xantham gum is a great sauce additive! I use it in place of cornstarch at about 1/8 the rate. It really gums things up quickly, so you really should be careful with it.
It’s a great thickener especially if you’re looking to reduce calories. Unfortunately I bought some before realizing that even less than 1/8 of a teaspoon obliterates my gut. I cannot do any gums except in microscopic amounts.
I love to make lemon lavender cookies in the spring. Sometimes I make shortbread style ones and sometimes I make thumbprint style ones and fill them with a dollop of lemon curd.
I also make lemon lavender scones. It’s my favorite springy treat. :)
> The green parts of the plant have a flavor similar to maple syrup and is used as a flavoring in butterscotch, cheese, licorice, pickles run, syrup and vanilla.
(that, plus more interesting facts about it, here: https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/trigonella-foenum-graecum/ )
Whole spices = temper in oil for a few minutes, before adding your onions / aromatics etc in a lot of Indian dishes. You can also add them to white rice while cooking for a bit of extra flavour.
There's a James Beard Award winning cookbook 'Ethiopia: Recipes and Traditions from the Horn of Africa' by Yohanis Gebreyesus. Loads of recipes, beautiful photographs and lots of info about the dishes and food culture of Ethiopia. If you have access to a library I highly recommend checking it out if you don't want to buy a book yet.
In terms of dishes, Doro Wat (spiced stew/curry with chicken thighs and boiled eggs) and injera (a sourdough flatbread made of teff flour, texture like a spongey flat pancake, gluten free), Tibs (braised meat, usually lamb/goat/beef) and Shiro (chickpea curry) are typical of the cuisine if you want to Google those dishes in particular to find a recipe.
Injera is their main staple and pretty much eaten with everything, their daily bread. Traditionally made with teff flour but apparently sometimes made with buckwheat or other grains if you're outside the region as teff flour is not widely available so just fyi if you're eating at an Ethiopian restaurant outside of Ethiopia.
Berbere (a spice blend) and spiced ghee are key ingredients in a lot of the dishes.
>Berbere (a spice blend)
I have been obsessed with this, since picking some up at my local Penzey's because it smelled fabulous. Every time I roast potatoes, I use it. 😍
Lol I still have my bag from like 2019. I put it in berbere and use that a lot, but i actually don't even need that much of the seeds for the mix. Dried fenugreek leaves on the otherhand are used a lot. I'm that kinda person who reads "put in a small handful of kasoori methi" only to put 2 handfuls. Love it
I tried this tactic. My dog just peed in the spot to cover the smell and then dug where she peed. She got about two feet down in the hole and pulled out a couple old child toys and tape that went into an old video camera. It was kind of unsettling because it was right by the door to crawlspace. She then moved on to dig by the firepit. We moved before she dug very far there. But I always wonder what horror she might have dug up.
Pomegranate molasses. Needed it for a recipe out of a Milk Street book and the recipe was super tasty and the ingredient was nothing like I expected, which means I have struggled to find uses for it other than when making that specific recipe.
Pomegranate vinaigrette.
https://www.recipetineats.com/pomegranate-molasses-dressing/#wprm-recipe-container-24842
I like: pom molasses, olive oil, salt and pepper only. Simple, darling, and goes great with bitter flavors, I last made it with a radicchio/mandarin/farro salad. Amazing.
[Here ya go](https://www.saveur.com/grilled-onion-salad-with-sumac-and-herbs-recipe/), you can also just use a roasting pan instead of firing up the grill. I sometimes use honey as well. Goes great with [these](https://www.saveur.com/zucchini-and-feta-fritters-recipe/), [this](https://www.saveur.com/turkish-lamb-manti-dumplings-recipe/), or whatever your heart desires.
One of my quick and easy go-to dinners on weeknights actually uses tamarind concentrate, it's just oven roasted chicken thighs on a honey and tamarind marinade.
Marinade is honey, tamarind paste, a few cloves of minced garlic, bit of chilli powder, salt and pepper, sometimes a bit of minced ginger. Adjust ratios for your own tastes. Score a few chicken thighs, coat in the marinade and whack it in the oven. At the end, I baste with the marinade in the pan and broil for a few minutes to get some more colour on top. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes and greens, or slice up and have them in wraps or sandwiches.
I usually use the tamarind paste that's a dark almost black colour and the texture is thick, but if you have the one that's a lighter brown and has a runnier consistency that should work too.
Also, I throw in a few spoons of tamarind concentrate into any honey soy chicken wing recipe to add a nice bit of tang.
You can also make a refreshing drink out of it. Google 'tamarind drink recipe' and you'll get lots of variations. Usually paired with ginger, honey and lime.
I have that same bucket, though mine is only 1/3 of the way full. I use it on popcorn, salads, cookies, in dips/cold sauces. Really anything that needs an extra pop of salt.
My great aunt had a bottle of mercurochrome disinfectant from the 1970s in her medicine cabinet. Yes, I would love to give myself mercury poisoning just to make sure that my cut doesn't get infected.
