The Perfect Pantry

Cocoa powder (Recipe: cocoa-cumin-allspice rub)

Sometimes I uncover an item in my pantry that's a bit of mystery. I know I should have it. In fact, I'm never without it. I just don't know why.

Cocoa powder is the mystery du jour.

What, exactly, is cocoa powder? What makes some of it Dutch-processed? Is natural cocoa powder better, or just different?

Here's what I've learned.

Unsweetened cocoa powder results from the pressing of chocolate liquor to remove most of the cocoa butter. The remaining cocoa solids are processed to make a fine powder. There are two types: natural, and Dutch-processed.

In 1778, the Dutch brought cacao from the Philippines to Sumatra, where they established a propagation facility that enabled major production in the region. In 1828, Conrad van Hooten, a Dutch chemist, patented a technique for pressing most of the fat from roasted and crushed cocoa beans, improving the digestibility of the resulting powder. The addition of alkaline salts neutralized the acids in the cocoa, making it more easily soluble in liquids. This "Dutch cocoa", as it came to be called, has a mild flavor, and must be used with baking powder or other acidic ingredients.

Natural unsweetened cocoa powder is more intense in color and flavor; when used in a recipe that calls for baking soda (an alkali), it creates a leavening agent.

Though it's always best to use the type of cocoa powder specified in a recipe, in a pinch (ha ha) you can substitute one kind of cocoa powder for another:

• For 3 Tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa, substitute 3 Tbsp natural cocoa powder plus 1/8 tsp baking soda.
• For 3 Tbsp natural cocoa, substitute 3 Tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa plus 1/8 tsp cream of tartar or 1/8 tsp lemon juice or vinegar.

(At the moment, I happen to have Droste, a Dutch-processed brand, in the pantry. Other popular brands: Valrhona and Lindt. Some natural cocoa powder brands: Ghirardelli, Scharffen Berger, and good old Hershey's.)

We always think of cocoa as a sweetener, but unsweetened cocoa is an ancient food that features in the cuisines of Brazil, Mexico (think molé), and other countries in the cacao-growing bands a few degrees north and south of the Equator.

COCOA-CUMIN-ALLSPICE RUB
The surprise hit of the #1 Cooking Group's recent cooking session on dry rubs and wet mops. We rubbed this on venison tenderloins and cooked them on the grill. Oh, baby! Adapted from Cooks Illustrated. Makes about 1/3 cup.

1    Tbsp unsweetened cocoa
4    tsp ground cumin
2    tsp ground allspice
4    tsp black peppercorns
2    tsp kosher salt

Grind all ingredients in a dedicated spice grinder (don't use your coffee mill) or mortar until no whole peppercorns remain.

Pine nuts (Recipe: toasted piñon shortbread)

Wahooooooo!

After the soggiest, cloudiest, buggiest Spring and early Summer here in rural Rhode Island, my basil plants have perked up. In fact, they're in need of a trim, and that means pesto, and that means pine nuts.

Or pignoli.

Or piñon.

Or pinocchi, pinhao, pinolos, pinoccoli ....

Whatever you call them, pine nuts are the edible seeds of pine trees: European stone pine, Colorado and Mexican pinyon, and Korean pine, which provide most of what's found in our markets. It takes 15-25 years for a tree to begin producing seeds. They are picked from the ground, taken from squirrel caches, or extracted by hand from the cones — a costly harvesting process that explains the high price of pine nuts.

The high oil content of pine nuts (all nuts, really) means they will turn rancid quickly if not stored properly, especially when you buy them shelled, as most of us do. Keep nuts in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a month, or in the freezer for several months. Though pine nuts can be eaten raw, they have better flavor when toasted for 2-3 minutes in a dry frying pan until just slightly golden.

Pine nuts pack a nutritional wallop, too, containing approximately 31 grams of protein per 100 grams of nuts, the highest of any nut or seed.

