini. On another shelf, there's a stash of Asian noodles, with exotic names like banh pho, lo mein, banh trang, cellophane noodles (translucent, made from mung beans) and rice vermicelli.

Wait a minute.

Vermicelli — isn't that Italian? What's it doing on the Asian shelf?

Popular in every Asian cuisine, rice vermicelli, a.k.a. rice sticks, a.k.a. mi fen or mee fun in Chinese, sen mee in Thai, maifun in Japanese, bihoon in Tagalog, banh hoi in Vietnamese and bee hoon in Malay, probably originated in China, which has been called the mother cuisine of all Asian cooking.

Product labeling is inconsistent; what's called rice vermicelli comes in a variety of thicknesses, from thread-like to the flattened ribbons resembling fettucini, commonly used in making pad thai. You want to buy the thin noodles, the ones that look like Italian vermicelli (thinner than spaghetti). Shop with your eyes, and read the ingredients on the label (always listed in English, for packaged food sold in the US) to make sure what you're buying is made from rice and water.

Dried rice noodles need a bit of a presoak, in warm tap water for 15-20 minutes. Then, drop the noodles into boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Rinse under cold water, and drain, and you're good to go for mee siam, prawn and coconut laksa, Singapore rice noodles or crab-filled summer rolls.

BUN GAO (rice noodle salad with chicken)
With the components cooked, shredded and chopped, and stored in the fridge, this main-course salad takes only minutes to assemble, and it's one of my favorite warm-weather meals. You can substitute grilled pork, shrimp, beef or tofu for the chicken. Serves 6.

1-1/2 lb rice vermicelli
Leftover cooked chicken (1 lb for 6 people), or store-bought rotisserie chicken
2 carrots
1 English (seedless) cucumber
3/4 small head of iceberg lettuce, shredded thinly
Handful of spearmint leaves
1/2 lb mung bean sprouts, rinsed and drained
Chopped peanuts (dry roasted, unsalted), for topping -- a few tablespoons

Nuoc cham OR
Chinese peanut dressing, thinned with water to desired consistency

Fill a bowl with hot water. Soak the rice vermicelli for 15 minutes, until flexible. Drain. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in the rice vermicelli, and cook for 1 minute. Drain, rinse under cold water, and drain again.

Add the cooked rice vermicelli to a large bowl. Grate the carrots and cucumber with a box grater (on the side with the largest holes), and add to the noodles. Add the lettuce, bean sprouts and mint leaves. Top with chicken. Toss with nuoc cham or peanut dressing. Top with chopped peanuts and serve. (If assembling the salad ahead, don’t add the dressing until you are ready to serve.)

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Faux pho
Nime chow (goi cuon)
Salmon-pesto potstickers
Vietnamese rice stick noodle salad with caramelized shrimp
Pad Thai

 

Drop In & Decorate cookies for Mother's Day

We interrupt our regularly scheduled pantry exploration to bring you this word from Julie Komenos, Associate Director of Abby's House in Worcester, Massachusetts, which provides shelter and support services to women who are homeless or victims of abuse :

Thank you doesn't begin to say how we feel about the beautiful cookies we received today.  They are a work of art and a special gift for the women of Abby's House.  We will give them out tomorrow at our Mother's Day luncheon. We are so excited to have them as they will add that special touch to the tables and a festive feeling for the day. 

Executive Director Tess Sneesby added this note:

As you know, Mother's Day is often a very difficult occasion for women here, either in our shelter or in one of our residences. You will have brightened the day for them not only because of your talent as shown by the wonderfully decorated cookies, but also and most especially because you thought of them!

At our May Day/Mother's Day Drop In & Decorate cookies for donation party last Sunday, more than 30 people dropped in to decorate cookies for Abby's House. Four high school students shot footage for a new Drop In & Decorate video. Lots of new friends came, from as far away as New Hampshire, and two from California who were diverted while vacationing here in Rhode Island.

Around the decorating table were mothers, mothers-in-law, granddaughters, husbands, partners -- a wonderful and enthusiastic group.

It took only four hours to decorate 250 big, beautiful, flowers and butterflies and bonnets and ducks and faces and smiles and tea cups and circles, with pastry bags and squeeze bottles.

Of course, not all of our decorators can be trusted to take those shapes literally!

If you're inspired to host your own Drop In & Decorate cookies for donation party, we have a free How to Host Your Own Cookie Decorating Event guide to help you get started. It's filled with practical information about sources for supplies, recipes for cookies and icing, and tips from others who've hosted their own cookies-for-donation parties.

