Essential Pantry Upgrade - Basic Collection
Collection includes: Espelt Moscatel (White) Vinegar, Espelt Garnatxa (Red) Vinegar, Katz Apple Cider Vinegar, Gray Salt from Guerande, Murray River Pink Flake Salt, Rice Bran Oil, Nunez De Prado EV Olive Oil from Spain, Sorrento Lemon Olive Oil from Abruzzo Italy
This is where you begin; the first step in the multi-step process of building a more flavorful and balanced pantry, and starting down the short but effective FLAVOR road to improving your cooking without having to do anything else .....
1. Vinegar: Buying high quality, more flavorful and more balanced vinegar is the absolute best first step. Although vinegar is thought of primarily as a single taste component in recipes - in this case, ACID - it can do so much more. We prefer vinegars that also bring a touch of sweet, as well as acid, and in that way hit two taste notes with one breath. But, these vinegars also bring a flavor component, which is really a win/win. After all, what we seek when we put something in our mouth is FLAVOR. So, if your pantry taste ingredients can also deliver some flavor - along with the acid and, in this case, some sweet - you are way ahead of the game every time you use it.
We've also included an excellent apple cider vinegar. Most of us have BRAGGS in our pantries or refigerators, but we rarely use it in cooking. Either because we "take it" daily for its health benefits, or we just don't care for the taste. Katz' apple cider vinegar is not harshly acidic, has natural sweetness, and it actually tastes like apples! And in case you are wondering, there is no such thing as having too many vinegars in your pantry. There are so many types and flavors to choose from, and most are very stable; they may change flavor over time, but they rarely if ever "go bad". To prevent the mother of the apple cider vinegar from growing over time, you can store it in the fridge.
For information about why good artisan-produced vinegar is expensive, and why it's worth every penny, click here.
For more info about the health benefits of vinegars, and especially apple cider vinegar, click here.
Collection Includes: Espelt Moscatel (White) Vinegar, Espelt Granache (Red) Vingars, and Katz Apple Cider Vinegar
2. Sea Salt: First and foremost, stop using KOSHER salt. Kosher salt is 100% sodium chloride and basically tastes salty - no surprises there! But, you can do so much better. Good sea salts are 83-97% sodium chloride, with (French Celtic) Gray Salt topping the list on the low-end at 83-85%. What is the rest of the salt made of, you might ask? Other minerals like potassium chloride, magnesium chloride, calcium carbonate, and many many other trace mineral. Those other salts and minerals add to the flavor and balance of the salt, giving it a milder and less-harsh taste, and adding other components that help heighten flavor - like sweetness and bitterness. Plus they are healthier for you.
Salt is an essential part of cooking, and like the other 4 tastes (Sweet, Sour, Bitter, and Umami), the purpose of salt is to bring out the existing flavor in our foods. You should always salt your food, and we all need salt to live, but you do not want to salt your dishes to the point of salty-ness. The problem comes when the ingredients we are using (vegatables, fruits, proteins, starches, fats and flavorful parts of our pantry - like spices and herbs) have no inherrant flavor - as often is the case. Then we find ourselves over-salting to make up for the lack of flavor.
The other consideration is crystalline structure and dissolvability. I prefer a nice mild flake salt at the table, as it is easy to control (it won't clump together), and the thin structure means it will dissolve quickly, avoiding those crunchy bits and means you are less prone to oversalting.
For more information about sea salt, and why you should care about what salt you are using, click here.
Collection Includes: French Fine Gray Salt from Guerande, Murray River Pink Flake Salt from Australia
3. Cooking Oil: These days, most people cook with olive oil, but I am not a fan. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE me some fresh, early-harvest olive oil! But olive oil is a very delicate oil and does not hold up well in medium or high heat situations. Besides, we go out of our way to buy "extra virgin" olive oil, which has been cold pressed in order to maintain the integrity and flavor of the oil, and then we go ahead and put it into a hot pan. Go figure!
I highly advise you to use good and flavorful olive oil (see below) but save it for low heat and raw applications, and buy a better performing and more versatile oil for cooking, baking, deep frying, sauteeing, and other medium to high heat situations.
Our favorite cooking oil is Rice Bran Oil. It has many virtues, including that it's stable at hight temperatures (485 degrees), it's inexpensive, it's flavorless (the one time you generally prefer little to no flavor), and it's high in tocopherols (vitamin Es) which keeps it stay shelf stable for long periods of time (up to 3 years) and protects the oil from oxidation - because oxidized (read: rancid or trans-fats or free radicals) oil is extremely bad for your health. Add to that that, compared to most seed oils, it's lower in omega 6 fatty acids (inflamitorly) and higher in omega 9 (anti-inflamitory) fatty acids - the same fatty acids that you look for in olive oil.
And I am not even going to talk about why canola oil is bad...
For more on Rice Bran Oil, click here.
Collection Includes: Rice Bran Oil
4. Olive Oil: Although I don't recommend cooking with olive oil, I do highly recommend using olive oil whenever you can in low heat or raw applications. So, buy the most flavorful olive oil you can afford and that you like the flavor of. Besides being high in omega 9 fatty acids (anti-inflammitory), olive oil is packed with polyphenols - those compound that give our food flavor, but also give our food healthy properties - like the oleocanthol (anti-inflamitory) and oleorupin (anti-cancer/anti-aging) we find in abundance in fresh, early-harvest olive oils. Its these polyphenol compounds found in fresh, high quality, and flavorful olive oils that give it the peppery and bitter flavors and tastes. Sadly, it is also these pholyphenols that are so easily distroyed by heat, light, air, and time. So, find some good and flavorful olive oils, and use them on everything - but use them AFTER you take the food out of the pan or out of the oven; do like the Italian's and FINISH with your good olive oil. You mouth and your body will be happy you did.
And for an added bonus, we included an Lemon EV Olive Oil from from Abruzzo, Italy. In this case, the olives have been crushed with Sorrento lemons giving the oil an additional lemon-y flavor and lemon-y acidity and sweetness - again, hitting multiple flavor and taste notes all with one breath.
To learn about the health benefits of EVOO, click here.
For more info on what to look for when choosing an olive oil, click here.
To learn why we ONLY sell estate-bottled olive oils, click here.
Collection Includes: Nunez de Prado Olive Oil from Spain, Sorrento Lemon Olive Oil from Abruzzo Italy.