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Kelly Rossiter is offering ideas about cooking basics; see introduction here.
The key to being able to cook dinner everyday is to have a well stocked pantry. If you have to buy all of the ingredients for a recipe every time you think you might like to try something, picking up the phone and ordering in suddenly seems a much easier alternative.
I'm going to give you the basics today, which for me is pretty much a Mediterranean diet. In the following days, I will give you ingredient basics for other cuisines such as Chinese, Thai, and Indian and you can experiment with different tastes. Don't feel you have to run out and spend tons of money stocking your kitchen with every product available. This will get you by and you can add items as your cooking repertoire expands.Donald Chong, Small Fridges Make Good Cities
Kelly Rossiter is offering ideas about cooking basics; see introduction here.
Cooking oils: Extra virgin olive oil-this is one ingredient that you should choose for quality. Extra virgin is the first pressing of the olives and has the most flavour. You can get olive oil from many places, Italy, Spain, France, California for example and they all have different flavours. Some specialty stores will let you taste different oils to give you an idea of which you prefer. Because olive oil is the base of many salad dressings, the uncooked flavour is important; Vegetable oil for cooking. I use canola oil.
Vinegar: A white wine or red wine vinegar.
Canned and bottled goods: I always have canned tomatoes in my cupboard. Other essentials for me are legumes; chickpeas, kidney beans and navy beans. Dijon mustard.
Dried ingredients: Have two types of dried pasta in your cupboard. Spaghetti, fettuccine and linguine are great for smooth pasta sauces, fusilli or rotini catch chunky sauces in their curls.
Rice; there are many different rices and some are often linked with a particular cuisine i.e., Basmati and Indian food. My everyday rice is jasmine sticky rice because my kids love it, but a standard long grain rice is just fine. Lentils; lentils are the quickest cooking legume and don't need to be soaked overnight like dried beans do. Green lentils and very quick cooking red lentils are a great addition to your pantry.
Freezer: Personally, I only have a bottle of gin and martini glasses in my freezer, but sometimes I have stock there (chicken or vegetable). I'll tell you how to make those in a later post. You could always have a bag of frozen vegetables in there for when in season local produce is hard to get.
Produce: Eggs, onions (I keep my onions in the refrigerator because they don't make you cry if they are cold when you slice them), garlic, potatoes, lettuce, green onions, carrots, celery, milk, Parmesan cheese, butter or margarine-your preference. Those are staples and then I add seasonal local vegetables.
Spices: Buy small quantities of spices because they lose their potency in a few months. Salt, black pepper corns, thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary and dried chili flakes would be a good start. Get dried leaves, not ground herbs.
Equipment: You need one good chef's knife (more about that in a later post) and a paring knife. I have a drawer full of knives and I always reach for the same two. You need a frying pan, a pot big enough to cook pasta and a smaller pot, a colander, a cutting board, a wooden spoon, a spatula and a pepper mill.
That's enough to get you started. With that list you could come home from work and within 30 minutes have fusilli with tomato and chickpea sauce with a green salad. Oh, and you could have a martini while you cook. On Monday I will tell you how to do just that.
Want to take this page to the store? Download a PDF of it here.
Difficulty level: Easy
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