I haven't tried making Pine Nut Aphrodisiac Soup, or Todd English's recipe for Pine Nut Coated Octopus with Tomato Tapenade, but fresh pesto made with good-quality pine nuts, real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, fruity olive oil, and basil pulled right from the garden makes me swoon. And that's the recipe* I was going to share with you, until I found this one:

TOASTED PIÑON SHORTBREAD
Adapted from Williams-Sonoma's New American Cooking. Makes 30 cookies.

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup piñon nuts or other pine nuts
1-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of kosher salt
1 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into Tbsp-sized pieces

Preheat oven to 300°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, nuts, cinnamon and salt. Pulse 10 times to combine the ingredients and to coarsely chop the nuts. Add the butter and process until the mixture just comes together into a ball. (The dough may be wrapped and refrigerated at this point for up to 2 days.) On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough 1/2-inch thick. Using a 2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out the cookies. Reroll the scraps, and cut out more cookies until the dough is used up. Place cookies on the baking sheet, and put the baking sheet in the refrigerator or freezer to chill for 1 hour. (The cookies may be frozen  on the tray at this point, then transferred to a plastic bag; they will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.) Bake the cookies, in batches, until slightly puffed and firm but not browned, approx. 45 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a rack and let cool for 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies to the rack and let cool completely.

*And here's the pesto, because it's too good not to share.

BASIL PESTO
Eat this with someone you love. Makes enough to sauce 1-1/2 lbs pasta, or use as a sandwich spread.

2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup fresh pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Place basil, nuts, garlic, salt and pepper in a food processor and pulse until chopped. With the machine running, add olive oil in a stream until desired consistency is achieved. Stir in the cheese. Serve right away, or cover and refrigerate for up to three days. Can be frozen.

Thyme (Recipe: frittata with broccoli and garden herbs)

Of all the four food groups — parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme — my favorite is thyme.

Not because wearing it in your hair is said to make a woman irresistible. Not because it's supposed to ward off nightmares and negativity, and encourage good health. Not even because Titania, Queen of the Fairies, slept in a bed of thyme, though that does sound delightfully indulgent. 

None of the above. I just love the taste.

And, okay, the irresistible-to-men thing would be a pretty good reason to keep thyme in the pantry.

A bushy evergreen native to the Mediterranean, thyme features in the cuisines of France and Spain, of course, but also in Mexico and Latin America, and in Creole and Cajun cooking. It's often used in New England clam chowder, near and dear to my heart. Thyme's woodsy aroma combines well with potatoes, onions, mushrooms, eggs, tomatoes, and beef.

In my garden, I grow common English thyme, T. vulgaris, and lemon thyme, T. citriodorus. The lemon thyme is particularly lovely with chicken and fish, and in French potato salad (the kind that has no mayonnaise). I'd like to try conehead thyme (T. Capitatus), also called za'atar farsi, or Persian thyme. I've never seen the plants at any of the local herb farms, but it's the most widely used thyme in Middle East cuisine, and it's available in dried form at specialty markets.

Here in the Northeast, it's tomato season, and I make huge batches of slow-roasted tomatoes with thyme and garlic. I freeze them to use in sauces and stews throughout the winter. This works with any type of ripe tomato, and it's a method more than a recipe: Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut tomatoes in half lengthwise and place cut side up on a rimmed sheet pan. Sprinkle generously with minced garlic and fresh thyme, coarse salt and fresh-ground black pepper. Drizzle olive oil over all. Place in the oven for an hour or more, until the tomatoes nearly collapse. Pack into containers, and fill with the accumulated tomato juices and olive oil from the pan.

When I first started growing herbs, my husband Ted made a drying frame. He scrounged an old screen window, and tacked another piece of screening on it so I can sandwich the herbs between the screen panels and let them air dry. I love using my home-grown dried thyme leaf in the winter, when the herb garden is covered with snow.

FRITTATA WITH BROCCOLI AND GARDEN HERBS
My editor at Rhode Island Monthly is coming for lunch with a fellow food writer, and I'll make a salad with lettuce and tomatoes from Moosup River Farm, and this frittata with thyme, basil and parsley from the garden. Serves 4, which means I can have it for lunch again tomorrow.