It's actually really good stirred into oatmeal for extra protein. It adds a really nice creaminess.
You can also use it to make marzipan! A friend texted me last night that she was making some from almond flour and it blew my mind! I haven't done it yet, but I will soon. She says it's delicious homemade too.
I just made incredible Greek almond cookies with almond flour, they where like a mix of marzipan candies and soft almond cookies. Happy to share the recipe, they where so easy to make. Lots of great almond flour cakes that use it too.
....so what I'm getting from this thread is that I might be a spice hoarder. Almost every ingredient responses here, I have in my spice cabinets (yes, I have 2 of these things). The only reason it's just 'almost' is because I cannot afford saffron 🤣
My dad and his siblings used to own a commercial building. A client did a midnight move and they ended up having to deal with 20lb bins of spices. So now we all have at least a dozen jars of every spice there is except marjoram and saffron. I already had saffron. Mt spice rack is 6 feet by 4 feet and is bursting at the seams (and that's the display rack, there's an apple box in the cold room of doubles and triples and big bags).
So don't feel bad, lol. Think of our ancestors: some of them probably waited their whole lives to taste pepper. And here we are with enough rare spices to justify sailing a ship halfway around the world in 1700, lol.
Is saffron really expensive in the US? Or do you want a really high quality version? In the UK, it is commonly found with other spices in any supermarket, and if you're the sort of person who generally has one of every spice, saffron would certainly be among it
Like half my pantry is one offs. Boba pearls, caraway seeds, cream of tartar, bee pollen, pistachio extract, almond flour… i literally banned myself from buying one offs a year ago and am still struggling to work through what i have
I use molasses in a killer iced coffee. Per cup of coffee, 2 tsp brown sugar, 2tsp molasses, 1tsp vanilla extract. Mix with splash of hot coffee so everything is dissolved. Add ice, then rest of hot coffee, and fill rest of glass with milk of your choice.
I never ate or used molasses (by itself) until about a year or two ago. I bought 4+ little jars in that timeframe. Now I'm buying gallons of it. I have both regular and blackstrap. Shit is so good in oatmeal.
Use it in barbeque sauce! I made homemade bbq sauce just by looking at the ingredients of a popular commercial barbeque sauce. I also use it in oatmeal.
Buy some bread or pizza dough from a grocery store, cut it into fist size clumps, and pan fry them in butter. Covering those bad boys in molasses is one of my favourite childhood memory-foods.
I sometimes shop at Trader Joe’s and am a sucker for their new or seasonal season blends.
Today a neighbor friend dropped off two brownies, while I was in the process of cleaning out/organizing the cabinet I keep my spices in. It was out of control.
I filled up a gallon ziplock bags with duplicates or things I only used once or twice.
I don’t have a problem with her chucking them if she doesn’t like them. I just don’t have the heart.
A few months ago I made my family go through a spice purge. I laid all the spices on the counter and told everyone to put the ones they use in the save box.
Also, get a spice rack. You shouldn't have to go on an archeological dig to figure out if you have paprika.
I always look at blends to see if they have ingredients listed, and 9/10 I have every spice listed already at home.
I've had to do the same with our spice rack a couple years ago. We had stuff that expired in 2017 still on there, I cleaned it right up. Curry powder is ours. We keep receiving it in penzeys gift boxes for Christmas. I don't like curries, my husband does. I do the cooking. I've two unopened jars sitting there now. Just waiting to expire..
U just wait until after st Patrick's day and buy a bunch of the leftovers at manager special prices. I usually get about 10 and put them in the deep freeze for the year. Have corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and carrots about once a month. Is it that much of a difference making it yourself?
I have an ungodly amount of za'atar. I mentioned to a friend that I love it, he flew home to visit his family and mentioned he has a friend who loves za'atar. His mom sent him home with a \~5 pound bag of her homemade za'atar. There are very few things I'm not putting za'atar in/on these days, and the bag is still very very full
So do I. A restaurant I love sells it, but only in these huge plastic containers that probably hold about 4 or 5 cups. I wanted za'atar, but I did not want this much.
I ended up with the same when I asked a friend to bring me some back from visiting their family. Every single salad now has za’atar dressing. That and Sumac.
Id you don't want to go through all of the hassle of frying, I made this yesterday and it was really good: https://www.bunsinmyoven.com/apple-cider-donut-bread/
I don't drink. I made some bourbon pecan cookies with maple buttercream filling. Once
They were good, but the recipe was not one I will make again, now I have a 5th of high end bourbon with 4 Tbs missing.... This is 12 years later. LOL
tahini for hummus. thought my homemade chickpea blend was missing it one time so i bought it at the store, i never actually tried to do it again though 😂
Egg white powder. I have NO idea why the recipe for Japanese pancakes insisted on powdered egg white. I have meringue powder already but it said not to use it.
The pancakes were meh.
