Favorite Ingredients for a Well-Stocked Pantry, Refrigerator, and Freezer
The first and most important tenet of the kitchen is to begin with quality produce. Your cooking will only be as good as the ingredients you put into it, and having a well-stocked pantry and freezer means that you can pull together an impressive meal with virtually no advance planning. This is what my essential stocked kitchen looks like:
Pantry
Active dry yeast or instant yeast
Almond meal
Baking powder
Chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour
Chickpeas (dried)
Cornstarch
Durum wheat pasta
Épeautre (spelt) and petit épeautre (farro)grains
Extra-virgin olive oil
Fregola
Gelatin powder
Instant polenta
Intensely flavored honey, such as chestnut, mountain, or buckwheat
Jasmine and white rice
Mild, fragrant honey, such as lavender
Nut oils: pistachio, almond, walnut
Sesame oil
Soy sauce
Sunflower oil
Unbleached, all-purpose flour
Unrefined cane sugar
Vietnamese fish sauce
Vinegars: white wine, sherry, balsamic, brown rice
White beans (dried)
Seasonings and Spices
Bay leaves
Cèpe (porcini) mushrooms
70% cacao chocolate
Coarse sea salt (for salting pasta and blanching water)
Cumin seeds
Fennel seeds
Fine sea salt
Ground Espelette pepper (piment d’Espelette)
Hot red pepper flakes
Maldon salt (for garnish and making infused salts)
Spanish hot, sweet, and smoked paprika
Tellicherry black peppercorns
Turmeric
Vanilla beans
Canned Goods
Capers in vinegar
Diced Italian tomatoes in juice
Marinated artichokes
Oil-cured anchovies
Refrigerator (homemade or purchased)
Candied lemons
Clarified butter
French mustard
Harissa
Ghee
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Spicy tomato marmalade
Various Asian sauces
Freezer
Artichoke bottoms
Brioche slices
Compound butters
Homemade pork and fennel sausage
Infused oils
Peas
Seaweed Quick Bread
Staple stocks: Chicken, fish or shellfish, and vegetable
Truffle salt
White beans, shelled (cocos blancs)