8 eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup milk, cream, or water
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, cut in half, sliced thin
1/3 lb broccoli florets, chopped fine
2 tsp minced fresh thyme, or 1 tsp dried
2 tsp minced fresh parsley
2 tsp minced fresh basil
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

In a bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and pepper, and set aside.

In an oven-proof, medium size, nonstick frying pan, heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add onion and broccoli, and sauté until both are cooked through, approx. 5 minutes. Add herbs, and stir to combine. Spread mixture evenly over the bottom of the frying pan, and pour the egg mixture over the top. Turn heat to low, and cover the pan. Cook for approx. 8 minutes, checking every now and then to make sure the eggs are not burning. (While the eggs are cooking, preheat the broiler.) From time to time, lift an edge and let the uncooked egg from the top run underneath. When the eggs are nearly set, remove the cover, turn off the heat. Sprinkle cheese evenly over the top, and place under the broiler for 2 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and the edges of the frittata are beginning to brown slightly. Let sit for 5 minutes before slicing. Serve hot, room temperature, or cold.

Miracle Whip (Recipe: wild rice salad)

Strangers are about to learn a dirty little secret my family has known for years.

I eat Miracle Whip (gasp!).

In fact, I like it better than real mayonnaise (gasp!).

My favorite thing is to smoosh up Season sardines, mix in some Miracle Whip, and scoop it up on wheat crackers (gasp, gasp!). I learned this from my dad. My cousin Martin used to ship the sardines to me from Maryland (no other brand will do, just like no other mayo will do), because until recently I couldn't find them here. Finding the Miracle Whip was never a problem.

Invented at Max Crosset's Cafe in Salem, Illinois, Miracle Whip was originally called Max Crossett's X-tra Fine Salad Dressing. Crosset sold his formula to Kraft Foods in 1931 for $300.

A patented "emulsifying machine" helped produce a uniform blend of existing mayonnaise products and less expensive salad dressing. The machine, informally called "Miracle Whip" by inventor Charles Chapman, ensured that pre-measured ingredients could continuously enter the appliance and become thoroughly whipped and blended.

Kraft introduced its new product at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933, with the tagline "Salad Miracles with Miracle Whip Salad Dressing." It was an instant success.

While Miracle Whip is not an all-natural product, the list of ingredients contains nothing I can't identify: water, soybean oil, vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, modified food starch, egg yolks, salt, mustard flour, artificial color, potassium sorbate as a preservative, spice, paprika, natural flavor, dried garlic. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? And from a nutrition standpoint, it's actually a lower-fat alternative to mayonnaise, with no trans fat and only 1 gram of carbs per tablespoon.

In junior high school, my friends and I used Miracle Whip as a hair conditioner, and for facials (gaspgaspgasp!).

I grew up with Miracle Whip, and I guess I'll never outgrow it.

WILD RICE SALAD
This isn't really a salad, and it's not made with real wild rice. It was a favorite with our kids when they were young, and now our grandsons love it, too. A great way to get children to eat some vegetables. Use instant rice and a rotisserie chicken, and this meal comes together in less than 10 minutes. Serves 4.

1 box Uncle Ben's Instant Long Grain & Wild Rice, prepared according to package directions
2 Kirby cucumbers, or 1/2 of a long seedless cuke, diced
2 medium tomatoes, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 large green pepper, diced
1/2 lb roasted chicken breast, skin removed, diced (a rotisserie chicken from the market works well, or use leftovers)
1/4 cup Miracle Whip (or mayonnaise)
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Black pepper, to taste

Combine first six ingredients in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix Miracle Whip and mustard. Add to the rice mixture, and season with black pepper to taste. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Green olives with pimiento (Recipe: tapenade)

"Shaken, not stirred." Quick — name the dashing spy whose signature drink is a vodka martini garnished with a green olive with pimiento.

It's James Bond, of course, in all of his incarnations (though I confess that Sean Connery's Agent 007 makes my heart go pitter-patter).

You've got to admire the person who first thought to stuff a bit of red pimiento into a green olive — tangy, tasty, color-coordinated... I haven't been able to find out who invented the stuffed olive, but it's likely that the idea originated in Spain, which produces both olives and peppers.