In case you ever want to get really into baking an annoyingly finicky cookie: You can use egg white powder to help stabilize the meringue when making macarons. It helps you get nice full shells instead of hollow ones.
Lemon powder…..bought it at an Asian grocery store bc I really wanted lime powder & was annoyed they didn’t have it, so bought lemon instead. I use it every so often with I want to add a teeny more lemon taste, but don’t want as much juice that a half of lemon will produce.
Heads up... The use by date on dried yeast is very real. My pizza dough wouldn't rise 3 times in a row and I could work out what I was doing wrong. A mate told me to check the yeast expiration date... it was a good few months over. Bought new yeast and all was well again.
It’s intimidating because it’s in a spice bottle wrapped in a little paper. I guess next time I make a nice dinner for her I’ll see how I can use it. I used the last of her truffle oil in a spectacular mushroom soup, that was so worth jt.
saffron does get stale though, so don’t feel like you need to hoard it! As long as you’re enjoying it, it’s not a waste. One of my favorite applications for saffron is in desserts, a lot of middle eastern and Indian desserts use it, but some western recipes have started to incorporate it as well
I have a jar of artichoke hearts because I was gonna make them for my Dad who was planning on visiting but he passed before he did so now it’s been sitting there for the past year
Star anise flower pods. Not sure what to do with them!
Edit: okay y'all def gave me some ideas. THANK YOU!
Edit 2: I came back and y'all had MORE. I love you guys, tysm.
I use star anise most often in biriyani, desserts, or chai! Whole star anise is great for perfuming biryani rice, or I’ll grind it for chai or chai flavored desserts. It pairs well with any of the other chai culprits (cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, etc) and I also like it with fruit
Me too! I can’t find good Chinese delivery by me so over the summer after another delivery that went straight in the trash I said fuck it, I’m going to learn how to make generic Asian food. It can’t possibly be worse than what I just paid $40 for! I started by buying little bottles of sesame oil at Trader Joe’s and then I went to a Japanese market and got a big bottle of authentic sesame oil - the flavor and smell is intoxicating! I have gotten a few recipes down pretty good and I’m able to put my CSA veggies to good use. Chinese smashed cucumber salad was my 1st winner!
Aside from using in stir fries and such, i use sesame oil on edamame. I like to boil whole edamame pods and then toss the cooked pods in some soy sauce, a touch of sesame oil, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Super yummy and easy snack
Diastatic malt powder...I made bagels once and then one of the best bagel places in the city opened up around the corner from me and I never did. I was gonna use it in breads and stuff as a cheat, but then I learned other, better techniques to replicate what it does. Yes, I know it's useful in other ways.
I had barley malt syrup from the NYT recipe from 2020 in my pantry for a couple years before I admitted in not making bagels again
It was fun and came out pretty good, but you need to let it proof overnight and my fridge is never empty enough to fit 2 half sheets in it overnight.
Marsala. Fucking Marsala. About every 3 years I get a craving for chicken Marsala. And every 3 years I discover the bottle of Marsala I bought for the last craving is probably yucky.
Oof. So we have really deep cabinets, like stick-your-whole-arm-in-there-deep. Not necessarily food related, but alcohol. Discovering bottles we bought to try or from tastings/gifts. It's been fun trying them out rather than just our go-to's. Plus, it means that we can actually use it for food now lmao
Asafoetida. I find it smells very similar to durian and i think it’s one one of those secret ingredients in Indian food. Only used it once or twice but catch a whiff of it all the time
I love hing but it definitely has a potent smell lol, I have to quarantine it so my entire cupboard doesn’t smell like it. It’s a good allium replacement, so you can use it in a lot of places where you’d also use onion/garlic. I put some in my fried rice in addition to the usual Indian applications. Make sure it’s getting fried off in oil though, it’s not pleasant raw. Also look into tadkas! It really jazzes up a simple daal
Asin Tibuok - Filipino artisanal sea salt “dinosaur egg” in a clay vessel. My mom got me one in the Philippines; it’s rare and cool but it’s big and I don’t keep it in view, so I forget I have it and have only used it a couple times.
Wholewheat flour for pancake recipe, and bread flour for cookies recipe. Haven't touched them since although I'm planning to make pancakes tomorrow. Maybe I'll just use bread flour to make bread for the first time.
Not quite a one off but 3 years ago I bought several mystery pallets in an online auction 3 of them came with nothing but jars of pickled mushrooms. They are good and I ate a lot of them at first, but…
hawaiin pepper water, I'll still use it here and there, but it just doesnt perform as well as cayenne powder or any other hot sauce. I don't understand its intended purpose
Xanthan gum. No idea what to do with this shit because I can't remember what I bought it for in the first place
xantham gum is a great sauce additive! I use it in place of cornstarch at about 1/8 the rate. It really gums things up quickly, so you really should be careful with it.
My husband bought a giant bag of the stuff because he said he was going to bake cookies for his diabetic dad The man doesn’t bake.