[If you downloaded the guide before May 1, please be sure to get the latest version, with many updates.]

How about maple leaf cookies for Canada Day, or red, white and blue cookies for July 4? There's sure to be a food pantry, veterans center, or emergency shelter in your city or town that would love some beautiful cookies, and your friends will love getting together to decorate.

And if your friends say, "Oh, I can't decorate," show them this:

Now, how cute is that?!

Happy Mother's Day to all, and special thanks to Rob Banks and his mom, Beryle, for sharing their photos!

 

Other People's Pantries #15

From Stef (Cupcake Project), in St. Louis, Missouri:

I organized my pantry 9 months ago and blogged about it. You can read all about it here.

How did my organization withstand the test of time? It’s actually holding up quite nicely. The problem, not surprisingly, is how to organize new products. Sometimes when I get something new, I end up shoving it in the pantry with no regard for my organization system. To keep the pantry organized, I really need to make a home for each new item.

My favorite part of my pantry: my spices. We laid them all flat so I could see every one. Before the pantry reorganization, I couldn’t ever find a spice when I needed it.

My least favorite part of the pantry: all of the large bottles of sauces and oils. I can’t seem to find any good way to store them so that I can see everything.

On Saturdays, we peek into Other People's Pantries.

Come on -- show us your pantry.

Here's how.

 

Cumin, in spicy pinto bean ravioli

Spices That Make Your Food Sing Week, Day Three.

If cumin really could make your food sing, what tune would it choose?

A bit of Mexican mariachi?

Native American pow-wow?

Spanish flamenco?

Or would your cumin groove to a Bollywood beat?

More than most seasonings -- except salt and pepper --  cumin plays a key role in the cuisine of so many regions that it's impossible to imagine a pantry (or a music collection) without it.

On its own or in spice blends like panch phoron or garam masala from India, Persian baharat or Ethiopian berbere, cumin adds a familiar husky-musky quality, the taste your taste buds identify as the dominant flavor in many ethnic cuisines.

Cumin (comino in Spanish; kuming in Chinese; jinten in Indonesian; and cumin du Maroc or faux anis in French) is the seed of an herbaceous annual in the parsley family, native to only one place — the Nile River Valley in Egypt — and cultivated in India, China, North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean (especially Iran), and the Americas. It resembles the elongated and striated caraway seed, which is in the same plant family.

I keep both whole cumin seeds and ground cumin in my pantry; I buy in bulk from Penzeys, or from an Indian market when I'm lucky enough to get to one, and store most in the freezer, with a just a small amount on my spice rack. (Freezing extends the shelf life of many spices.) Whole seeds are often used in Indian cooking, or sprinkled on breadsticks and flatbreads; ground cumin features in the cooking of Mexico and the Mediterranean.

Chewing on cumin seeds can be an effective treatment for indigestion and morning sickness. In ancient Egypt, cumin was used to mummify pharoahs; in Roman times, students used cumin to give their complexions a more pallid look, the better to convince teachers they had been up all night studying!

More important to cooks, cumin is said to stimulate the appetite, with its naturally spicy-sweet pungency. Test the theory for yourself -- create your own world tour with cumin-spiced foods. Start in North Africa, head east to Persia, then on to India, Malaysia, South America, Mexico, and back to the Southwest United States.

And don't forget to load up your iPod, because food seasoned with cumin really does sing.

SPICY PINTO BEAN RAVIOLI
The filling, adapted from Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, by Lois Ellen Frank, can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days. It would be great in burritos or tacos, too. If you don't have a slow cooker, remember to soak the beans the night before you're ready to cook. Serves 4-6 as an appetizer.

2 cups dried pinto beans
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbsp red chile powder
1 tsp kosher salt
24 wonton skins

Cook the beans: Pick through the beans to remove any stones or broken bits, and place in a slow cooker with water to cover; set on LOW and cook for 18 hours. Or, soak the beans overnight in cool water to cover. The next day, drain, rinse with cold water, and place in a pot with fresh water to cover by 2 inches. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to simmer and cook for two hours or until the beans are soft and the skins begin to split, adding water if necessary to keep the beans from burning and sticking to the pot. Remove from heat; drain, but reserve the bean cooking liquid.