Freshly picked (green) olives are incredibly bitter. To render them palatable, they're soaked in an alkaline solution to remove bitter tannins, then in water to leach out impurities, and finally in a salt brine, where they ferment. When the pH drops to 3.7 and the lactic acid exceeds 5%, the olives are ready for bottling.

Balancing out the tartness of the olive, sweet red pepper (pimiento in Spanish) makes an ideal stuffing. After harvesting, the peppers are placed in brine, then ground and mixed with gelling agents to make a reconstituted paste. The paste is cut and formed into ribbons that look like strips of real pepper, and fed into pitting and stuffing machines. The machines pit the olives, cut the pimiento to fit, and stuff them — at the rate of more than 1,000 per hour.

Just for fun, because I had both green olives and a can of piquillo peppers in my pantry, I tried stuffing them by hand.

Turns out I can wriggle little pieces of pimiento into 30 olives in an hour ... but I can go to the grocery store, buy a giant jar of stuffed olives, and be back in my kitchen in under 30 minutes.

TAPENADE
Use this flavorful mixture on grilled fish or chicken, or spread on fresh mozzarella, tomato and arugula sandwiches.

2 15-oz cans pitted black olives
1 16-oz jar green olives with red pimiento, whole or chopped
1 Tbsp capers
2 large cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbsp olive oil
Large pinch of kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

Couldn’t be easier. Put everything in a food processor and pulse until olives are minced and all ingredients are combined. Add additional olive oil if desired to achieve a smoother texture.

Sherbet/sorbet (Recipe: lemons stuffed with sherbet)

It's too darn hot
It's too darn hot
I like to sup with my baby tonight
Refill the cup with my baby tonight
But I ain't up to my baby tonight
'cause it's too darn hot

(Excerpted from Cole Porter's hit song from the 1948 Broadway show, Kiss Me Kate.)

Lately, it's been too darn hot to cook.

Thank goodness for a well-stocked pantry! Last weekend, friends were coming for dinner, and I needed to create a dessert. I could have offered everybody one of the sugar-free ice pops to which I'm hopelessly addicted, but, even on the hottest days, I can summon the energy to make something a bit more glamorous, which is why there's always good quality sherbet or sorbet in my freezer.   

Sherbet and sorbet share an etymology; both derive from the Turkish word serbat, which means "drink." What they don't share is milk — sherbet has it and sorbet doesn't, which makes sorbet a good vegan alternative. By law, sherbet must have between 1% and 2% milkfat; if the fat content is higher, it must be sold as ice cream; if no milk, it's called sorbet. Because it contains milk, sherbet freezes and melts more slowly than sorbet, but otherwise usually is interchangeable in recipes.

Our current favorite freezer staple — and I can't, by law, call it either sherbet or sorbet — is a local product. Gaga SherBetter, sold all along the East Coast, is too creamy to be called sherbet, and not "fat" enough to be called ice cream.

Sometimes, when it's too darn hot, I toss a large dollop of Gaga on top of fresh fruit salad, stick a mint leaf in the top, and call it a day. When I have time, and company coming, I like to make Gaga-stuffed lemons or oranges.

In Australia, a sherbet is a beer. So, whether you drink it or eat it with a spoon, bring on that cold sherbet, 'cause it's too darn hot.

LEMONS STUFFED WITH SHERBET
Easy and elegant, and you can vary the recipe by mixing in fresh blueberries. Or, do this with oranges and orange sherbet. Or use half lemon or orange sherbet, and half chocolate sorbet. You get the idea. Make one per person. This recipe serves 4.

4 lemons
1 pint Gaga Lemon SherBetter, or sherbet or sorbet of your choice
4 sprigs of fresh mint, for garnish

Slice a small bit off one end of the lemon, to leave a hole large enough for a spoon to fit in. With a paring knife, trim the opposite end just so the lemon will stand up. Hollow out the inside of the lemon. Fill with sherbet or sorbet. Return it to the freezer for at least an hour, or until ready to serve. Garnish with fresh mint leaves.

Flour tortillas (Recipe: roasted halibut tacos with mango salsa)

According to Mayan legend, tortillas may have been invented more than 10,000 years BCC (before carbs counted).

