The Perfect Pantry

Granulated sugar (Recipe: strawberry rhubarb jam)

On a shelf in my kitchen, fourteen glass storage jars, all the same size and shape, hold things we use every day.

Special-K, oat bran flakes and granola.

Dried beans in shades of red and white and pink and pied, all mixed together.

Leftover dried pasta in a variety of shapes, all mixed together. (I toss a handful here and there into soup.)

Five pounds of all-purpose flour, five pounds of whole wheat flour, five pounds of kosher salt, five pounds of long-grain rice.

And five pounds of granulated sugar.

Madras curry paste, a Pantry Special (Recipe: vegetable samosas)

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. 

Madras curry paste and Madras shorts share a place of origin, but otherwise don't seem to have much in common. Along with Thai red and green curry pastes, Madras curry paste, also called madrasi masala, makes frequent guest appearances in my kitchen, which Madras shorts do not. A specialty of the South Indian region around Madras (renamed Chennai in 1996), this yellow paste is a blend of coriander, cumin, brown mustard seed, black pepper, cayenne, turmeric, garlic, ginger and vinegar; sometimes it will have cinnamon and paprika, as the blend varies from cook to cook. The amount of cayenne determines the heat level of the final product, but as a rule, Madras curry is considered medium hot. Stirred into coconut milk, it makes the base of a quick weeknight curry, and pairs well with almost any vegetables, tofu or fish. Stored in the refrigerator, it will keep for up to one year.

Is this Pantry Special new to you?

Anchovy paste (Recipe: Caesar salad with shrimp)

Updated from the archives, with new photos, links, and a quick version of a classic recipe.

When a recipe calls for anchovies, do you wrinkle your nose, give a little shudder, and quickly skip to the next page in the cookbook?

Or, do you love anchovies, but always end up with half a can hiding in the back of the fridge, turning into another life form altogether by the time you remember it's there?

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to anchovy paste in a tube.

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.

Mayonnaise (Recipes: homemade mayonnaise and egg salad)

Guest post by Julia in Cambridge. Photos by David.

Every Saturday lunch when I was growing up, my mother made chicken sandwiches with the leftover roast chicken and challah from our Friday night Shabbat dinner. She slathered the bread with mayonnaise mixed with mustard.

On Tuesday nights, she served steamed artichokes or asparagus. And to entice my sister and me into eating our vegetables, she put out little dishes of mayonnaise mixed with ketchup. If the adage were true, that “you are what you eat,” I’d have been a bulbous, blue-lidded jar of Hellmann’s. 

Of course, I didn’t realize mayonnaise came in any other form than from a jar. Until I went to cooking school. There, I learned to make mayo by hand, from scratch: starting with 12 egg yolks and a spoonful of mustard in a bowl.

Gifts for food lovers: Food! (Recipe: balsamic mustard)

Part Six of an eight-part series.

The holidays are still two weeks away.

Ted has just begun to make his list.

I've checked mine twice. Twice a week. For the past couple of months.

Whether you're more like Ted, who loves the excitement of last-minute shopping, or more a plan-ahead type like me, here are ten great ideas for gifts of food that will please the food lovers on your holiday list.

Gifts for food lovers: Books for cooks (Recipe: slow-roasted tomato pesto)

Part Five of an eight-part series.

There are two schools of thought about giving cookbooks to people who love to cook.

Give the classics, the books that last forever.

Or, give the new, the trendy, the books that are hot hot hot right now, the books everyone is talking about, the books laden with photographs, printed on expensive paper, objets for a coffee table, the beautiful, irresistible cookbooks.

Me? I'm from both schools.

Fresh herbs (Recipe: basil pesto)

Don't forget our Summer Cookout Kit giveaway, featuring all-natural steakburgers from Roseda Beef. Leave a comment on any post before 11:00 p.m. eastern US time on Friday, August 15 to be eligible.

For six months of every year, my pantry spills out the kitchen door, down the front steps, and into the herb garden.

Ted and I share the garden with rabbits, deer, bees, beetles, and the turtles who come uphill from the wetlands two houses away, every year in late May, to lay their eggs next to the chives and tarragon.

Fresh herbs -- really fresh, harvested in the minutes before I cook with them -- have spoiled me for life.

First came basil, because we live in Rhode Island, the most Italian of all states, where a garden without basil would be unthinkable.

Then parsley, sage, and the rest of the song.

This year, we added a few harder-to-find annuals and perennials: lime basil, lemon thyme, lemongrass, horseradish.

We're spoiled. No doubt about it.

