Commonplace Vol. 6 Issue 2

Hello. I’ve had a few queries following up on the how-to-stock-a-kitchen section of a previous issue (many of which were “how could you leave out X?!”), and some of those were about what actual foods to have in there. What foods you’re going to have in is a deeply personal and circumstantial sort of thing, though, so the best I can do is walk you through what I pretty much always have in the house.

The Contents of the Larder, and the Best Things to Have

Even for one established cook, the larder list will vary over time. There was a point where I would swear blind that I could not cook without herbes de Provence, and now I don’t actually know if there’s any in the house, and if there is, I should probably throw it out because I haven’t used it in two years. And there’s a brief article on Cup of Jo about what five things you wouldn’t be caught without, which is a weirdly different question, and has some very eclectic answers.

So the very first things that I think of in larder terms are pasta and rice. At any given time, there are four or five forms of pasta on my shelves - tagliatelle and macaroni, always, and then probably penne, spaghetti, and lasagna sheets. There might be half a dozen others, sometimes, depending on what was to hand, and if I got some for a particular dish. Orzo and rigatoni are often there. Rice is much simpler: Tilda basmati, always present, always in large quantities. I have a dedicated (and branded) tin for it these days, which holds about 2.5kg, and is never ever allowed run out. There will also, I suppose, be pudding rice somewhere, but that’s more specialised, and really only used a few times a year, mostly when Nina makes Karellian pastries. And there’s probably canned rice pudding somewhere too, because sometimes it is exactly the comfort food you want. Oatmeal for porridge, and a random variety of other rolled or crushed grains, are also always present.

Dairy is the next thing. Butter, milk, some form of cheese, and eggs. There is frequently buttermilk. Butter is my frying (sauteeing, for the Americans) medium of choice, and Irish butter is excellent. Kerrygold has gone to the point where the price is actually prohibitive (over €12/kg), so I get along with the supermarket own-brand stuff now (around €8/kg), and it’s still pretty good. Milk is lactose-free, most of the time, and only otherwise when there’s a specific necessity for something I’m cooking. There are always two cheeses - cheddar in some form, and a hard cheese like gran padano. I love blue cheese, but nobody else in my life will touch the stuff, so it’s usually notable by its absence. And eggs, free range, large, are a permanent thing, because if I’m vaguely hungry and don’t know what I want, eggs in some form will do the thing. I’m getting to a point where I can produce a decently coherent omelette, as long as I don’t overthink it.

There’s also always bacon (smoked dry-cured back rashers, occasionally streaky), and usually cooked ham. The ham works as sandwich fillings, omelette fillings, and bribes for the younger cat, whose career of choice is Professional Ham Inspector, and who turns up every time the fridge is opened, on the off chance. I used to buy pale hams and cook them myself, but it’s an extra task in what are often very busy weeks, so that’s somewhat gone by the wayside. Tesco’s “Traditional Ham”, sold in slices in packs of, for some reason, 17, is the usual choice here, or the Lidl equivalent.

The freezer almost always has some hash browns, fish fingers, chicken thighs, and pork chops. Because I don’t see the inside of the freezer as much as other storage places, it suffers a little from the out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing, and needs unpacking every few months to establish what the hell is in there. Frozen fruit, almost always.

The sort of necessities-to-actually cook of salt, olive oil (not extra virgin; there’s no point in cooking with that), sunflower oil, and the like live by the cooker. There are at any point between three and six other oils there, and a nest of vinegars (red wine, white wine, rice, cider, malt) and savoury cooking sauces (Worcestershire sauce, nam pla, mushroom ketchup) on another counter, taking up space. For the use they get, they should absolutely be in a cupboard somewhere, but my brain just doesn’t seem to accommodate that. There are anchovies, in a jar, on a shelf if unopened, and thereafter in the fridge.

I always have canned tomatoes. Possibly they should have been the very first thing on the list; they’re my go-to item for talking about supply lines and stocking up on food. I’m aware that other cooks swear there’s a difference between different brands and levels of quality; I’ve never really noticed. So I get the cheapest cans that still have a ring-pull, currently Fiorino Chopped Tomatoes at 55c per 400g. There will also be beans, because I rarely if ever have the presence of mind to soak dried beans. I usually have black-eyed beans, chickpeas (garbanzo, for the more Western among us), butterbeans, pinto, kidney, and cannellini. Also cans of refried beans, because while I can make my own, it’s a lot of work for something that’s rarely any better than what’s in a can. They’re the Old El Paso brand, though; I have tried Tesco’s own-brand, and also the Gran Luchito ones, and will not be touching either again.