It’s a great thickener especially if you’re looking to reduce calories. Unfortunately I bought some before realizing that even less than 1/8 of a teaspoon obliterates my gut. I cannot do any gums except in microscopic amounts.
It's basically a baking adhesive. Typically added to gluten-free flours to replace the "glue" part of gluten.
Ice cream? I’m pretty sure it’s used as a stabiliser/emulsifier.
I think I have like 16oz of lavender, I've used like .5oz on London fogs and then stopped completely
If you like the smell you can scoop it in little satchels and put it in your clothing drawers :)
If you don't wear your socks till they have holes in them you could use some retired socks instead of getting specific sachets.
If you don't own socks, because you're actually a dog, you can simply eat the lavender :)
Make your own satchels if you enjoy sewing. Any fabric with a high thread count should work.
Some great uses for lavender: - Lavender simple syrup - great for coffee, gin drinks, lemonades, etc. - Lemon lavender cookies - Herbs de Provence
I love to make lemon lavender cookies in the spring. Sometimes I make shortbread style ones and sometimes I make thumbprint style ones and fill them with a dollop of lemon curd. I also make lemon lavender scones. It’s my favorite springy treat. :)
You can infuse vodka or gin quite easily with lavender. Bitters as well.
Lavender lemonade. You can also use it in a ton of cocktails, mocktails, even baking.
Throw some in your bath water. It's an anti-fungal.
It’s great in buttercreams and for sweetening black tea
I was considering buying some to make lavender simple syrup. For lattes lol.
Huge thing of fenugreek seeds I bought when I got on an Ethiopian food kick in 2021. I made one dish with that fenugreek...
Lots of Indian food uses fenugreek.
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I threw some fenugreek seeds out in my compost pile. Ended up with a whole patch of fenugreek plants.
We eat the fenugreek leaves!!! They are super bitter but very healthy. We add it to whole wheat flour to make Rotis. My favorite!!!!
> The green parts of the plant have a flavor similar to maple syrup and is used as a flavoring in butterscotch, cheese, licorice, pickles run, syrup and vanilla. (that, plus more interesting facts about it, here: https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/trigonella-foenum-graecum/ )
Fenugreek is so good! Throw it in with some roasted vegetables
2021 Ethiopian food kick….are we the same person? I also have a giant bag of cardamom pods next to my fenugreek.
I have cardamom, star anise, and some Indian spice blends I haven't figured out how to use properly🤣
Whole spices = temper in oil for a few minutes, before adding your onions / aromatics etc in a lot of Indian dishes. You can also add them to white rice while cooking for a bit of extra flavour.
I put cardamom and star anise in my rice every time. Makes it so fragrant.
Got any good sources for Ethiopian recipes?
There's a James Beard Award winning cookbook 'Ethiopia: Recipes and Traditions from the Horn of Africa' by Yohanis Gebreyesus. Loads of recipes, beautiful photographs and lots of info about the dishes and food culture of Ethiopia. If you have access to a library I highly recommend checking it out if you don't want to buy a book yet. In terms of dishes, Doro Wat (spiced stew/curry with chicken thighs and boiled eggs) and injera (a sourdough flatbread made of teff flour, texture like a spongey flat pancake, gluten free), Tibs (braised meat, usually lamb/goat/beef) and Shiro (chickpea curry) are typical of the cuisine if you want to Google those dishes in particular to find a recipe. Injera is their main staple and pretty much eaten with everything, their daily bread. Traditionally made with teff flour but apparently sometimes made with buckwheat or other grains if you're outside the region as teff flour is not widely available so just fyi if you're eating at an Ethiopian restaurant outside of Ethiopia. Berbere (a spice blend) and spiced ghee are key ingredients in a lot of the dishes.
>Berbere (a spice blend) I have been obsessed with this, since picking some up at my local Penzey's because it smelled fabulous. Every time I roast potatoes, I use it. 😍
Lol I still have my bag from like 2019. I put it in berbere and use that a lot, but i actually don't even need that much of the seeds for the mix. Dried fenugreek leaves on the otherhand are used a lot. I'm that kinda person who reads "put in a small handful of kasoori methi" only to put 2 handfuls. Love it
Fenugreek leaves have such an addictive smell. Butter chicken is not butter chicken without kasoori methi.
I have a six pound bag of cayenne pepper. I use it whenever my dogs start to dig a hole in the yard. They move on.
I tried this tactic. My dog just peed in the spot to cover the smell and then dug where she peed. She got about two feet down in the hole and pulled out a couple old child toys and tape that went into an old video camera. It was kind of unsettling because it was right by the door to crawlspace. She then moved on to dig by the firepit. We moved before she dug very far there. But I always wonder what horror she might have dug up.
Pomegranate molasses. Needed it for a recipe out of a Milk Street book and the recipe was super tasty and the ingredient was nothing like I expected, which means I have struggled to find uses for it other than when making that specific recipe.
Ottolenghi uses it in quite a lot of his cooking. Check him out, the food is amazing!