An unlimited supply of perky flat-leaf parsley, fragrant and crispy Genovese basil, and flavorful English thyme (my favorite herb of all) has changed the way I cook and the way I shop for produce at both grocery stores and farmers' markets. Though in some dishes dried herbs can take the place of fresh, I wouldn't think of making cilantro slaw, herb muffins, pasta with herbs and lemon, eggs baked in herb crepes, or rice salad with tuna, olives and herbs without fresh herbs.

You can store herbs in the refrigerator for a couple of days, if you don't have an herb garden. I dry and freeze my herbs during the summer to use during the winter months, when the offerings in the supermarket (even the upscale ones) are limp, flavorless and trucked in from someplace else. Ted made a drying screen from an old window frame and two sheets of screening material that sandwich the herbs and allow air to flow around them, so the herbs dry without getting moldy.

Now I shake my head and wonder... why didn't I grow herbs on my windowsill when I lived in an apartment for all those years?

PESTO SAUCE
Here in Rhode Island, everyone makes pasta with pesto, but I like to add a dollop to vegetable soups, to bump up the flavor. Quick and easy, this recipe makes enough to sauce 1-1/2 lbs of pasta.

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
2 tsp mayonnaise
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 mayonnaise and *cheese. Serve right away, or cover in an airtight container, and refrigerate for up to three days.

To freeze, *omit the cheese. Portion the pesto into an ice cube tray. Freeze the tray, then pop out the cubes of pesto and store in a ziploc bag. When you're ready to use it, take as many cubes as you need. Let it defrost, and stir in some fresh grated parmesan cheese to taste.

More recipes in The Perfect Pantry:
Green herb risotto
Tzatziki
Brick-grilled chicken
Frittata with broccoli and garden herbs
Honey-roasted beets with orange and thyme

The (More) Perfect Pantry: What's out, what's in (Recipe: enchiladas)

Last week I was talking to my BFF Joyce, who's been my BFF for 37 years, since before anyone used BFF, or IM, or a PDA or even a PC.

We are the kind of best friends forever who can admit to each other their worst sins, deepest fears, mortifying humiliations, unimaginable frustrations, and the occasional politically incorrect thought or George Clooney fantasy.

For the past few months, Joyce has been cleaning out her apartment. Cat-shredded furniture? Gone. Books so old the pages have fused together? Gone. Clothes that don't fit, phones that don't ring, cassettes for a long-abandoned tape player? Gone.

Old spices, older canned beans, mysterious frozen things in her pantry? Gone, gone, gone.

Yes, I confessed, I need to do that, too.

With the Table of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad in one hand, and this food storage chart in the other, and a flashlight in my third hand, and a copy of The Perfect Pantry database (hmm... is that geeky?) in my fourth hand, I set out to do a bit of pantry tune-up. The time had come to dig into the nooks and crannies of my spice rack, storage shelves, fridge and freezer.

The time had come to set some things free.

[I'm often asked about what's included in The Perfect Pantry. Each item must pass this test: it must be used as an ingredient; it must be something I use more than once; it must be either used in more than one way, or used in one way over and over again. So, while I always have Fresca, for example, you won't read about it here, but you might read about orange or pomegranate juice, because I use it in cooking.]

First, I packed for donation to our town's food pantry assorted jams, jellies, mustards, pasta, and other non-perishable souvenirs we've purchased but haven't managed to use in the past year.

Next, I looked for duplicates, and triplicates, and five-plicates (how much instant couscous do we need at one time, really?) and packed the extras for the food pantry, too.

I set aside all of the spices that are more than a year old, to test them for potency. Any spice in a jar so dusty that I can't see what's inside will likely be a candidate for the compost pile. I hope the deer and rabbits who feast on the composting table scraps appreciate a bit of seasoning with their food.

No surprise, but I found some items that no longer meet the test for inclusion in The Perfect Pantry. I'd kept them in my pantry, thinking I would use them more often, or more creatively.

These still have a place in the kitchen, but in a supporting or occasional role:

• Frozen artichoke hearts (haven't been making as much paella lately; for everything else, I prefer fresh artichokes)
• Sliced bread (I'm off most bread and on to oat-bran pitas, so I only keep frozen sliced bread for sandwiches for house guests)
• Maple-chipotle grill sauce (it was a fad)
• Cowboy ketchup (another fad)
• Curry leaves (can't find them very often)
• Dried galangal (a poor substitute for the fresh galangal rhizome)
• Fruit sherbet (other than stuffing it in lemons, or putting some on fruit salad, we eat it straight from the carton)
• Pickling spice (I have all of the individual components, and can mix my own)

Now there's room for some new things, like:

• Fino sherry
• Aji amarillo peppers
• Sweetened condensed milk

Best of all, I discovered, lurking in the recesses of the pantry, some ingredients that inspired me anew:

• Mexican chocolate: in chocolate pudding, maybe?
• Curry powder: a potato salad calls to me.
• Five-spice powder: a noodle salad calls to me.
• Frozen fruit: 'tis the season for fruit soups.
• Sherry vinegar: some panzanella variations?
• Chickpeas: I want to learn to love them. Truly love them.

