The Perfect Pantry

Vadouvan, a Pantry Special (Recipe: butternut squash, apple and vadouvan soup)

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.

Before last season's Top Chef, I'd never heard of vadouvan, so when I saw a small sample packet at the The Spice House in Chicago last summer, I couldn't pass it up. Basically, it's a French version of a South Indian curry powder (which can be a blend of up to 30 spices), and just as curry powders vary from one cook to the next, so does vadouvan. Sometimes it's more of a paste, made with cooked onions, that needs to be stored in the refrigerator. The packet I bought, which is a dry spice mix, contains curry, curry leaves, white and toasted onion and garlic powders, brown mustard seeds, shallots and kosher salt. Some blends also include fenugreek and cardamom. Use it as you would a sweet curry powder; the flavor is milder and a bit more fruity, with just a hint of smoke.

Dried black beans (Recipe: gluten-free gazpacho)

While I'm visiting one of The Perfect Pantry's guest bloggers, please enjoy a classic recipe that turns gluten-free by swapping black beans for bread crumbs, in an updated post from the archives, with a printer-friendly recipe.

Way back when -- we're talking decades ago -- my best friend Joyce had a boyfriend named Tom, who had a series of uninspired jobs to support his dream of hosting a public-radio show about military history.

The jobs, all odd and of fairly short duration, were entirely forgettable. All but one, which involved the packaging of glass stopper-topped jars, presumably for storing chemicals, as the tops were quite tight-fitting. The jars came in a whole range of heights, from just a couple of inches to, well, spaghetti length.

You see where this is going.

Of course Joyce and I began to stockpile the jars Tom would bring home (Were they seconds or damaged? We never knew.), and we would fill them with pasta, nuts, peppers, M&Ms, and beans and pulses of every imaginable size and color. No matter that we could spend a lifetime soaking and cooking all of the beans we collected. We were "evolving" (i.e., decorating) our kitchens with beautifully filled glass jars.

Of all the beans, my favorite, then and now, are dried black beans.

Limes (Recipe: Mexican tortilla and lime soup)

Olé Olé Week, Day Three.

 

Ten years ago, Ted's aunt and uncle retired to a small town on the north shore of Lake Chapala, in central Mexico.

We love to visit. Great weather. Great food. Great location, in a town popular with artists and artisans, very traditional and yet just 45 minutes from Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city, with its four-story Mercado Central, museums, and culture.

Their house sits uphill from the center of town, where there's a small market for daily needs, and an outdoor farmers' market a few times a week. A short walk from their house, a storefront tortilleria sends the aroma of fresh corn tortillas into the neighborhood.

Even closer to home -- right out their back door, in fact -- Ted's aunt and uncle planted a couple of lime trees. When we visit, we sit outside on the patio, overlooking the lake, sipping limeade or something stronger, made with fresh lime juice.

You might be thinking, big deal, lime trees in the back yard. Believe me, when you live in New England, back yard lime trees are just a dream.

Dill weed (Recipe: leek, potato and salmon soup)

Five years ago, Ted and I rebuilt the front path to our house and created a much larger space for growing herbs and perennials.

Our garden has it all: plenty of sun, plenty of mulch, plenty of water and homemade compost. For the most part, the deer leave it alone, though they occasionally nibble the parsley, and rabbits munch on the strawberries.

Without interference, however, we grow sage, rosemary, thyme, anise, lemongrass, horseradish. Oregano. Lavender. Tarragon. Chives. Perennials and annuals.

Yes, we have it all. All except dill weed.

Pilaf noodles (Recipe: lentil noodle soup)

Oodles of Noodles Week, Day Three. 

For years, I didn't know the proper name for pilaf noodles.

I lived down the block from a wonderful Middle Eastern market, where the owner knew me from my days as a food writer for the local newspaper. Whenever I would ask for those noodles, he knew just what I meant.

And when Ted would go to the store, I'd write pilaf noodles on his shopping list.