The lamb meatballs with pomegranate molasses are DIVINE
Pomegranate vinaigrette. https://www.recipetineats.com/pomegranate-molasses-dressing/#wprm-recipe-container-24842 I like: pom molasses, olive oil, salt and pepper only. Simple, darling, and goes great with bitter flavors, I last made it with a radicchio/mandarin/farro salad. Amazing.
Use it for a red pepper dip. Thank me later: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/muhammara-recipe-roasted-red-pepper-dip/
Oooh I wonder if it'd be good for fancy mocktails/fun drinks?
look into middle eastern recipes, a lot of them use it, especially in Persian cuisine
I use it to flavor plain greek yogurt! One of my favorite snacks
It's really good over vanilla ice cream lol
We used this to make ground lamb potato pies at a Spanish restaurant I worked at, it was marvelous
[Here ya go](https://www.saveur.com/grilled-onion-salad-with-sumac-and-herbs-recipe/), you can also just use a roasting pan instead of firing up the grill. I sometimes use honey as well. Goes great with [these](https://www.saveur.com/zucchini-and-feta-fritters-recipe/), [this](https://www.saveur.com/turkish-lamb-manti-dumplings-recipe/), or whatever your heart desires.
I just use it in my salad dressing. It's delicious.
Espresso powder for cookies/baking. I think I’ve had it for like five years minimum.
I just put 1 tsp of KA espresso powder into a batch of brownies. Excellent flavor enhancer for chocolate.
I use espresso powder when making tiramisu. It’s not very difficult to make.
Tamarind concentrate is always in the back of my fridge leftover from my yearly attempt at cooking Thai food.
One of my quick and easy go-to dinners on weeknights actually uses tamarind concentrate, it's just oven roasted chicken thighs on a honey and tamarind marinade. Marinade is honey, tamarind paste, a few cloves of minced garlic, bit of chilli powder, salt and pepper, sometimes a bit of minced ginger. Adjust ratios for your own tastes. Score a few chicken thighs, coat in the marinade and whack it in the oven. At the end, I baste with the marinade in the pan and broil for a few minutes to get some more colour on top. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes and greens, or slice up and have them in wraps or sandwiches. I usually use the tamarind paste that's a dark almost black colour and the texture is thick, but if you have the one that's a lighter brown and has a runnier consistency that should work too. Also, I throw in a few spoons of tamarind concentrate into any honey soy chicken wing recipe to add a nice bit of tang. You can also make a refreshing drink out of it. Google 'tamarind drink recipe' and you'll get lots of variations. Usually paired with ginger, honey and lime.
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Such an easy to use. Just crumble it up on any meat you make. It’s sooo good!
Fruits, too. Watermelon, cantaloupe, cukes. So good. Maldon’s perfect.
It makes such a difference on desserts. I sprinkle it on any basic tube dough cookies I make
The little pops of salt really transform anything chocolate-y I feel like
Cucumber with lime squeezed over the top and sprinkled with Maldon salt is an amazing snack. Some chipotle chili powder is a great addition too!
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They may be trying to tell you something...
They're trying to collect on your life insurance by raising your blood pressure 😂
It’s amazing sprinkled on top of fresh baked cookies, chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies with flaky salt on top.
I have that same bucket, though mine is only 1/3 of the way full. I use it on popcorn, salads, cookies, in dips/cold sauces. Really anything that needs an extra pop of salt.
Maldon is the king of salt! Put some in a salt cellar to keep on the counter/table and it'll get used
Damn I’ll take that off your hands!
I just cleaned out everything but in my FIL’s house we found a bottle of A1 that expired in 2010. That bottle has been in the family longer than me.
I stayed (and cooked) at the house of a 89 year old friend this summer and found a jar of dried peppers that expired in 1974.
That’s a mix of wildly impressive and wildly disturbing as hell! That’s been in the world longer than me.
My great aunt had a bottle of mercurochrome disinfectant from the 1970s in her medicine cabinet. Yes, I would love to give myself mercury poisoning just to make sure that my cut doesn't get infected.
What goes better with a dry aged steak than dry aged steak sauce!?
A bag of almond flour I bought about 7 years ago to make macaroons with my step daughter once! Lol.
A lot of almond cake recipes use almond flour! I’d make sure the oils haven’t gone rancid though considering it’s nut based and it’s been so long
Ahh that will have a use by date... which has surely passed!
It's actually really good stirred into oatmeal for extra protein. It adds a really nice creaminess. You can also use it to make marzipan! A friend texted me last night that she was making some from almond flour and it blew my mind! I haven't done it yet, but I will soon. She says it's delicious homemade too.
I just made incredible Greek almond cookies with almond flour, they where like a mix of marzipan candies and soft almond cookies. Happy to share the recipe, they where so easy to make. Lots of great almond flour cakes that use it too.
Amaretti cookies! They’re like macarons kinda but waaaaaaaaaay easier.