Back then, tortillas were made of corn or maize cured in lime water (to release niacin and tryptophan), ground on a metate, kneaded into a dough called masa nixtamalera, pressed flat into thin patties, and cooked on a very hot comal (griddle). Flour tortillas are a relatively recent innovation, dating from the 16th Century.

Corn tortillas fresh from the tortilleria (tortilla factory) are the best; homemade tortillas, made with a press and comal, take a close second; but in The Perfect Pantry I keep a stash of versatile flour tortillas in my fridge or freezer.

Flour tortillas taste a bit bland, and that's a good thing. I've used them for wraps (filled with BBQ chicken, or roasted vegetables), for breakfast burritos (filled with hot-sauce laced scrambled eggs), for Asian salad rolls (filled with cold noodles, lettuce, sambal and mint), and of course for quesadillas (filled with cheese and anything you can imagine). I dry toast them — no oil — which keeps them light and clean-tasting.

It's easy, even in my somewhat rural part of New England, to find flour tortillas in the supermarket, in a range of sizes (6-10 inches, and sometimes larger), and colors (spinach- and sun-dried-tomato flavored tortillas add color as well as flavor). And no wonder — tortillas outsell all other ethnic breads (bagels, pita, etc.).

Flour tortillas have nearly double the calories and a third more carbs than corn tortillas. Those of us watching our carbs welcome the arrival of low-carb wheat tortillas. They're a bit more delicate than the regular flour tortillas, so don't fill them too far ahead of when you want to serve.

ROASTED HALIBUT TACOS WITH MANGO SALSA
This recipe, adapted from one Chef Eve Formisano shared with a Ninecooks class last year, is a summer winner. Serves 4; can be doubled, tripled, etc.

1 lb halibut steak, approximately 1” thick, bone in
8 leaves of bibb or other soft lettuce, trimmed
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
8 6” flour tortillas of your choice (plain, spinach, etc.)
Hot sauce (optional)

Make mango salsa (see below) and set aside. 

Heat oven to 400°F. Place halibut on a rack in roasting pan (directly on pan  also works), drizzle each side with olive oil and season each side with salt and pepper. Roast approx. 4 minutes per side. It will pull easily from the bone when done. Break up fish into small chunks and place in a separate bowl or plate, pouring any remaining pan juice over the fish. Roll up lettuce leaves and cut across into 1/8” chiffonade, or leave whole. Just before serving, place tortillas on oven rack to warm — about 1 to 1-1/2 minutes. Assemble with lettuce, fish and salsa. Have hot sauce on hand.


Mango Salsa
Yield: 2-1/2 cups
Adapted from: Miami Spice by Steve Raichlen

2 cups diced ripe mango (1 mango = approx. 1 cup)
1 cucumber,  peeled, seeded and diced
1/2 poblano chili, seeded and minced (optional)
1 jalapeno chili, seeded and minced
2 tsp minced fresh ginger, or more to taste
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint or cilantro
1 Tbsp light brown sugar, or to taste
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl and gently toss to mix. Correct the seasoning, adding salt, lime juice or sugar to taste. The salsa should be a little sweet and a little sour. Mango salsa tastes best served a couple of hours after making. Refrigerate, covered, until serving.

Peanut butter (Recipe: spicy Chinese peanut sauce)

If peanuts aren't nuts (they're legumes, like peas and lentils), and peanut butter isn't butter, how did peanut butter get its name?

Inquiring minds want to know.

In 1890, an unknown St. Louis physician supposedly encouraged the owner of a food products company, George A. Bayle Jr., to process and package ground peanut paste as a nutritious protein substitute for people with poor teeth who couldn't chew meat. Around that time, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in Battle Creek, Michigan, began experimenting with ground peanuts as a vegetarian source of protein for his patients. His brother, W.K. Kellogg (yep, the cereal guy), was business manager of their sanitarium, the Western Health Reform Institute, but soon opened Sanitas Nut Company, which supplied foods like ground peanut paste to local grocery stores. The Kelloggs' patent for the "Process of Preparing Nut Meal" in 1895 described "a pasty adhesive substance that is for convenience of distinction termed nut butter."

