Photograph by Caitlin Abrams
Facundo DeFraia
Facundo DeFraia of Boludo
With restaurants being closed for in-house dining, many of us are cooking at home now more than ever. And, after nearly two months, most of us are probably running out of recipes (and there’s only so many nights you can have beans over rice). We went to the professionals for help and asked some local chefs, including James Beard Award nominees Christina Nguyen and Jamie Malone, what three of their favorite pantry essentials are, and how they like to use them. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Christina Nguyen // Hai Hai, Hola Arepa
Trader Joe’s Chili Onion Crunch
I’m highly addicted to this currently and have been going through embarrassing amounts of it. It’s a version of the popular Chinese condiment chili crisp which usually is like a chili oil with dried chili, garlic, onion and spices. This one is exceptionally crunchy, has a lot of allium flavor and a medium spice level. The spices that flavor it are neutral enough so it goes well on everything.
Red Boat Fish Sauce
I’m Vietnamese so of course fish sauce is actually a staple. There’s obvious applications like making Vietnamese nuoc cham (the ubiquitous dipping sauce) and for dressing Thai larbs or papaya salads. It’s also great for just adding a little depth, umami and saltiness to any dish. You can use it in place of anchovies in a Caesar dressing or throw a little bit in your pasta sauce. It’s great for so much more than Southeast Asian dishes.
Garam Masala or Indian Spice Blend
Having a good blend of Indian spices around will transform dried or canned beans, chickpeas and lentils. Throw a can of tomatoes in with them along with an onion/garlic and some other veggies or meat and you’ve got an amazing meal that you can eat with some basmati rice. You can also marinate meats with the spice blend, some oil and garlic for great grilling. If you have some flour, ghee (clarified butter) and some time on your hands (which a lot of people have now), try making some roti to go with. It’s labor intensive but so worth it to have warm flaky flatbread to eat.
Ann Kim // Pizzeria Lola, Hello Pizza, Young Joni
Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
It's what I use in my restaurants for a pure taste and consistent seasoning.
High Quality Sherry Vinegar
Essential for a simple vinaigrette or for adding a splash of acid to balance out a dish if I don't have fresh lemons.
Gochujang
One of the essential ingredients in Korean cooking. It's a fermented chili paste that's slightly sweet, smokey and spicy. I add it to Korean staples like kimchi jjigae, ssam jang, and sauces.
Grapeseed Oil
It has a high smoke point so it's perfect for cooking and has a nice neutral flavor so it doesn't overwhelm salad dressings. Very versatile oil.
Jamie Malone // Eastside, Grand Cafe
Brown Butter
I think my pantry essential that I can’t live without is brown butter. I mean, it just adds so much flavor to everything and it’s great for meat, it’s great for dessert, it’s great for salads. It fits in everywhere. And it doesn’t change the flavor profile a ton, it just kind of makes everything better.
Black Pepper
I use black pepper a lot, but we only use coarse ground and very fresh black pepper. So we don’t, you know, pre-grind anything. But it just adds tons of dimension and flavor. I use a peppercorn called tellicherry.
Salt
I think for me, just having a lot of really nice finishing salts is important. My two go-tos are Maldon, which is like a flat flake sea salt, and then fleur de sel, which is like a finer grain sea salt, and they just have different effects and different flavors. The Maldon is a little more aggressive, and fleur de sel is really gentle. They come in different shapes, so they dissolve on your tongue differently. I like to use Maldon on bigger pieces of meat like steaks, anything where there’s an intense flavor or a lot of fat, where whatever you’re seasoning can handle a big pop of salt flavor. Fleur de sel is really good for more delicate things like fish or vegetables. It’s a little crunch, a little pop of salt, but it’s more gentle and a more refined salt flavor.
Jon Wipfli // Animales Barbeque Co.
