The Perfect Pantry

Frozen chicken breasts (Recipe: chicken with mango barbecue sauce)

Adapted, in part, from an archived post, with new recipe, photos and links.

Today I'm planning to bare my breasts.

Fear not, my breasts are absolutely G-rated, and they are an essential part of my culinary arsenal. More than any other food product, boneless, skinless frozen chicken breasts are the save-my-bacon ingredient I turn to week in and week out, whether I need to create a meal in a hurry or I'm cooking for a crowd.

Coconut milk (Recipe: chicken satay)

Eight things I know about coconut milk (you'll be glad to know them, too):

Sambal oelek (Recipe: Kartoom croquettes)

A week of ingredients featured in kid-friendly recipes from the Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook by Georgeanne Brennan. Parts of this post come from our archives, with new photos, links and recipe. Welcome to Dr. Seuss Week, Day Three.

In a former life, I must have been Asian. Or Cajun. Or Trinidadian.

The proof is in my pantry.

In the cupboards, on the spice rack, and most definitely in the refrigerator, I have every imaginable form of heat: chili paste with garlic, chili sauce, ground chile, red chile, Thai chile peppers, cayenne peppers, dried habanero, sriracha, harissa, sambal oelek and salsa verde, and hot sauces ranging from Rhode Island Red to Dave's Insanity to Hotter Than Hell.

Syrian spice, a Pantry Special (Recipe: chicken shish kabob)

Pantry Specials are great ingredients that find their way into my pantry from time to time, but not all the time. In this occasional series of short posts, you'll find information and recipes for foods that might not be on your local supermarket's shelves, but are available online. 

Syrian spice, Syrian allspice, Arabic spice, baharat: what's in a name? The basic ingredients in the Syrian version of this popular North African spice blend -- black peppercorns, allspice berries, cinnamon and nutmeg -- can be enhanced with a bit of sumac, cumin, cardamom, cassia or cinnamon, paprika, cloves, rose petals, dried lime, saffron or mint. A rich and peppery (spicy, not hot) mix, Syrian spice makes a delicious rub for grilled chicken, or the base of a flavorful dip for roasted vegetables. My local Middle Eastern market blends its own, letting the pungent, complex flavor of allspice take center stage. I love it.

Discos (Recipe: empanadas filled with chicken picadillo)

Olé Olé Week, Day Two.

To give credit where credit is due, my husband Ted discovered discos.

Not the John Travolta, dancing queen, glitter ball kind of discos.

The take 'em out of the freezer, stuff 'em and bake 'em, empanadas don't get any easier than this kind.

Tamarind (Recipe: Mozambique chicken)

Guest post and photos by Peter in Brazil, chef and co-owner of Pousada do Capão

We lunched at Al Arabe Lebanese Restaurant last week during our routine weekly shopping junket to Diamantina. A cold, tall glass of tart tamarind juice, over ice and lightly sweetened with brown sugar, was just what I needed to take the edge off the noonday heat. And it was the perfect accompaniment to a plate of Ahmed’s meat kibbeh and delicious fatoosh salad.

As we returned to the center of town to finish up a few errands before heading home to São Gonçalo, I couldn’t resist buying some tamarind pods from a street vendor, whose wheelbarrow was brimming with not only tamarind, but also mangoes, okra, araticum, pequi, and other delicacies of the cerrado.

Usually I write about my pantry items that are native to Brazil and were globalized with the help of the Portuguese and Spanish explorers. Tamarind, on the other hand, is native to Africa and subsequently was naturalized all over the tropical world by colonizers and traders.

Its uses run the gamut from dyestuff to laxative to cattle fodder to furniture-making, but today I'll stick to its culinary appeal.

Ketchup (Recipe: barbecue sauce)

At any time, more than fifty bottles and jars and tubes, fancy and oh-so-ordinary, jostle against each other in my refrigerator door.

Condiments come and condiments go, but some are forever, like hot dog mustard and mayonnaise (well, this stuff), soy sauce and oyster sauce, chili paste with garlic and harissa.

And ketchup.

I'm never, ever without ketchup. Not just because it is the only acceptable adornment for a perfect burger, but because there's so much more you can do with it.

Ground coriander (Recipe: curried turkey meatballs)

A favorite post from the earliest days of The Perfect Pantry, updated with new photos, recipe and links.

Once upon a time...

Our granddaughter Sabina knows that all good stories begin this way.

Once upon a time, the Sultan Schahriah, who had caught his sultana cheating on him, resolved to marry a different woman every day -- and to have her beheaded on the following morning, so no wife could ever get the chance to be unfaithful to him again.

(Sound familiar? It's the premise of The Thousand and One Arabian Nights.)

Scheherezade, daughter of the Grand Vizier, begged to become his next wife, so she could put a stop to this nonsense. To forestall her own death and the death of any other unlucky bride, she crafted a story-within-a-story so intriguing that, night after night, the Sultan spared her life.

In one tale, she told of a merchant, childless for forty years, who was "cured" by a love potion containing coriander. And though this story was very old (the tales were first published in Arabic in 850 AD, from stories handed down through generations before that), Scheherazade might have gotten the idea from the Chinese, who for thousands of years had used coriander as an aphrodisiac.

Adobo seasoning (Recipe: turkey-chile rotini)

The second of two posts this week featuring ground turkey and pasta, together in our favorite recipes.

Where do you stand on adobo?

We're not talking politics here. No left or right, red state or blue state, alternative energy or education. No defense spending, no financial bailout, no leaving anyone behind.

I mean where do you stand -- because where you are has everything to do with adobo.

In The Philippines, adobo is the national dish, pork or chicken cooked in a sauce made of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and pepper.

In Mexico, or New Mexico, adobo is the vinegar-based, smoky-hot, tablecloth-staining sauce in which chipotle chile peppers are packed.

In The Perfect Pantry, adobo is often both the vinegar-based chicken dish and the sauce that envelops those wonderful chipotles, but it's also something else -- a dry spice blend, including garlic, onion, black pepper, Mexican oregano, cumin and cayenne red pepper, and sometimes salt.

Ground turkey (Recipe: turkey-escarole soup)

The first of two posts this week featuring ground turkey and pasta, together in our favorite recipes.

When I was a child, I thought I was one of a kind -- the kind of person who loves chicken, but doesn't love turkey.

My mother indulged my taste in poultry, and instead of insisting I make a meal out of side dishes, for every holiday she'd cook two main courses. Turkey and brisket. Turkey and meatballs. Turkey and....

As I've grown older, my tastes have grown up. I still don't love roast turkey, but I love ground turkey and always have some in my freezer.