It wasn't until many years later that the owner of another market taught me the Arabic name: chayreyé.

Lovely, I know, but I'm kind of sweet on the name pilaf noodles, and I guess I always will be.

Barley, and a kitchen scale giveaway (Recipe: Curried mushroom, bean and barley soup)

You did.

You know you did.

You know you made the same New Year's resolutions I made: to try to learn Portuguese, and adopt a homeless cat, and give cauliflower and opera another chance, and read The New Yorker when it arrives every week instead of letting it pile up for months on the coffee table alongside cooking magazines you've been saving for a year or more but don't remember why, and eat more barley.

Why barley?

Dried mushrooms (Recipe: mushroom soup a la Fred)

Updated from the archives, with new recipe, links and photos.

A few Junes ago, Ted was mowing the occasional blades of grass in our lawn.

Along the edge of the woods, underneath the oak trees, he spotted a couple of oddly shaped mushrooms. Are they morels, he wondered?

Oh, yes, they were. And the more we looked, the more we found.

Two quarts of morels!

Have I told you that our land was once used by a charcoal maker? He was known as "The Indian," because he was a member of the Narragansett tribe that has its roots here in Rhode Island. (Nobody we know remembers his name.) There are large concrete platforms buried beneath our grass; on those platforms, more than forty years ago, The Indian burned wood into charcoal. A mushroom forager told us that the residual ash in our lawn creates a happy environment for morels.

We harvested every one of those wonderful morels, and I noted the date on the calendar. The following year, we didn't find a single morel. The year after that, just a handful. Last year, none.

Dried mushrooms I've purchased from farmers and farm stands in France (cepes) and in the Pacific Northwest (mixed morels, chanterelles and porcini) have kept for more than two years in tightly-sealed glass jars in my pantry, with no significant loss of quality.

We should have dried our harvest that first year.

Ras el hanout, a Pantry Special (Recipe: butternut squash soup)

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.

Some ingredients defy description. Arabic for "head of the market", or "top of the shop", ras el hanout is a blend of up to 30 individual herbs and spices, often including nutmeg and mace, cinnamon, turmeric, cayenne, ginger, cardamom, black pepper, allspice and cloves. In the souks of Morocco, spice merchants take pride in offering the most complex, aromatic, and exotic ras el hanout (it's said you can even get a custom blend, with hashish!). A Tunisian or Algerian ras el hanout might contain only half a dozen spices. Each household creates a unique formulation, much as Indian cooks mix their own garam masala or curry powder (both of which can substitute, in a pinch, for ras el hanout). The sum is greater than the parts; ras el hanout adds warmth and depth to many dishes, especially long-cooked tagines, stews, and couscous.

Water (Recipe: bailout bean soup)

Guest post and photos by Marcia in Rhode Island.

Times a gettin’ hard boys,
Money’s gettin’ scarce.   
                ~1930s dustbowl tune by Lee Hays

Ours is a town of rock and water. Underground streams and pockets of water secreted within granite ledges supply our wells. Our water is pure, delicious, and abundant -- a fact which is appreciated by much of urban Rhode Island.

Today, in the early morning mist, I walked along the banks of a brook until I came to the river.  This river feeds the reservoir, which in turn supplies the drinking water for much of the state, though not for our town.

The essential ingredient of my pantry is not in a cupboard; it’s stored a couple of hundred feet underground. When asked, it races to the house at a breakneck pace of 22 gallons a minute.

Canned tomatoes (Recipe: cioppino)

You like potato and I like potahto,
You like tomato and I like tomahto;
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
Let's call the whole thing off!

Are you a member of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Rainy Sunday Afternoon Romantic Comedy Movie Club?

Okay, there is no such club, but if there were, I would be its president. And if you were a member, you'd surely recognize this classic song from Swing Time.

It's a love song, and it's not really about potatoes and tomatoes.

But if there were a love song about tomatoes, I'd be singing along.