Chile de Arbol
I don’t have a specific brand, but those dried chilis end up in everything we eat. We put them in stocks, fry them into our crispy chicken salads. I’ve even used them in tea when I’m feeling sick. A spicy hot toddy will work wonders for a cold.
Grapeseed Oil
Again, I don’t have a specific brand but for our home it’s the perfect oil. Great for high heat cooking, great for vinaigrettes and it’s my favorite oil for making homemade mayo.
Mayocoba Beans
We’ve found a ton of pleasure in learning how to make dried beans a staple in our pantry and how to cook them properly. We make huge batches and then they end up in a bunch of our dishes through the week!
Adam Eaton // Saint Dinette
Ortiz Canned Tuna
This would be my number one go-to. It’s delicious, I like Conservas, it has good olive oil in there, and it is very high in protein, and I like to consume a lot of protein. It’s oil packed and it’s delicious straight from the can, on toast, or it’s delicious with pasta. It’s very good. It’s significantly better than any other canned tuna that I’ve tried.
Green Lentils
Green lentils would be something that I consume frequently. I like them more than beans, personally. So I’ll eat it as is, or with sauce, or stew, or soup, or whatever. They’re very good that way.
Sweets
I like sweets, you know, I like to have a Snickers bar or something like that usually helps with sweet cravings or something. I eat Cliff Bars regularly, Cinnamon Toast Crunch is delicious cereal. I try not to go to the grocery store hungry, because it’s a rule of thumb. Sometimes I’ll leave the grocery store with an insane amount of like Swiss cake rolls, or I don’t know, those like crappy oatmeal cookies with the fluff in the middle, or mini-strudels or something like that. I stocked up before shit hit the fan a little bit.
Facundo DeFraia // Boludo
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
What I always have in my pantry, always, I mean, I cannot live without, is extra virgin olive oil. Really good quality stuff for everything. Since I can afford it, I try to always buy good quality olive oil. It’s always from Spain, or Italy most of the time. Right now I have an organic extra virgin olive oil, Nunez de Prado, from Spain. It’s really, really good. I’m a fanatic of olive oil, seriously.
Garlic
I cannot live without garlic—garlic is my thing. A huge hand of garlic seems super yum. I always have it in my pantry. I once was working in my Italian restaurant, you know, you layer the sauces. The base is always olive oil and garlic, if you throw some water from the pasta... make that a little thin sauce. I don’t even cook that much, but every time I cook for myself, I put extra garlic on everything.
Smoked Paprika
I love smoked paprika. We use paprika a lot in Argentina, it’s like a seasoning for most of the things that we add, like meat. And, since we are super Spanish and Italian influenced, I’ve used that since my grandma used to cook with smoked paprika, and the flavor is just outstanding. If you use salt, some olive oil, some garlic, and throw that on the oil, it makes a nice oily kind of sauce.
Lisa Clark // Mojo Monkey Donuts
Bragg Liquid Aminos
It’s kind of like a soy substitute for soy sauce, so it’s made from tofu and way lower in sodium. Plus, you get your amino acids and it’s really good for you. So, I just use that for my seasoning, and then I don’t even need to use salt or anything and then I just add other spices and stuff.
Fresh Vegetables
I keep a ton of fresh vegetables. I try to keep all the colors of the rainbow in my vegetables as much as possible. I’ll just saute that with some Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, add some black beans, and I’ll have it with salmon, or forbidden rice, or jasmine rice, or chicken, and it’s delicious. It’s quick and it’s easy, and I’m getting a lot of nutrients, so that’s been our main staple at our house honestly the last couple months. I’ll just throw in some fresh cilantro, fresh garlic, or some seafood rub, even if we’re not having seafood or meat. I just love it.
Pastry Flour
When I’m doing cakes, I really like to add in some pastry flour. I’ll do almost half pastry flour just because it makes them really moist and really dense, but that’s how I like my cakes. You can kind of play around with how much pastry flour because that’ll kind of change your density and stuff.
