What ingredients do you always have in your kitchen? I love asking friends this question — it gives a fun peek into someone’s daily life. Cookbook author Dan Pelosi once gave us this list: olive oil, rigatoni, Castelvetrano olives, lemons, anchovies. (Just reading it made me wonder how I could get myself invited for dinner.) Poet Kate Baer’s list includes tortilla chips, feta, roadside fruit, frozen peas, “and sourdough bread from my sister in law,” which is somehow the most delightfully Kate-Baer answer ever. So, this year, I thought I’d share my own five must-have items in my kitchen…
White wine vinegar
There are typically 6-200 kinds of vinegar floating around my cupboard, but one I ALWAYS have is white wine vinegar. I don’t know how balsamic and red-wine vinegar became the staples, when this one is even more useable. Not only is it an excellent base flavor for vinaigrette or chicken salad dressing, but it subs in well with recipes that call for white wine (which I don’t always have). Smitten Kitchen’s dijon chicken, for example? It’s one of my all-time favorite meals. Don’t tell Deb, but I swap the 3/4 cup of wine for 1/3 cup vinegar, and I think it’s even tastier.
Frozen edamame
Specifically, in-shell edamame. The shelled kind can get mealy and bland after a few months in the freezer. In-shell edamame, though, seems to endure forever and comes out of the steamer bright and plump and tender. Edamame is the hero ingredient that saves me from all sorts dinner predicaments: when the broccoli I’d planned to make has gone yellow; when I’m scrounging for an after-school snack; when I need lunch but don’t have time to make one. Edamame, to the rescue!
Kerrygold butter
I know there are fancier butters out there, and every now and again, I’ll get one, just for fun. We’ll all enjoy it! I’ll think to myself. I’ll then spend the next week guarding it like a wolf, making sure no one finishes my Very Fancy Special Butter with the Flaky Salt Bits. Yup, a blast for everyone, right? The thing is, Kerrygold is not just good, but consistently good (and pretty consistently priced). It’s rich and creamy, and the saltiness is just right.
Passata tomato purée
When husband started adding this to the grocery cart a few years ago, I was stumped. Why not just get the same canned tomatoes we always get? It looked the same, except it came in a tall, glass bottle. But, I quickly learned, it’s better. Passata is strained uncooked tomato purée, and the flavor is both richer and smoother than canned cooked tomato puree. You can use it as a sauce on its own, with very little doctoring, and when I started swapping it into my usual tomato-based recipes, WOW, I could tell the difference. Somehow, the price is better, too? (The Wegman store brand is $3.49 for a 24-ounce bottle!) And, unlike canned tomato, I can open a bottle, use a cup, and put it right back in the fridge without decanting it into another container. Win, win.
Dutch-process cocoa
When I was growing up, my mom worked as a chef and a caterer, and we always had boxes of “Dutched” cocoa around. Now, as an adult, I use it for virtually every recipe that calls for cocoa powder: hot fudge, cake, brownies, hot chocolate. The flavor is chocolate dialed up to eleven: rich, intense, unadulterated chocolatiness. I used to keep both Dutch and regular cocoa around, but at some point I realized I’d stopped using the latter and gone all-Dutch. Cocoa preference is a matter of taste (and in some cases, the chemistry of the recipe), but in my house, if we’re making chocolate cake, we’re making CHOCOLATE cake.
Eeek! That felt weirdly vulnerable to share! Now, if you’re so inclined, please tell me — what are the things in your kitchen that you’d never be caught without?
P.S. A kitchen gadget that upgrades everything, and the secret to a great dinner with friends. (Plus, holy cow, Joanna first asked this question 10 years ago!)