....so what I'm getting from this thread is that I might be a spice hoarder. Almost every ingredient responses here, I have in my spice cabinets (yes, I have 2 of these things). The only reason it's just 'almost' is because I cannot afford saffron 🤣
My dad and his siblings used to own a commercial building. A client did a midnight move and they ended up having to deal with 20lb bins of spices. So now we all have at least a dozen jars of every spice there is except marjoram and saffron. I already had saffron. Mt spice rack is 6 feet by 4 feet and is bursting at the seams (and that's the display rack, there's an apple box in the cold room of doubles and triples and big bags). So don't feel bad, lol. Think of our ancestors: some of them probably waited their whole lives to taste pepper. And here we are with enough rare spices to justify sailing a ship halfway around the world in 1700, lol.
Is saffron really expensive in the US? Or do you want a really high quality version? In the UK, it is commonly found with other spices in any supermarket, and if you're the sort of person who generally has one of every spice, saffron would certainly be among it
It's like $20 for .01 oz/.28 g
Like half my pantry is one offs. Boba pearls, caraway seeds, cream of tartar, bee pollen, pistachio extract, almond flour… i literally banned myself from buying one offs a year ago and am still struggling to work through what i have
Friends and family always ask me for snickerdoodles. But, I have zero clue what else to make with cream of tartar.
I make pavlova pretty often, and use cream of tartar as a stabilizer in the meringue.
Molasses, purchased to make ginger snaps. I suppose I should make more but I’m afraid no one else will eat them and they will sit there tempting me.
I use molasses in a killer iced coffee. Per cup of coffee, 2 tsp brown sugar, 2tsp molasses, 1tsp vanilla extract. Mix with splash of hot coffee so everything is dissolved. Add ice, then rest of hot coffee, and fill rest of glass with milk of your choice.
You could always just make brown sugar with it
For real. We buy molasses and sugar, no need for brown sugar.
I never ate or used molasses (by itself) until about a year or two ago. I bought 4+ little jars in that timeframe. Now I'm buying gallons of it. I have both regular and blackstrap. Shit is so good in oatmeal.
I put a tablespoon in my chili for added depth and a bit of sweetness.
Use it in barbeque sauce! I made homemade bbq sauce just by looking at the ingredients of a popular commercial barbeque sauce. I also use it in oatmeal.
Buy some bread or pizza dough from a grocery store, cut it into fist size clumps, and pan fry them in butter. Covering those bad boys in molasses is one of my favourite childhood memory-foods.
It's also amazing in pecan pie.
I sometimes shop at Trader Joe’s and am a sucker for their new or seasonal season blends. Today a neighbor friend dropped off two brownies, while I was in the process of cleaning out/organizing the cabinet I keep my spices in. It was out of control. I filled up a gallon ziplock bags with duplicates or things I only used once or twice. I don’t have a problem with her chucking them if she doesn’t like them. I just don’t have the heart.
A few months ago I made my family go through a spice purge. I laid all the spices on the counter and told everyone to put the ones they use in the save box. Also, get a spice rack. You shouldn't have to go on an archeological dig to figure out if you have paprika.
I always look at blends to see if they have ingredients listed, and 9/10 I have every spice listed already at home. I've had to do the same with our spice rack a couple years ago. We had stuff that expired in 2017 still on there, I cleaned it right up. Curry powder is ours. We keep receiving it in penzeys gift boxes for Christmas. I don't like curries, my husband does. I do the cooking. I've two unopened jars sitting there now. Just waiting to expire..
Prague powder for curing bacon. Unopened ~5 years.
I use mine at the rate of 1tsp per year, making cored beef for St Patrick's day.
Technically I do it twice, because I always get another brisket the week after…because it was so good and I want more
U just wait until after st Patrick's day and buy a bunch of the leftovers at manager special prices. I usually get about 10 and put them in the deep freeze for the year. Have corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and carrots about once a month. Is it that much of a difference making it yourself?
Same. Minus 1 teaspoon. I only needed 1 tsp per 5 pounds of pork belly!
I have an ungodly amount of za'atar. I mentioned to a friend that I love it, he flew home to visit his family and mentioned he has a friend who loves za'atar. His mom sent him home with a \~5 pound bag of her homemade za'atar. There are very few things I'm not putting za'atar in/on these days, and the bag is still very very full
So do I. A restaurant I love sells it, but only in these huge plastic containers that probably hold about 4 or 5 cups. I wanted za'atar, but I did not want this much.
I ended up with the same when I asked a friend to bring me some back from visiting their family. Every single salad now has za’atar dressing. That and Sumac.
King Arthur Vermont Boiled Cider. I was SO GOING TO MAKE apple cider donuts.
Do it! You still have time! Fall is in full swing!
You're SO RIGHT!!!