Toast the oregano and cumin in a dry sauté pan over medium heat until lightly browned and aromatic. Remove from the pan and set aside. In the same pan, add the unpeeled garlic, and roast over medium heat until it is soft and blackened in spots. Let cool, then peel and mash with a knife.

In a saucepan, sauté the onion in 1 Tbsp of the oil over moderate heat until it is lightly browned. Reduce the heat to low, add the garlic, and cook for 30 seconds. Add the oregano, cumin, red chile powder, salt, beans, and just enough of the bean water to cover, about 2-3 cups. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

Pureé the beans with an immersion blender, or in batches in a food processor, until smooth.

In a cast-iron skillet, heat the remaining oil over high heat to its smoking point (make sure you have a fan or ventilator running!). Add the bean pureé and stir for 1 minute. Lower the heat to medium, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the bean pureé turns into a medium paste. It will thicken as it cools.

To make the ravioli: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. In the meantime, place 12 wonton skins on your countertop. Place a teaspoon of bean filling in the center of each wonton. With a small brush or the tip of your finger, paint the edges of the wonton skins with water. Top each with another wonton skin, and press tightly to form a seal. (At this point, you can freeze for future use.) When the water has boiled, reduce the heat to low, add the ravioli, and cook until they float on top of the water. Serve with your favorite salsa.

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Hominy and cactus soup
Cocoa-cumin-allspice rub
Floribean chicken chili
Muhammara
Saag paneer
Lemon-onion hummus
Egg curry
Pueblo vegetable stew

Grey sea salt, on crusty roasted potatoes

A week of Spices That Make Your Food Sing. Day Two.

Remember when chocolate was brown? 

Remember when hot sauce was red?

Remember when potato chips were yellow, bell peppers were green, and Jell-o was... well, not blue?

Remember when salt was white?

I do.

Though I could live a lifetime without white chocolate, green hot sauce, red corn chips, purple and orange bell peppers, or any color of Jell-o, I never ever want to be without grey sea salt.

What is grey salt? The simple answer is that it is salt that has not been refined. Often purplish in color, the salt is tinged by the minerals in the clay from which it is harvested by hand, with wooden rakes, so that no metal touches, or affects the flavor of, the salt. This is important, because some lower quality grey salts get their color from an adverse reaction to the metal harvesting equipment.

The grey salt in my photo came from France, courtesy of Kate of Thyme for Cooking, who lives in the Vendée along the Atlantic coast where the world's finest grey salt is harvested. You can read about the harvesting process in this wonderful post about a chef's visit to the salt marshes.

Does grey salt taste different than white salt? Yes. Is it saltier? Just the opposite; one teaspoon of salt has 2325 milligrams of sodium, so the larger the crystals, the less in one teaspoon; therefore, coarse salt has less sodium by volume than finer-grind kosher or table salt.

Try it on foccacia, in ice cream, in caramels, on grilled endive, in a swiss chard omelet or mushroom ragout, or sprinkled on grilled steak.

At the moment I have three different grey salts in The Perfect Pantry -- which, I think, makes this The Perfectly Overstocked Pantry. Grey salt comes in various granulations from coarse to fine, sometimes flavored with herbs. The salt in the photo is mixed with herbes de Provence, which gives it an amazing aroma and flavor -- and a few twigs, for good measure.

CRUSTY OVEN-ROASTED POTATOES
Less a recipe than a formula for the best potatoes anywhere. Dunked in an aioli mayonnaise, these are positively addictive. Serves 6 as a side dish.

1-1/2 lb baby Yukon Gold or red-skinned new potatoes
1-1/2 tsp coarse ground black pepper
1 Tbsp grey salt or other sea salt
1-1/2 tsp fresh thyme or lemon thyme (leaves removed from stems and left whole)
2 Tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 450°F. Cut potatoes in half or thirds or quarters -- just make sure they are all approximately the same size. (Leave the skins on.) Place in a nonstick deep roasting pan, and add remaining ingredients. Toss with your hands, and distribute evenly in the pan. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, turn the potatoes, and roast for another 15 minutes or until the potatoes develop a nice crust on the cut sides. Serve warm.

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Grilled sirloin tips with asparagus
Pizza bianca
Salt and pepper prawns
Asparagus with miso-sesame sauce

Pimentón (smoked paprika), in Clean the Freezer Chili

A week of Spices That Make Your Food Sing. Day One.

By now, Top Chef is old hat.

(Of course you're watching it. We're all watching it. We're hooked. We don't want to be hooked on a reality show, but we are.)