The inventory in my more perfect pantry today stands at a slimmed-down 226 items.

Have you looked through your cupboards, spice rack, fridge and freezer lately?

What's out? What's in? What's new?


VEGETABLE ENCHILADAS
Adapted from the Stonewall Kitchen web site, this recipe will use the last of the Maple-Chipotle Grille Sauce in my pantry. If you don't have this, use your favorite sweet barbecue sauce. Serves 8.

1 tsp canola oil
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups zucchini, diced
1 cup red bell pepper, diced
1 can (4 oz) green chiles, diced
1 tsp ground cumin
1-1/2 cups fresh corn kernels
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (or this time saver from the supermarket)
1 bottle Maple Chipotle Grille Sauce (or 11 oz sweet barbecue sauce of your choice)
8 (8") flour tortillas, warmed for 10 seconds in the microwave until flexible

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add onion and sauté for 1 minute. Then add the garlic, and cook for 30 seconds. Add zucchini and bell pepper, and cook for 3-4 minutes, until soft. Stir in 1 cup corn, plus the canned chiles and cumin.

Spread 1/2 cup Maple Chipotle Grille Sauce in the bottom of a 13"x9"x2" baking dish. Mix another half cup of sauce into the vegetables. Place generous 1/3 cup vegetable filling in the center of a tortilla. Sprinkle with cheese and roll to enclose the filling. Place seam side down in the baking dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas and filling. Cover enchiladas with remaining sauce. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup corn and remaining shredded cheese. Bake until heated through and cheese is melted, 30-45 minutes. Serve hot.

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Roasted halibut tacos with mango salsa
Smoky chipotle balsamic salad dressing

Fish sauce (Recipe: nuoc cham)

All this week, I'm updating posts from the very first month of The Perfect Pantry. New links, new photos, and some great recipes for summer.

When you taste something wonderful in a restaurant, and you ask for the recipe, and the owner himself shares the recipe with you — and you've written it down, so you won't leave anything out — you expect to be able to recreate that wonderful taste in your own kitchen.

So why did it take me years to make nuoc cham, the mother condiment of all Vietnamese cuisine, that tastes like it does in a restaurant?

The answer is in the fish sauce, and, as I discovered, all fish sauce is not created equal.

Asian fish sauce, made from anchovies, salt and water, is called nuoc mam in Vietnam, and in Thailand, nam pla. It's salty, and smelly, and indispensable in Vietnamese and Thai cooking, where it plays the role soy sauce plays in Chinese cookery. The quality and taste of fish sauces vary widely, and I tried many before I found one that produced the taste I was seeking.

Three Crabs brand is the one and only fish sauce in my pantry, and I've been using it for years. Stored in the cupboard, it will last for many months. Three Crabs is a bit different from other fish sauces available in my Asian supermarket, because it contains fructose, which makes it sweeter and also smoother than the naturally processed brands. To me, all that matters is that Three Crabs makes authentic-tasting nuoc cham, the all-important condiment and dipping sauce for summer rolls (nime chow) and noodle salads.

Authentic Asian fish sauce -- #4 on our readers' list of must-have-on-a-desert-island pantry items -- makes pad Thai, fried rice, catfish with ginger-lime dipping sauce, lemongrass chicken shrimp, Vietnamese pulled pork, pan-glazed tofu with red curry sauce and panko-crusted shrimp lollipops taste... well, the way they should.

NUOC CHAM (Vietnamese dipping sauce)
Keeps in the refrigerator for a month or more. Makes 1-1/2 cups. Use as a dipping sauce or salad dressing for cold noodle salads.

1/2 tsp chili paste with garlic (Lan Chi brand is best)
2/3 cup hot water
1/4 cup sugar (or less, to taste)
1/4 cup fish sauce (use Three Crabs brand with pink label to achieve best flavor)
Juice of 1/2 lime

Place all ingredients in a small jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake!

Also in The Perfect Pantry:
Rice stick noodle salad with caramelized shrimp
Green chicken curry with eggplant
Pineapple shrimp curry
Easy pad Thai