C.H. Sumner introduced peanut butter to the world at the Universal Exposition of 1904 (World's Fair) in St. Louis, and in 1922, Joseph L. Rosefield began selling in California a product that was churned like butter so it was smoother than the gritty peanut butters of that time. By 1928 Swift & Company had brought Peter Pan to market.

Except for a stabilizer here and there, peanut butter hasn't changed much in the past century. It contains, by law, a minimum of 90% peanuts, with no artificial sweeteners, colors or preservatives. Some brands add natural sweeteners and salt, plus a stabilizer to keep the peanut butter fresh and the oil from separating. "Old-fashioned" or "natural" peanut butter does not have the stabilizer, so the oil does separate and should be stirred back in before using.

A few more things inquiring minds wanted to know about peanut butter:

• Americans eat three pounds of peanut butter per person per year — enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon, though I can't imagine why we'd want to do that.
• Peanut shells are used in kitty litter, wallboard, fireplace logs, paper, animal feed, and sometimes as fuel for power plants.
• Two peanut farmers have been elected President of the US: Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.
• One acre of peanuts will make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches.
• March 1 is National Peanut Butter Lovers Day.

SPICY CHINESE PEANUT SAUCE
Warning: this sauce is addictive! Based on a recipe from Nina Simonds' Asian Noodles, one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. Double the recipe and keep it on hand in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, though I doubt it will last that long. Great for dipping Vietnamese salad rolls, slices of cucumber, or grilled chicken. Thin with a few Tbsp of water to use as a dressing for noodle salads. Makes 3-1/2 cups.

1-inch thick slice fresh ginger, peeled and cut in half
10 large cloves garlic, peeled
2 tsp chili paste with garlic, or more or less to taste
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup soy sauce
7 Tbsp sugar (or equivalent sugar substitute)
7 Tbsp Chinese black vinegar (or Worcestershire sauce)
6 Tbsp toasted sesame oil (the kind you get in Asian groceries — I use Maruhon brand)
10 Tbsp water

In a food processor with a metal blade (or in a blender), finely chop ginger and garlic. Add remaining ingredients in the order listed and process until smooth. It should be the consistency of heavy cream. If too thick, add more water. If too thin, add more peanut butter. Keep in the fridge in a covered container.

Garam masala (Recipe: mint chutney)

What happens when a good-for-nothing handsome hunk like Mac finds himself in possession of an empty flat and access to three gorgeous air hostesses, Priti, Sweety and Puja? I have no idea, but you will, if you settle in with Garam Masala — a 2005, three-hour, Bollywood movie extravaganza! Indian movies that combine song and dance, love triangles, drama, comedy, and daredevil thrills are called masala movies, because, like masalas — spice blends — they are a mixture of many things.

Visit one hundred kitchens in India, and you'll find one hundred different versions of garam masala, the spice mixture at the heart of northern Indian and Pakistani cooking.

One of the few spice blends used in Indian cooking, garam masala is pungent but not spicy-hot, and it's usually added at the end of the cooking to bring an extra burst of flavor to the dish. Most often made of whole spices that are toasted and then used whole or ground, garam masala varies from one cook to the next, and from one spice seller to another.

Currently I have Penzeys' version of garam masala on my spice rack. Penzeys uses a "recipe" brought to them by a customer who grew up in the Punjab; it contains coriander, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, kalonji, caraway, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. Garam masala can have as few as three ingredients, or as many as a dozen or more.

In every kitchen, the masala dabba, a spice box with two lids to keep the contents fresh, holds the key to the family's culinary traditions and memories — and it holds little containers for seven ingredients that combine and recombine to make the masalas and curries that are a cook's trademark.

By the way, a masala dabba can hold any combination of spices in your own kitchen, even if you don't do a lot of Indian cooking. Mine occasionally has Latin flavors — cumin, chili powder, pepper, oregano, etc. — or baking spices like cinnamon, ground cloves, and cardamom.