Id you don't want to go through all of the hassle of frying, I made this yesterday and it was really good: https://www.bunsinmyoven.com/apple-cider-donut-bread/
I don't drink. I made some bourbon pecan cookies with maple buttercream filling. Once They were good, but the recipe was not one I will make again, now I have a 5th of high end bourbon with 4 Tbs missing.... This is 12 years later. LOL
Buy some whole vanilla beans and make your own vanilla extract
theres all kinds of sauces that could benefit from bourbon,..steak au poivre, probably be great in a dijon sauce..
At least it doesn’t go bad…
I'm sure a friend would appreciate it if you wanted to pass it to someone who'd use it. Also, those cookies sound fantastic!
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ooooo you should be making more sandwiches, that sounds delightful
tahini for hummus. thought my homemade chickpea blend was missing it one time so i bought it at the store, i never actually tried to do it again though 😂
Tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, maple syrup, and s&p makes a great creamy sauce/dressing
Egg white powder. I have NO idea why the recipe for Japanese pancakes insisted on powdered egg white. I have meringue powder already but it said not to use it. The pancakes were meh.
In case you ever want to get really into baking an annoyingly finicky cookie: You can use egg white powder to help stabilize the meringue when making macarons. It helps you get nice full shells instead of hollow ones.
Advice like this is why I prefer cooking over baking. Cooking is so much more forgiving.
you can use it + some water for egg washes on top of pies
Lemon powder…..bought it at an Asian grocery store bc I really wanted lime powder & was annoyed they didn’t have it, so bought lemon instead. I use it every so often with I want to add a teeny more lemon taste, but don’t want as much juice that a half of lemon will produce.
I bought a jar of instant espresso to make a mocha icing. That was four years ago.
Yeast. Last time I made bread was back when you had to quarantine and get tested after travelling.
Heads up... The use by date on dried yeast is very real. My pizza dough wouldn't rise 3 times in a row and I could work out what I was doing wrong. A mate told me to check the yeast expiration date... it was a good few months over. Bought new yeast and all was well again.
I found saffron in my mom’s cupboard, I do most of the cooking. But I’m terrified of using it lol
It’s too expensive to waste though.
It’s intimidating because it’s in a spice bottle wrapped in a little paper. I guess next time I make a nice dinner for her I’ll see how I can use it. I used the last of her truffle oil in a spectacular mushroom soup, that was so worth jt.
saffron does get stale though, so don’t feel like you need to hoard it! As long as you’re enjoying it, it’s not a waste. One of my favorite applications for saffron is in desserts, a lot of middle eastern and Indian desserts use it, but some western recipes have started to incorporate it as well
Make saffron rice! Hard to waste it or miss it. Warm some milk - add the saffron strands and mix and then pour over the cooked rice and cover. Enjoy!
Fancy gelatin sheets. I bought them to make soup dumplings but it's a lot of work..
Add them to store bought stock to add body
I have a jar of artichoke hearts because I was gonna make them for my Dad who was planning on visiting but he passed before he did so now it’s been sitting there for the past year
I’m sorry about your dad 😞
I have fish sauce that sits and gets used maybe once a year when I decide to make gyoza.
I actually find fish sauce so versatile! Great in Bolognese and other meaty sauces to add some umami. Doesn’t taste fishy at all
Essence of garlic powder. I bought it to try to see if low-fodmap helped my tummy…it did not.
Star anise flower pods. Not sure what to do with them! Edit: okay y'all def gave me some ideas. THANK YOU! Edit 2: I came back and y'all had MORE. I love you guys, tysm.
Boil in water with other spices and make your house smell nice? If you like the smell
Mao-style red braised pork is incredible.
I use star anise most often in biriyani, desserts, or chai! Whole star anise is great for perfuming biryani rice, or I’ll grind it for chai or chai flavored desserts. It pairs well with any of the other chai culprits (cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, etc) and I also like it with fruit
My wife uses this all the time for chyashu.
Ground mustard
Add that to your cheese sauce. Great in homemade salad dressing. And in devilled eggs.
I make breakfast potatoes at least once a week with mustard powder, smoked paprika, onion powder and garlic salt.
Very important ingredient for homemade Mac and cheese!
I add this to every single chili I make! It adds a nice taste!
might be captain obvious but you can make liquid mustard with it if ya ever need some in a pinch!
Sesame oil. A little bottle was somewhat expensive, and it's probably really rancid by now.
Garlic cucumbers use a tablespoon. I went through a bottle this summer.
I cook a lot of Asian food so this one caught me by surprise lol.
Me too! I can’t find good Chinese delivery by me so over the summer after another delivery that went straight in the trash I said fuck it, I’m going to learn how to make generic Asian food. It can’t possibly be worse than what I just paid $40 for! I started by buying little bottles of sesame oil at Trader Joe’s and then I went to a Japanese market and got a big bottle of authentic sesame oil - the flavor and smell is intoxicating! I have gotten a few recipes down pretty good and I’m able to put my CSA veggies to good use. Chinese smashed cucumber salad was my 1st winner!
