The Perfect Pantry

Zahtar, a Pantry Special (Recipe: fattoush, a salad of pita bread, tomato and cucumber)

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.

Zahtar, zatar, za'atar: what's in a name? Though the word means thyme in Arabic, the name also refers to a blend of sumac, sesame seeds, salt and dried green herbs (thyme, usually, but sometimes oregano, marjoram or parsley). Zahtar, a popular table condiment in the Middle East, is sprinkled on or cooked with meat and vegetable dishes. Most often it's ground in a mortar and pestle, so the texture remains a bit coarse. For a perfect snack, mix zahtar with a bit of olive oil, and smear it on pita bread or pizza. And don't worry: sumac, the dominant ingredient in zahtar, is not the poison sumac we're taught to avoid in the woods. This sumac, from the dark-red berries of a shrubby tree native to the Middle East and parts of Italy, has a tart, fruity, lemony flavor.

Low-carb pasta (Recipe: Broccoli, basil and pasta salad)

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

Over the past few years, as more and more companies have jumped on the low-carbohydrate bandwagon, I've tasted some pretty dreadful products masquerading as healthy-and-delicious, so when Dreamfields low-carb pasta actually passed both the taste and texture tests, I gleefully stocked The Perfect Pantry's shelves.

Made from durum semolina flour, with no soy or substitutes, Dreamfields has all the good flavor of regular pasta. When cooked to the al dente stage, it's actually firm to the bite, with what chefs call "good mouth feel." And with just five grams of digestible carbohydrate per two-ounce serving, it's low low low on the glycemic index -- a boon to diabetics, South Beach dieters, and anyone who has to keep an eye on the daily carb count.

How does Dreamfields succeed where other alternative pastas, billed as low-carb or high-fiber or "healthy", have failed?

Slow-roasted tomatoes (Recipe: corn, bean, and two tomato salad)

With any luck, the next time you see these tomatoes, they'll look like this:

Fresh herbs (Recipe: fava bean salad)

Would you call me a food snob?

I drink Fresca, sing the praises of Miracle Whip, and make a great chicken salad from a boxed rice mix. My pantry harbors no-boil lasagne noodles, curry powder, broccoli slaw and discos -- all convenience foods.

Yet, from April to October, I cook only with fresh herbs, from my summer pantry (also known as my garden), and no other herbs will do.

Fish sauce (Recipe: Thai beef salad)

You watched it, didn't you? The finale of The Next Food Network Star?

Somewhat predictably, the judges selected the mother-of-four whose show could have broad appeal in these challenging economic times. But I was pulling for the other guy, the one who didn't win, the one Alton Brown dubbed The Ingredient Smuggler.

The one most likely to do an entire episode about salty, smelly, absolutely indispensable fish sauce.

Miracle Whip (Recipe: chipotle chicken sandwich)

Today I stand before you, unapologetic and unashamed, confessing, as I do every summer, my love for Miracle Whip®, the salad dressing that cannot, by law, be called mayonnaise.

What can I say in my defense?

Japanese rice vinegar (Recipe: cucumber ribbon salad)

What's now called Boston's Leather District used to be a gritty few blocks of warehouse buildings filled with tanneries and industrial yarn makers, and publishing companies looking for cheap office space.

Thirty years ago I worked for one of those publishers, in the top floor of a converted loft space with huge Palladian windows on all four sides. The view was tailor-made for those of us "creative" types who liked to stare out the window while pretending to "create"; one bank of windows overlooked the train tracks, another the downtown skyline, a third the hypnotic expressway traffic.

On the fourth side an equally tall building blocked our view of Chinatown, just three blocks away.

Proximity to Chinatown was the best part of my job -- that, and the fact that a co-worker knew all the words to the Groucho Marx song, "Lydia the Tattooed Lady". On my walk home, I could shop at the grocery stores and small markets for fresh vegetables and new-to-me pantry items like chili paste with garlic, oyster sauce, and Japanese rice vinegar.

Orzo, and other small pasta (Recipe: cold curried orzo)

Poor orzo.

Compared to the other small, stubby pastas, with lyrical names like ditalini (little thimbles), annelini (little rings), acini de pepe (little beads), tubettini (little tubes), tripolini (little bows) and stelline (little stars), orzo sounds so... well, so pedestrian.

It definitely needs another syllable or two to fit in with the other pastas, but in taste, texture, and versatility, orzo (which means "barley" in Italian) leads the pack.

Artificial sweetener (Recipe: asparagus, nectarine and tomato salad)

Some pantry ingredients make life worth living.

Others make life livable.

In the first group: chocolate, balsamic vinegar, parmigiano-reggiano.

In the second group: Fresca, fat-free yogurt, artificial sweetener.

A gourmet ingredient it is not, but in a household of dieters and diabetics, artificial sweetener is our reality.

Sherry vinegar (Recipe: bread salad with roasted tomato vinaigrette)

Ten things I know about sherry vinegar (you'll be glad to know them, too):