If you've been with Top Chef for a while, you remember Season 2, the season when molecular gastronomy met traditional Spanish cuisine, the season of Sam-who-should-have-won, the season of Marcel vs. Ilan, the season of saffron and pimentón.

Until a couple of years ago, I'd never heard of pimentón, the smoked paprika from the La Vera region of southwestern Spain. Now, it's everywhere (Penzeys, McCormick, Spice House). So, how do you know which is the good stuff?

Is all pimentón smoked paprika? Yes.

Is all smoked paprika pimentón? No.

Smoked paprika is made by slowly smoking pimientos -- peppers -- over oak, which gives it a distinctive, husky aroma and flavor. The paprika can be mild or strong, depending on the variety of pimiento used. Small round peppers produce a dulce, or sweet, paprika; longer, dark red peppers make agridulce, a medium hot (often called bittersweet) paprika; and several types of long red chiles can become hot (picante) smoked paprika.

Pimentón de La Vera was the first chile pepper product to be granted a Denominacíon de Origen, or controlled name status, which means that other varieties of paprika cannot be called pimentón. The letters "D.O." on the label ensure that the product is made from peppers grown in the La Vera region and processed in the traditional way. If it doesn't have the D.O., it's probably not pimentón -- it's smoked paprika, from somewhere else.

In La Vera, peppers are harvested in the Fall and set out to dry in special drying houses, where they are placed on racks above oak fires, and turned once a day for two weeks. The peppers are then taken to mills to be stone-ground, slowly, to preserve as much of the flavor and color of the paprika as possible. Though parts of the process have been mechanized, much is still done by hand.

Each type of pimentón is used in a particular culinary arena: dulce pairs well with eggs, potatoes, rice, and fish; agridulce enhances smoked meats, beans, game dishes and stews; hot (picante) is best for winter soups, chorizo and octopus. In a pinch, you can substitute New Mexican ground red chile mixed with a bit of ground chipotle.

Most often packaged in tins to keep the light out, pimentón will last in your cupboard for up to two years, though once you've tried it with asparagus, roasted red pepper-tomato soup, penne with shrimp and arugula, tomato paella, herb jam with olives and lemon, grilled chicken Morocco or sprinkled atop deviled eggs, you'll be replenishing your supply more frequently.

Authentic Pimentón de La Vera is available in gourmet markets, and online from reliable sources like La Tienda.

MARY'S CLEAN THE FREEZER CHILI
I laughed and laughed when, last Spring, my friend Mary sent me the following recipe with the note, "I just made chili that was darned good. I thought that the list of ingredients was funny -- reflective of our imperfect pantry." Any pantry that can produce such a wonderful chili is a perfect pantry indeed! Of course I started checking my own freezer, cupboards and spice rack, to see how many of these things were in it. This recipe is the definition of Julia Child's favorite phrase, "proportions aren't terribly important." Improvise to your heart's content -- and empty your freezer now, before this summer's harvest begins.

Chopped onions and celery -- sautéed
Tempeh -- simmered in broth, then crumbled
Black beans
The last of last summer's roasted tomatoes
Ditto on the pesto
A good amount of mole sauce (at least a cup)
1/2 of a flat beer
Some OJ (orange juice)
A dash or two of balsamic vinegar
Celery seed
Oregano
Cumin
Dark chili powder
Ketchup (true!)
Smoked paprika (pimentón)

You know what to do -- throw everything into a pot, taste and taste again, and simmer until the flavors combine.

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Floribean chicken chili 
Vegetable paella with spicy garlic sauce
Chicken paella with slow-roasted tomatoes
Black bean soup 
Paella alla Valenciana

Other People's Pantries #14

A special pantry peek, from Diane and Todd, also known as White on Rice Couple, in Southern California:

On Saturdays, we peek into Other People's Pantries.

Come on -- show us your pantry.

Here's how.

 

Low-carb pasta, in Tex-Mex Penne

If you read about The Perfect Pantry in the Washington Post, and this is your first visit, welcome. This blog looks at what a professional food writer (me!) keeps in her refrigerator, freezer, cupboards and spice rack -- with a recipe for each item -- and the 23 things I absolutely, positively, have to have in my pantry. 

Wehd ya fine dat penny riggAHHHHduh?

When I first moved from Boston to Rhode Island, I didn't speak the language. Eight years later, I'm starting to catch on.

Where'd you find that penne rigate?

