March 1, 2022 • 30 mins
In this episode, Bobby breaks down all of the essential tools and pantry items that a home cook needs to pull off almost any recipe. Listen close for a long list of gadgets that you may not have yet, and take notes for stocking up your pantry on your next visit to the market. Finally, Bobby makes Sophie a special pasta dish that utilizes some of the most powerful secret weapons of a well stocked pantry.
For more information on "Always Hungry" follow the hosts on Instagram:
Bobby Flay's page: https://www.instagram.com/bobbyflay
Sophie Flay's page: https://www.instagram.com/abc7sophie
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
My name is Bobby Flay and I'm here with my
daughter and co host. I'm Sophie Flay, and I'm Always Hungry.
Sophie and I gathered around my stove to cook together.
Well you cook, I asked the questions, and eat the food.
If does any food left, we come to the table
together to share a meal, connect as a family, and
tell the stories that matter to us. So today we're
(00:28):
talking about essential kitchen tools and also pantry items. And
I wanted to talk about this because I was trying
to cook something out of your Bobby at Home cookbook,
trying to cook. I told you I failed on the muffins.
But I noticed in here which I hadn't noticed before
because I've made, I've made somethings. Out here was Bobby's
essential pantry and equipment. And you really give such a
(00:51):
great list of what you should have in your pantry
and what equipment you should have to set yourself up
for success. So, because I knew we were doing this
podcast today on this particular subject, I literally went around
my kitchen a little while ago and I just wrote
down what I have not everything. But what do you
want to start with your equipment? I want to talk
(01:13):
about equipment. So basically, UM have like a little container
right next to my stove that I called my hand
tools or the things that I go to most that
I that I use when I'm at the stove. So
like a rubber spatula, a metal spatula, a wooden spoon,
a zester. Yeah I don't have a zester. Yeah, you
should get one. And then a couple of whisks of
(01:34):
different sizes, some tongs both long and short, very important.
Then I have some brushes if if I'm going to
glaze something, you know, I don't have any brushes ladles
in case I want to, like I don't know, pasta
water into the pan so to speak. Um, I have
something called a spider you know what that is. It's
(01:54):
like a big like a basically like a big spoon
strainer sort of thing. It's round and it has a
lot of holes in it so you can actually take
something solid out of something liquid and the liquid will
stay in the pot. Right yeah yeah, And then um,
I have a meat thermometer. I don't have one of those. Well,
this is what you should get to meet them. Roometer
(02:16):
because a lot of people say, how do you know
when it's done? Well, check check you know, I meat
thermometer is important. Um. And then like then I have
a host of things. I want me to read some
of the things I have. So I have a citrus juicer,
like a hand citrus juice used to squeeze like lemon
and limes juice basically, Um, Christina, there's some pasta pots
(02:37):
and desk here if you want it, okay, And then um,
I have a mallet. Do you know what that's for?
You have to pound like chicken breast or you know,
if you're making milonnaise or chicken cutlets or something like that.
I have a cheese grater, a box grater if you
want a great cheese of course, a potato peeler. I
(02:57):
have lots of different sizes of mixing bowls. Yeah, see,
I have like three any more than that. Then I
have measuring measuring cups, both for liquid and for dry.
So I have measuring cups, and then I have measuring spoons,
you know for like baking, but also measuring cups for
like liquid measure Okay, and then uh, I have a
(03:18):
colander to strain things out and then some other strainers
that are finer, you know, if there's like smaller particles
that you want to sort of get rid of, then
then like pants, pots and pans. Definitely, I definitely have
my cast iron pans. I use you use those two.
I love my cast iron pan. Yeah, those should you
should be able to have those forever. Then I also
(03:39):
have stainless steel pans. But then I also have my
green pans, which are uh, nonstick, and I love them
because they go in the dishwasher and you can also
see in them. It's the one pan that I found
where it's non stick and you can get it hot
hot enough that they can see see her at the
same time, It's very hard to find a pan like that. Um,
cutting boards, so I like cutting on wood, especially when
(04:01):
I'm cutting vegetables, onions and things like that. But then
I also have plastic ones for like meats and fish. Okay. Um.
