The Perfect Pantry®

Paprika (Recipe: roasted chickpeas with garlic, cumin and paprika)

As recently as ten years ago, if you looked on my spice rack you'd have found one paprika, the red-and-white rectangular tin of Hungarian sweet paprika imported from Szeged by way of my local grocery store.

One tin was all I needed. I never did anything with paprika except sprinkle it on pale foods to make them pretty.

You might say paprika was my rouge.

Though my spice rack today holds at least five jars of sweet, hot and smoked paprika, you'll still find one of those red-and-white tins, but now I know what to do with the spice inside.

I actually cook with it.

Celery seed (Recipe: chicken salad with mustard sauce and lovage)

Adapted in part from the archives, updated with a new recipe, photos and links.

If it weren't for potato salad and pickles, my celery seed would be toast.

All winter, it sits on the spice rack, pushed farther and farther to the rear of the shelf.

In summer, when I'm ready to make pickles and potato salad (Why only in summer? I don't know.), I retrieve the celery seed, dust off the jar, use a few teaspoons here and there, and send it back to its place. Every other year or so, I throw out the mostly-full but decidedly less-zesty spice, buy a new jar, and start the cycle again.

Time to admit that maybe celery seed shouldn't be in The Perfect Pantry? Time to broaden my culinary repertoire?

Time to start drinking Bloody Marys?

Oregano (Recipe: grilled lamb, souvlaki style)

 

Last Spring I planted two types of oregano, Greek and Italian, in my herb garden.

One lived through the winter. One didn't.

Before I tell you which one survived, I want to be clear that this is not a political commentary, nor is it a reflection on which cuisine reigns supreme.

It's not even a matter of taste, as both have strong, unique flavor. (Use any type of fresh oregano sparingly; it's surprisingly potent.)

No, it's just Mother Nature, or the quirks of my herb garden, that enabled the Italian oregano to survive where the Greek oregano could not.

That's the great thing about gardening, though; there's always next year! I'm off to the herbary now for another Greek oregano plant.

Kosher salt (Recipe: salt cod balls with chipotle mayonnaise dip)

 

I don't know a single American or European chef or home cook who wouldn't put salt and pepper at the very top of the list of seasonings without which they simply could not cook.

So, you can imagine my surprise when the Brazilian cooks I met on our travels last year did not use black pepper.

Salt, yes. Pepper, no, never.

A couple of weeks ago, I taught my first class on Brazilian cooking, featuring some of my friend Peter's recipes (moqueca, pão de queijo) that use typically South American ingredients from my pantry. Often, like Peter (an American-born chef), I couldn't help but toss in a bit of black pepper automatically, a reflex action.

Salt, on the other hand, goes into everything, no matter who's cooking.

In my kitchen, that means kosher salt, my everyday, go-to, can't-cook-without-it, nothing-fancy, cheap-in-the-supermarket salt.