That's what the cashier at my local supermarket asked me as he scanned the box in the checkout line. It was the colorful-but-not-blue design (and, by the way, why do so many pastas come in blue boxes?) that caught the cashier's eye.

What caught my eye was the promise of a low-carb pasta that didn't have the texture of wallpaper paste or taste like wet cardboard.

Over the past few years, as more and more companies have jumped on the low-carbohydrate bandwagon, I've tasted some pretty dreadful products masquerading as healthy-and-delicious, so when Dreamfields pasta actually passed both the taste and texture tests, I gleefully restocked The Perfect Pantry's shelves.

Made from durum semolina flour, with no soy or substitutes, Dreamfields has all the good flavor of regular pasta. When cooked to the al dente stage, it's actually firm to the bite, with what chefs call "good mouth feel." And with just 5 grams of digestible carbohydrate per 2-ounce serving, it's low low low on the glycemic index -- a boon to diabetics, South Beach dieters, and anyone who has to keep an eye on the daily carb count.

How does Dreamfields succeed where other alternative pastas, billed as low-carb or high-fiber or "healthy", have failed?

Thank technology and ingenuity. According to the inventor of the manufacturing process by which most of this pasta's carbs become "protected" or non-digestible, it "involves molecular interactions that help block the enzyme from attacking the carbohydrate starch granule. It is not encapsulated. We have basically created the situation where there is a matrix more or less that has a tendency to attract the enzyme to the matrix and not the carbohydrate."

That doesn't sound terribly appetizing, but the result is a truly technology-forward pasta that will hold up to your most traditional recipes. With six shapes to choose from, you can substitute this pasta in turkey or chicken lasagna, penne with meat sauce, broccoli pesto spaghetti, tomato-parmesan rotini, artichoke and lemon linguine, or mac-and-cheese, and nobody will miss the extra carbs.

Dreamfields does cost more than other dry pastas; at my local supermarket, a 16-ounce box sells for $2.99, compared to DeCecco ($2.39), Barilla ($1.33 to $1.79), Ronzoni ($1.25), and the store's own brand ($1.20). But, in the case of carbs, I'm willing to pay a bit more to get a bit less.

If you ever make it to Rhode Island, stop by for some penny riggaduh smothered with home-made gravy (that's what we call marinara sauce), a local favorite.

TEX-MEX PENNE
A true pantry special, this recipe, great for potlucks, works best with a pasta that holds on to the sauce, like penne rigate (small quills, with the lines) or rotini (corkscrews). Serves 8; can be doubled, or made ahead and reheated.

1 lb pasta (penne rigate or rotini)
2 Tbsp vegetable or canola oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 lb ground turkey (you can substitute beef, but reduce oil to 1 Tbsp)
1 tsp ground cumin, or more to taste
1 tsp chili powder, or more to taste
1/2 tsp ground oregano
Pinch of hot red pepper flakes
1 4-oz can fire-roasted green chiles, drained
16 oz canned chopped tomato
2 cups water
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Store-bought shredded reduced-fat Mexican four-cheese blend, for topping (or other cheese of your choice)

Prepare the pasta according to package directions, until the pasta is still a bit undercooked but almost al dente. Drain and set aside.

AT THE SAME TIME, when you start the pasta water, prepare the sauce. In a large, deep sauté pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat, and cook the onion for 2 minutes, until translucent. Add the ground turkey, and cook, breaking up the pieces, until lightly browned. Add cumin, chili powder, oregano and red pepper flakes, and stir to combine. Add green chiles, canned tomato, water, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer. Cook, uncovered, until mixture has reduced to desired consistency, approximately 20-25 minutes. (If the sauce gets done before the pasta is cooked, remove the pot from the heat and set it aside; bring back to the heat when you're ready to add the pasta.)

Add the pasta into the sauce, and cook, stirring well, until the pasta and sauce have come together, 2-3 minutes. Either stir in the shredded cheese, or pour the pasta into a serving bowl and pass the cheese separately, for each person to add to taste.

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Rotini with spicy meat sauce
Farfalle with spinach and sausage
Falafel-turkey meatballs with pasta
Curried shrimp and pasta salad
Pasta with chunky vegetable sauce
Pasta puttanesca
Buddy Lasagna

Sesame seeds, with asparagus in miso sauce

If you read about The Perfect Pantry in the Washington Post, and this is your first visit, welcome. This blog looks at what a professional food writer (me!) keeps in her refrigerator, freezer, cupboards and spice rack -- with a recipe for each item -- and the 23 things I absolutely, positively, have to have in my pantry. 