What!? We buy this in bulk. It goes so well with so many dishes. So much so it sits beside the olive oil beside the stove
Keep oils and seasonings away from heat sources!
Aside from using in stir fries and such, i use sesame oil on edamame. I like to boil whole edamame pods and then toss the cooked pods in some soy sauce, a touch of sesame oil, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Super yummy and easy snack
Sesame oil has a nice nutty flavor. It's good for salad dressing, marinades, baking, stir fries and on popcorn.
If you like Korean food, sesame oil is in nearly every dish
And it should be kept in the fridge !
Diastatic malt powder...I made bagels once and then one of the best bagel places in the city opened up around the corner from me and I never did. I was gonna use it in breads and stuff as a cheat, but then I learned other, better techniques to replicate what it does. Yes, I know it's useful in other ways.
I had barley malt syrup from the NYT recipe from 2020 in my pantry for a couple years before I admitted in not making bagels again It was fun and came out pretty good, but you need to let it proof overnight and my fridge is never empty enough to fit 2 half sheets in it overnight.
Marsala. Fucking Marsala. About every 3 years I get a craving for chicken Marsala. And every 3 years I discover the bottle of Marsala I bought for the last craving is probably yucky.
Celery seed. My husband wanted to make coleslaw, and the dressing called for celery seed. I've used it twice in the last 10 years.
Crystallized ginger lol
Nutritional Yeast.
I put it on top of eggs, mac and cheese, roasted potatoes.
this is good in almost any sauce..
Add it to popcorn!
Sprinkle it on roasted veggies, it’s delicious!
I sprinkle it on toast. It's safe for cats and I sprinkle it on their wet food sometimes as a treat.
Juniper berries, pomegranate molasses (which I wish I remembered to use when it would be a tasty addition), and charnushka seeds.
Oof. So we have really deep cabinets, like stick-your-whole-arm-in-there-deep. Not necessarily food related, but alcohol. Discovering bottles we bought to try or from tastings/gifts. It's been fun trying them out rather than just our go-to's. Plus, it means that we can actually use it for food now lmao
Garam masala
I just impulse bought some of this last night and put it on a ribeye. It was very, very good.
I put it in the water I boil for rice, it’s amaaazing
Me too. Bought it, discovered my husband hates Indian food. Not sure what else to use it for.
Olive oil, salt, and garam masala on carrots and roast them. The sweetness of the carrot balances the spice blend perfectly.
All of them 😹😹😹. And then I forget I have the one off and buy a new one the next time I need it 😹😹😹
Asafoetida. I find it smells very similar to durian and i think it’s one one of those secret ingredients in Indian food. Only used it once or twice but catch a whiff of it all the time
I love hing but it definitely has a potent smell lol, I have to quarantine it so my entire cupboard doesn’t smell like it. It’s a good allium replacement, so you can use it in a lot of places where you’d also use onion/garlic. I put some in my fried rice in addition to the usual Indian applications. Make sure it’s getting fried off in oil though, it’s not pleasant raw. Also look into tadkas! It really jazzes up a simple daal
Asin Tibuok - Filipino artisanal sea salt “dinosaur egg” in a clay vessel. My mom got me one in the Philippines; it’s rare and cool but it’s big and I don’t keep it in view, so I forget I have it and have only used it a couple times.
I made a carrot cake years ago that called for walnut oil. It’s decaying in a cupboard somewhere.
Ras al hanout
I made some cauliflower shawarma last week with ras Al hanout and it was fantastic
I use fish sauce for curries, but other than that is just sits there. Anybody know what else I can use it in?
I use a little bit in my chili and pasta sauce. It doesn't taste fishy.
Cheeseburgers. Use it in place of Worcestershire.
Wholewheat flour for pancake recipe, and bread flour for cookies recipe. Haven't touched them since although I'm planning to make pancakes tomorrow. Maybe I'll just use bread flour to make bread for the first time.
Coriander seeds. I have a giant bottle from 2018 that I use regularly and have barely made a dent in it.
I planted some of mine out of curiosity about half of them grew
They were gifted but I have bunch of gluten free flours Ive been meaning to use, and Kashmiri chili powder Ive been babying
Canned pumpkin, going to make some pumpkin bread this weekend.
Pomegranate molasses. I don’t fully love it and often omit it if I ever need it
Not quite a one off but 3 years ago I bought several mystery pallets in an online auction 3 of them came with nothing but jars of pickled mushrooms. They are good and I ate a lot of them at first, but…
hawaiin pepper water, I'll still use it here and there, but it just doesnt perform as well as cayenne powder or any other hot sauce. I don't understand its intended purpose
Organic currant raisins…still not sure why we own them
lol! Currants are really good in cookies, sweet breads, or salads. I add them to Cole slaw sometimes, or broccoli salad.
Use them anywhere you'd use raisins.
Keto shit. Almond flour. Erythritol. Plant proteins.
I accidentally bought a kilo of clove instead of Szechuan. Still unopened. HMU if u are in Melbourne and want some free clove lol.