The Perfect Pantry®

Recipe for Zanzibar tandoori grilled turkey breast

When my husband Ted traveled to Tanzania last summer to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, he ended his trip with a few days of rest and relaxation on the island of Zanzibar, famous as a crossroads of the spice trade. And because Ted has lived with me for a whole lot of years, he never once considered not taking a tour of a spice farm. For months I've been having fun cooking from the packets of curry powders, cumin, ginger, nutmeg, and more that Ted bought from Butterfly Farm. This Zanzibar tandoori grilled turkey recipe pays homage to the Indian, Arabic and African fusion cuisine on the island. Tandoori masala, which you can find in Indian markets, colors the marinade a beautiful pinkish-red, and my photos don't do justice to the resulting color of the grilled turkey. Make friends with your butcher, and ask him (or her) to butterfly the turkey breast for you. Then, serve with some homemade tomato nectarine chutney or dried cranberry and pear chutney, and imagine yourself on a Zanzibar beach at sunset, watching the dhows float across the horizon. Oh, my.

Slow cooker soy-braised chicken recipe

Halfway through the cooking time for this soy-braised chicken, as the aroma filled the kitchen and spilled out into the living room, I began to have regrets. I regretted finding only one package of chicken thighs in the freezer. I regretted not doubling the recipe. I regretted offering to share what I did make with my husband Ted. I want you to make this dish, without feeling the way I felt, so please, pull out your 4- or 5-quart slow cooker and double, triple or quadruple the recipe. Most everything you need is already in your well-stocked pantry. Serve the chicken warm, over rice, or wrap it in lettuce leaves or in a spring roll, with shredded lettuce and bean sprouts. Just be sure to cook enough chicken. You won't regret it.

Recipe for teriyaki turkey meatballs with cabbage and ramen noodles

Ramen gets a bad rap. Too many college dorms, too many hot plates, too many quick and cheap dinners on the run between classes. This dish of teriyaki turkey meatballs with cabbage and ramen noodles is not the packet-o'-soup food we boiled up in our frugal college days, though the noodles are the same. In this recipe, low-fat turkey meatballs take center stage, and cabbage cooked in with the noodles bathe in a sweet and salty sauce. With the exception of the meat and cabbage, all of the ingredients in this dish come straight from your pantry; you can substitute spaghetti or angel hair pasta for the ramen. At the beginning of the year, I try to eat foods that are a bit lighter, and this ramen dish fits into a healthy eating plan. Also, it's just plain good food.

Szechuan peppercorns (Recipe: salt and pepper prawns)

First published in August 2006, this updated pantry ingredient post features new photos, links, and a few tweaks to the recipe. Spicy and salty, these large shrimp make a tantalizing appetizer to serve with cocktails, or as part of a larger Chinese banquet. Be warned: salt and pepper prawns are highly (and delightfully) addictive.

File this under "explorations in an ethnic market where you don't speak the language and can't read the package labels and you've wandered up and down the aisles and looked and looked and know what you want is somewhere in the store but you cannot find it."

So you ask everyone in the market, which by the way is in Boston's Chinatown, "Do you have szechuan peppercorns?" Blank stares. You try different pronounciations — sesh-wan, setch-wan, setch-u-on. Pep-per-corn. Pep-pah (the Boston dialect).

Nobody speaks English.

Nobody understands your pantomime.

Fair enough. After all, you are the only one there who doesn't speak the language.

Frustrated but determined, you ask your husband Ted to bring his Chinese friend Margaret to the market to search for these peppercorns. A few days later on their lunch break, they go -- but they come home empty-handed, too. Which, frankly, makes you feel a teensy bit better.

This is a true story, by the way. It happened in 1998.