Then I have oh, I have these plastic cord containers
that I get from restaurants supply house. You get them
on Amazon, and those are good for leftovers, you know,
because because the plastic cord containers, you should just you
(04:24):
should go on Amazon just buy a bunch of them
because you can never have enough for those things. Then
of course I need a roasting pan or two with
a rack, so I can roast a chicken or a
roast or a turkey what have you. Um, I have
one or two stock pots so I can make big
things of chicken soup so to speak, every seven to
ten days exactly. I have some sheet trays, um, and
(04:48):
I used she trees a lot. I used she trays
to kind of like, especially if I'm doing a dinner
party or a lunch party, I UM like, I'll I'll
put you know, different preparations on different sheet trays to
keep them, to keep them in lime. And I also like,
I'm gonna bake biscuits, I need a shoot tray or
(05:08):
make chocolate or something like that. So this is a
really good example of how do you use something, how
to make something right out of your pantry, Like I
couldn't make it to the store snowstorm, or you're just
lazy and hungover whatever it is like, and you're like,
(05:31):
I just want I'm hungry, and you know what can
I what can I make from out of my pantry? Okay,
we're gonna make pasta, putanesca which actually is translated as
um in pasta in the style of prostitutes. Puttanesca is yeah, yeah,
it's The stories are like varied as to how it
(05:52):
became part of that one of it. One of the
stories I read was that they would make this dish
because it was had such strong because it has anchovies
and capers and garlic, et cetera, and olives, and it
would lore like the like the men to the to
the to the brothels what. I don't believe it, but anyway,
(06:13):
it's called possible, and who knows what the story is.
This is a classic Southern Italian dish. It's so good. Um. So, basically,
what we're gonna do is we're gonna start with some
garlic and crushed garlic. So we have garlic, we have anchovies,
we have tomato sauce, we have crushed red pepper capers,
(06:36):
and then we have we have some herbs, and then
to put some basil the bag, you know, and parsley
in it, and then some some palmers and cheese. This
is a good dish. Are you hungry? So hungry? This
is a you know, it's really flavorable. But what's really
great is, you know, you have all these things that
(06:58):
are basically coming out of your pantry, you know, Aunt Showby's,
the capers. They always hopefully have some garlic in the
refrigerator or on top of your counter, which I always do.
And then you know, a good quality Jared tomato sauce
or some can tomatoes make you make your own sauce
to you. Yeah, today, I'm usings. I always have a
(07:21):
good quality tomato sauce in my just in case. I
you know, you never know who's gonna come over here exactly.
It's I usually have it for you because when you
like like show up unannounced, um, and you're like, Dad,
I'm hungry, it's like all right here of course. Um.
(07:50):
Then I have some things that a lot of people
might not have. I have like a tortilla press because
I'm gonna make tortillas. Although I'd like one of those, yeah,
I mean, they're cheap and it's cool to make your
own tortillas. Well, you need some massa herrena and some
water and you can make your tortillas. They're not easy
to do. And frankly, I've been cooking Southwestern food and
you know, Mexican inspired food for a very long time.
(08:13):
I'm not great at it because there are people that
do it every single day and they're sleep Those people
were good. Um. I have a pasta machine, so I
have pasta attachments that I actually, Um, you can have
like a a hand cracked pasta machine, which are the
classic ones. But I also have attachments for my kitchen aid.
(08:33):
You know. I think you've seen me do that before.
I also have a good expressive machine, very important for
me to to get both through the day. Then I
have criswellas, which are these earthenware sort of these brown
earthenware dishes around that you'll see like in a lot
of Mexican and Spanish cooking, lots of Latin cuisines. And
I use them for for for kitchen from oven to
(08:56):
table cooking, you know, roasting mushrooms, roasting shrimp, roasting. You're
usually using them in your pizza oven though, right, you
can put them in any of it. Absolutely, Yeah, yeah,
for sure. Um that I have a muffin tin to
make muffins or the other day I made those morning
buns from tarteen. Do you ever make cupcakes? Never? I've
(09:19):
never seen a cupcake and I'm not a cupcake fan.
A cupcake. There's only one good part of the cupcake,
the topping. A kind of garden said to me that cupcakes,
like the bottom of the cupcake is just the vehicle
for the top. She's right, that's face facts, all right. Anyway, Um,
(09:41):
I'm looking on your equipment list here in your book.
It's a ramkin. What's a ramican? So a ramican is
like a round little porcelain um, not a bowl. But
it's like strange and that's what it was. So like
the thing that I think about most is it makes
su flames in them, right, you know exactly. I just
(10:02):
didn't know that's what it was called. Um. Spice grinder. Yeah, oh,
that's actually a good point. It's a it's a coffee grinder,
like for coffee greens, coffee greens, coffee, coffee beans. I
use it to grind spices so like black peppercorns, like
literally your coffee grinder. I have to. I have one
(10:22):
for coffee and one for spices. Um, you don't get
it mixed up because then your coffee is gonna be
very spicy, which could be cool to wait wait, wait,
digital scale? Do I really need that? You need a
scale if you're gonna bake because basically, instead of like
good bakers will tell you that you can't measure cups,
(10:45):
you have to weigh grahams. It drives me a little crazy.