I can, after a fashion, make bread, but I usually buy it as my medieval forebears did. I like Tesco’s sourdough, but prefer Lidl’s. The Lidl down the road from here has been closed for renovation - rebuilding, really - since April, and won’t re-open until October. I’ve been missing it. I also really like the “Greek style” flatbreads Tesco currently have. Conveniently, I think they’re pretty close in form to the earliest forms of bread eaten in Ireland. And I get rye bread once in a while from a Polish shop. McVities Rich Tea biscuits have a variation that’s less than 10% sugar, so there’s usually a packet of those around.

In terms of preserves, there’s whatever jam I made in a given year (none, this year, sadly; there just has not been time), and then raspberry, marmalade, and rose petal jam when I can get it, although it’s more ingredient than for direct consumption. I’ve tried low- and no-sugar fruit preserves (they’re not jams), but I don’t eat them quickly enough, and inevitably lose half the jar to mould. So the sugary ones remain, and I just go easy on them. There’s also ketchup, for Nina’s use, and usually some kind of pickled cucumber, and olives. There’s frequently a jar of pickled herring in the fridge, too, because when you want that, nothing else will do. There’s also always Nutella and peanut butter.

The spice and herb shelves are a whole issue onto themselves, but I will mention that for many of them, I’m moving to buying larger packets from the Asian shops, which generally come in around half the price, and sometimes less than half, of buying them from supermarkets. They’re also the thing I most have to shop around for, because no one place ever carries all the stuff I use.

I maintain a fairly eclectic set of teas (tisanes, technically) for the Dun in Mara Fight Practice, but they mostly live in the basket in which they travel. The house always has black tea (Assam, for preference), lapsang souchong, chamomile and peppermint, at least, plus Twinings Hot Chocolate. The Nespresso machine makes the coffee these days, although there’s a selection of aeropresses and cafetieres there when necessary.

And then there’s the array of flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and other such stuff that lives in the larder cupboards under the stairs. Dry noodles go here too, and really those cupboards need some clearing out and re-assessing. During the pandemic, I had a big bag of white flour from Kells Wholemeal, and it was notably better than the stuff you get as “plain flour” otherwise. It’s tough to find a place to store a bag that size, though. I use very little sugar outside of baking (essentially none), so there are frequently three or four partial bags of it.

In fresh vegetables, I almost always have celery, tomatoes, onions in some form, garlic and ginger, and bag of leaves (usually a bistro salad) in the fridge. Everything else depends on what I’m planning to cook that week.

I think that’s about it, but that’s only as it is this month. In a few months time, I’ll have decided that trying to live without canned okra (or something) in stock all the time is madness, and a few months ago I was going through a phase where there was always smoked salmon.

The things I wouldn’t be caught without, in the spirit of the Cup of Jo post above, are somewhat different, and I’ve only mentioned some of them. I think the idea there is stuff that wouldn’t necessarily be in the average kitchen. So my five are currently: anchovies, smoked paprika, cumin, buttermilk, and rosepetal jam. I can do a lot with those, given some basics alongside.

What’s in your cupboards?

Recipe: 2AM Beans

It’s also been pointed out that I haven’t posted a recipe in a while, so here’s 2AM Beans.

It’s not necessary for it to be 2AM to cook these beans, but they do taste good then. Take a small onion, or a couple of shallots, or half a larger onion, and chop it up fairly finely. Get a small saucepan, heat it a little, melt some butter, and fry the onion gently. Cut a couple of rashers of bacon into small pieces, and add them. Once they’ve fried a bit, take a can of beans (the kind in water) - doesn’t much matter which kind, but I like cannelini for this - and tip it into the saucepan, water included. Optionally, throw in a vegetable stock cube or half a jellied stock packet. Very optionally, add a little more water, but I ususally don’t. Leave that to cook down while you fry a couple of eggs and maybe some more bacon. Once the eggs and bacon are done, chop them up a bit, pour the bean mixture into a bowl (or onto some buttered toast), top with the chopped egg and bacon. Eat with a spoon from the bowl, or more likely with knife and fork if you went for the toast, while staring into the depths of the internet.

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