And if you're settling in for that three-hour movie, you could fill the little containers in the masala dabba with M&Ms, peanuts, or jelly beans.

MINT CHUTNEY
In a wonderful store in Assonet, Massachusetts, that specializes in rare and used cookbooks, I found a book humbly titled Indian Cooking, by Savitri Chowdhary, published in London in 1954. There's an abundance of mint in my herb garden at the moment, so this recipe caught my eye as I paged through the book. The author's charming measuring system leaves much to the cook's discretion. Serves 5.

6 medium-sized spring onions
1 teacupful ready-to-use mint
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 medium-sized minced green chiles or 1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 Tbsp dried pomegranate seeds (anardana)
1 dessertspoonful ground mango or 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Wash the onions, throwing away only the tough green leaves. Wash the mint under running water, and mince these two things and the fresh green chiles together. Put them in a mortar, add salt, sugar and garam masala and crush for several minutes with the pestle. Take out and place aside on a plate. Sort and rinse the dried pomegranate seeds, and crush them in the mortar separately, then put the half-prepared chutney back in the mortar and crush and mix thoroughly. Lastly add the ground mango or lemon juice and mix once again. Transfer to a glass dish and serve.

Mint chutney will keep for a day or two, but is tastier when freshly made.

No-boil lasagna noodles (Recipe: Buddy Lasagna)

I came to lasagna late in life.

During my freshman year in high school, I met Paula, my very first first-generation Italian-American friend. Her mother introduced all of my teen crowd to robust meat-sauce-laden lasagna, and for years I made it her way, with curly-edged pasta rectangles that are parboiled, and a bit slithery. The arrival in the marketplace of no-boil lasagna noodles took the slither out, earning this item a place in The Perfect Pantry.

Although I prefer the flat-edged Barilla brand, those curled borders on most noodles do have a purpose; they act like little retaining walls, holding the sauce in the lasagna. I've also tried Ronzoni, which are pleated like accordions when dry, and relax when cooked. Use whichever brand you prefer.

Here's a bit of interesting lasagna history, from the folks at De Cecco:

Lasagna probably comes from the Latin lagana (which in turn was the Greek laganon, meaning "big flat pasta sheet sliced in strips"). The first evidence of its current use as lasagna comes from the verses of 12th Century Italian poets. "The peppercorn wins/in virtue of the lasagna" Jacopone da Todi wrote, whereas Cecco Angiolieri reproached his readers by saying: "who makes lasagne with other people's flouer/ has nor walls nor moat around his castle".

Though some recipes call for soaking the no-boil noodles in warm water, I interpret no-boil to mean no-fuss, and I use them straight out of the box unless I'm making something that calls for rolled pasta, in which case the noodles do need to be softened. They're much thinner than regular lasagna noodles, and therefore absorb enough liquid from the sauce to "cook" them completely without parboiling — proving once again that there is no such thing as too thin.

BUDDY LASAGNA
Named after Providence’s infamous mayor, Buddy Cianci, who created a darned good vegetarian marinara sauce, the sale of which benefits programs for public schools. This is an entirely-from-the-pantry recipe that’s become a family favorite, and it's great for potlucks, too. Serves 8.

24 oz part-skim ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 package no-boil lasagna noodles
1-1/4 jars (approximately 35 oz) Mayor’s Own Marinara Sauce (or your favorite bottled or homemade sauce)
2 12-oz packages part-skim mozzarella cheese, sliced 1/4-inch thick
1 cup grated fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine ricotta, egg, nutmeg and black pepper in a small bowl. In a 9x13 baking pan,  begin the assembly: spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom. Top with a layer of the dry noodles (you make need to break some to fit them neatly in one layer), then plops of ricotta here and there (use 1/3 of the cheese). Add plops of sauce here and there (use 1/3 of the sauce), top with a layer of 1/3 of the mozzarella. Then again: noodles, ricotta, sauce, mozzarella. Then a third time. Finally, add a fourth layer of noodles,  and spread the remaining sauce on the noodles. Top with the parmesan cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover, and bake 10 minutes more. Remove from the oven and allow lasagna to rest for 5-10 minutes before serving.