Two things I don't usually do:

I don't usually write about an ingredient in The Perfect Pantry just because I have a new kitchen toy -- oops, tool -- to show you, even when it is an adorable red Japanese sesame seed grinder that looks a little bit like a Mummenschanz crossed with a Tinkertoy.

And, I don't usually give advice about love and relationships and dating and all that.

I don't. Usually. Except today.

Today, I am going to tell you how to choose your life partner.

Forget sense of humor, shared values, attraction, responsibility, respect.

What's really important is to find someone who understands that you (yes, you, and me, too) cannot have too many tools/ingredients/pots/bowls. That when your pantry grows to more than 200 items, the right thing to do is to build more shelves.

That when he is in New York City on business, and you email to him about a neat housewares store in SoHo, he should know instinctively that you are not just being chatty, that the right thing to do is to go to the store and purchase a few surprises for your kitchen, including a little red sesame seed grinder.

That is the person you want to live with forever and ever, the person for whom you will make Asian cabbage salad and fish sticks, peanut sesame noodles and saffron bread, peanut butter-black sesame cupcakes and zahtar plantains. And of course you will make tahini from scratch. (It will take forever and ever to do it with your little red sesame seed grinder, so use a food processor. Go ahead. The love of your life will not mind one bit.)

While you are cooking, you can tell your forever person so many interesting things about sesame seeds, which come from a flowering annual plant grown in India, China, Sudan, Ethiopia, Mexico, and the southwestern US. In addition to a nutty flavor and crunch, sesame seeds also contribute to good health. They are a source of manganese and copper, as well as calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorous, vitamin B1 and zinc. Plus, they're packed with sesamin and sesamolin, two beneficial fibers that may help lower cholesterol and control blood pressure.

You might mention that in the local Asian market, a 24-ounce bag of tan, black or white seeds sells for just $2.79, and that because sesame seeds are approximately 50 percent oil by weight, and tend to get rancid after a few months, they should be stored in the refrigerator.

Then, you can toast a few seeds in a dry frying pan for just a minute or two, to bring out the flavor, and sprinkle them on summer salads, noodle dishes, or a bowl of yogurt and fruit.

Or turn them into a sweet halvah, for the forever person who brought home the little red grinder.

ASPARAGUS WITH MISO-SESAME SAUCE
I can't resist a cookbook with mouthwatering photos, so when I saw Sur La Table's new Things Cooks Love, by Marie Simmons, on sale at Costco, I had to have it. The instructions for this dish call for grinding the sauce in a suribachi, but if you don't have one, use a mortar and pestle, or a cute Japanese grinding gizmo and a food processor. Perfect for the asparagus just coming into season here in Rhode Island, this recipe, slightly adapted from the book, serves 4, and can be doubled easily.

1 tsp tan or black sesame seeds
1 lb medium-width or fat asparagus, stems trimmed
1 Tbsp coarse sea salt

For the miso-sesame sauce:
2 Tbsp tan sesame seeds
2 Tbsp shiro (white) miso
3 Tbsp unseasoned rice vinegar

In a small, dry, nonstick frying pan, toast 1 tsp sesame seeds for 2 minutes over low heat, just until the seeds begin to brown slightly. Pour the seeds into a small bowl, and set aside for garnish.

Trim the woody ends of the asparagus and, if the spears are fat, use a vegetable peeler to remove some of the scales from the lower half.

Fill a large bowl with 2 quarts of water and a tray's worth of ice cubes, and set aside.

Fill a large saucepan with 2-3 quarts of water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the asparagus and sea salt, and cook for 2-3 minutes, depending on the size of the spears, until they are crisp-tender. Remove the asparagus with a spider or slotted spoon, and toss the spears into the bowl of ice water (this stops the cooking and sets the color). After 5 minutes, remove the asparagus and drain on a clean dish towel.

Make the sauce: Grind 2 Tbsp of sesame seeds in a cute little grinder gizmo, spice mill, or mortar and pestle. If using a mortar, add the miso and rice vinegar, a little at a time, and blend well. (Or you can toss it all into a mini food processor and blend to a nice consistency.)

Arrange the asparagus on a serving platter, and drizzle the sauce across the top. Garnish with the toasted sesame seeds, and serve chilled or at room temperature.

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Zahtar
Potato salad with sesame dressing
Traditional hummus