The Perfect Pantry®

Kosher salt (Recipe: Moroccan eggplant salad)

Is kosher salt, the darling of chefs and cookbook authors, just another flaky food fashion?

Is it saltier than table salt, better for health or baking or taste?

Is all kosher salt the same?

Is it even kosher?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Brown sugar (Recipe: Irish soda bread)

We have an elementary school science teacher in the family, so there is no excuse for the ignorance I am about to confess to you.

A few months ago, Ted and I found a jar of hard-as-a-rock brown sugar on the shelves of The Perfect Pantry. (This is not the embarrassing part. Well, okay, it is embarrassing, but not from a science point of view.)

How could we get that solid sugar out of the jar? Chip away at it with a knife? Dangerous. Melt it in the microwave? Hot sugar — very dangerous.

And then I remembered that there was something which, when placed in a jar of hardened sugar, would restore the sugar's moisture and fluffiness.

Shao hsing wine (Recipe: stir-fried garlic lettuce)

SHAO, pronounced shou (as in ouch).

HSING, pronounced shing.

Shou shing wine. Shao hsing wine.

Voila!

As a rule, you shouldn't cook with any wine you wouldn't drink, and you should never ever buy cooking wine in the supermarket. And yet, here I am, telling you do that, to buy Chinese shao hsing (or shao xing) wine, because without it you will never be able to recreate authentic Chinese dishes.

A Big Apple Bookworm

Born in my home town of New York City, Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook is this week's Bookworm in the Pantry . On her wonderful, relatively young blog, you're as likely to find recipes for Ethiopian doro wat as for Mexican salsa verde. Susan and her husband, Scott, who also cooks from time to time, can be found at their dinner table in the metro New York area, discussing everything from politics to Pop Tarts!

UPDATE. Susan recommended:

• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
• Feeding a Yen: Savoring Local Specialties, from Kansas City to Cuzco
• Girl with a Pearl Earring
• The Van
• The Dead
  

Browse through the eclectic library of previous Bookworm recommendations here.

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, at least through mid-June.

Want to be a Bookworm in the Pantry? Start here.