Upgrade
Your Pantry
Take four
meal building blocks — salt, pepper, olive oil, and
cheese — from basic to gourmet
Salt
Replace normal table salt with
kosher and sea salt. "Ordinary table salts have additives
and whiteners and anti-caking agents and a rather murky
flavor," says Sally Schneider, the author of
A New Way To Cook (Artisan,
$25, www.amazon.com).
"So I use kosher
salt as an everyday salt: It's inexpensive, and it has a
very clear flavor." She then uses sea salt, which varies
in flavor and appearance depending on what water it has
been evaporated from, at the end of the cooking process.
"Sea salts are quite a bit more expensive and stronger,
so it's easier to oversalt if you use them for general
cooking," Schneider warns. Instead, she just sprinkles
some on as a "finisher" to lift the flavor of any dish.
Try putting it in a bowl on your table for guests to
use.
Pepper
Replace that store-bought
preground pepper with whole peppercorns you grind
yourself. "I have two pepper mills: one for the kitchen
and a little one for the table," Schneider says. Her
reasoning? Freshness. "The flavor begins to dissipate as
soon as you grind the peppercorns," she explains.
Schneider also recommends purchasing a pepper mill with
variable settings for coarse or fine grains, then
filling it with quality peppercorns. (Try Tellicherry or
Lampong, both widely available.)
Olive
Oil
Replace
corn oil or plain olive oil with extra-virgin olive oil.
"When you have a good olive oil on hand, it can be an
instant sauce in itself — it's that delicious,"
says Schneider. Look for oils marked "extra virgin,"
which means that the oil has been cold-pressed (no
solvents were used to extract it) and that it has less
than 1 percent acidity. "The term generally indicates a
better quality, a more flavorful olive oil," she notes.
Since extra-virgin olive oils can have a wide range of
flavors — from buttery and grassy to peppery
— Schneider suggests buying small bottles to
figure out what you like.
Parmesan
Cheese
Replace
generic Parmesan with Parmigiano-Reggiano. This
versatile cheese is handmade in the Emilia-Romagna
region of Italy — and only in the Emilia-Romagna
region of Italy. Authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano has the
name stamped right on the rind. "Ordinary Parmesan
— especially the pregrated stuff — doesn't
taste like anything compared to real Parmigiano, which
has a very complex flavor," says Schneider. "It's not
sharp, but it adds just the right kind of saltiness.
It's one of those foods that goes with just about
anything."
January 2006
www.realsimple.com
