The Essential Kitchen: The Pantry

Keeping a well-stocked city pantry gives us home cook options and flexibility.  We can buy fresh produce, meat, poultry or fish and know that at home we have ingredients to turn them into dinner.  Sometimes the pantry can even generate the entire meal.  Just don't over-buy or you'll waste space, money and focus. 

Select your pantry items -- dried, canned, boxed, chilled or frozen -- that really suit the way you cook every day.  That way you'll more easily have your own approach, style and flavor of cooking and you won't have to work your way through an array of half-empty jars as you decide what to do with that pound of chicken breasts.  We've all done it:  bought a jar of tomato jam or pickled jalapeno peppers or lemon-flavored olive oil thinking they will give us choices.  They won't. 

Still, a well edited pantry can add versatility to everyday cooking.  For example, a jar of harissa, the spicy red pepper paste that's popular in north African cuisine, can become an easy rub that immediately adds flavor to pan grilled shrimp or lamb chops.

Also adjust your pantry according to the way you eat.  For example, if you are a vegetarian or a vegan, include items like vegetable stock and more dried and canned legumes.  If you primarily cook foods of a particular cuisine, stock those seasonings and spices.

What is essential to one home cook is only an occasional ingredient for another.   This basic list can get you started but add and delete for yourself.

The Pantry

• Oils:  extra virgin olive oil, canola oil or other light vegetable oil, peanut oil for deep frying
• Vinegars:  red wine vinegar, white wine or Champagne vinegar, other vinegars such as cider, sherry, balsamic
• Soy sauce
• Tabasco or other hot sauce
• Honey
• Worcestershire sauce
• Dried herbs and spices:  black peppercorns, cinnamon, paprika (hot, sweet, Basque espelette), red pepper flakes, oregano, chili powder, bay leaves, cumin (ground), cayenne pepper, dry mustard
• Salt:  fine grain, kosher, sea salt
• Canned vegetables:  chick peas, black beans, cannellini beans, artichoke hearts, whole San Marzano tomatoes, canned cherry tomatoes, tomato paste
• Canned tuna, sardines and anchovies
• Rice:  long-grained, Arborio, basmati, brown, red Bhutanese
• Dry pastas:  spaghetti, cut short pieces like ziti or rigatoni, tiny pastas for pilaf or soup like orzo or ditali
• Boxed chicken stock
• Grains:  bulgar, couscous, Israeli couscous, quinoa, farro, barley
• Nuts:  walnuts, almonds (pine nuts are in the freezer)
• Asian ingredients:  fish sauce, oyster sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, wasabi (powder or paste)
• Harissa
• Jar of salsa
• Flour: unbleached white, whole wheat
• Sugar:  white, brown, confectioners
• Cornstarch
• Corn meal
• Cocoa (Dutch processed)

And in a large bowl on the counter or elsewhere at room temperature: 

• Whole ginger
• Jalapeño peppers
• Garlic
• Shallots
• Onions -- yellow, red

Tip:  If you haven't cleaned out your pantry for a while and think that your stash of spices may have been bought in the previous century, it's time to do some throwing out.   When you buy new spices, write the date on the bottom of the jar so you'll know when they start getting stale.

Tip:  If you're a baker, your pantry will need a whole other list of items, including baking powder, vanilla, dry yeast, baking soda, special flours, superfine sugar and other special ingredients that you'll know best to choose.

Tip:  Freeze nuts if you're not going to use them quickly.  Otherwise they can become rancid.

Tip:  Don't buy oils too far in advance as they can lose flavor or become rancid if kept for too long.  Same goes for buying very large bottles or cans because by the time you get to the bottom, the oil may have gone bad and any cost savings from buying a big quantity will be lost.

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