But I'm not a baker. So but when I'm making now,
when I make pizza dough, I weigh it. You do
do what? I also take temperature of the air and
the flour. Are you serious? Oh my god? Yeah, you're
getting well because the guy who owns Rotsa, Dan Rickert,
(11:07):
told me, like took me through it. He's like, dude,
this is science. This isn't like you know, this isn't
pancake batter. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, I'm gonna make
it this weekend. Um, okay, So then I'm sorry, Well,
I just have questions about this. I don't have I
(11:27):
don't have these things. A deep fried thermometer and an
instant read thermometer are different. They are you can you can,
I guess. But the deep fried ones. The thing. The
thing about the deep fried ones is that it actually
it's you can. You can. You can submerge it the
(11:48):
whole thing in the in the oil and it will
actually attach to the pot that you're cooking, that you're
heating the oil up in so you can watch it rise.
A a instant read thermometer, you just kind of like
you probe whatever the meat is and then it tells you,
like in the next few seconds, what the temperature is. So,
I mean, they do somewhat the same thing, but they
(12:09):
are different. I don't have a food processor. Let me
write this down seriously. I need to know what to
get you for certain holidays, like your birthday. Great food processor.
For my birthday, listen, I bought you an this Presso machine.
You were thrilled because I love Like, do I really
(12:29):
need a food press food processor if I have a blender? Yes,
they're very different. Just think about it for a second.
A blender is incredibly powerful from the bottom up, and
a food processor will actually cut and mix things in
a circle. It does things very differently. Sometimes a blender
is too powerful for something you want a food process microplane.
(12:54):
That's that's what it's called a microplane. Yeah, because it
was used for something else and then somebody figured out
that it made It made a better zester than the
zesters that we used to use. Got it, Okay, Okay,
(13:27):
now we can move on to pantry. Okay, So here's
the things that I have in my pantry. So I
have a couple of different olive oil. I've a couple
of different oils. I have extra virgin olive oil, and
I have cooking oils like canola oil for instance, something
light canola or vegetable oils, and and basically the extra
virgin olive oil I don't. I don't usually heat up
very often because you can get really bitter very quickly.
(13:48):
I usually finished things with it. It's almost like a
sauce because it's so it's so pungent in terms of
flavor and um, it's it's got such a rich, sort
of thick texture to it, and you don't I think
when you add heat to it, I think it loses
its properties. So I use something that has a higher
smoke point, a lighter oil like canola or vegetable oil,
(14:11):
peanut oil, something along those lines to cook with. I
also use a ton of honey. Am I cooking not
to make things sweet, but to make I mean to
to kind of balance out the big flavors that I use. Um,
I use coach of salt and sea salt. Um. I
grab I cracked my own black pepper, So I always
(14:31):
have a big bowl of crack black pepper or ground
black pepper. I use the season everything. But what's the
difference between black peppercorns and white peppercorns other than obviously
the color the whole, Like do they taste different? They
do taste different white pepper, yes, um, yeah, they definitely don't. Yeah,
I find how do you describe the flavor? Like why
(14:55):
would you choose to use one over the other? They
have different flavors. I mean, black pepper tastes to me
like what peppers supposed to taste like. White pepper is
peppery as well, but it almost has like a what's
the best way to describe this, almost like a like
a like an earthier flavor. I don't know. I just
like the flavor of white pepper. One of the things
(15:15):
I'm really into is sexion on peppercorns, and they give
like they give you like a tingle on your tongue.
But I'm gonna make a session one peppercorn hot sauce
tacos with it. I don't know why anybody hasn't done
that yet. We don't tell anyone about that. That could
be like a new business whatever. I mean, there's no
(15:37):
secrets in the world, alright. So then um, then I
have like, uh, you know, then I have different things
in my pantry, so lots of different kind of vinegars,
balsamic vinegar, cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar,
white wine vinegar. Yeah, I have some of these, you do, right, Yeah, yeah,
vinegars are great to have around, yeah, definitely. And then
(15:59):
I have you know, I have I have a handful
of like, you know, different bottles of Asian ingredients, you know.
So there's you know, soy sauce of course, and tomari
which is a gluten free soy sauce tomori. And then
I have sesame oil delicious, you know, rice wine, vinegar.
(16:20):
Then I have like some thaie things like um red curry,
green curry paste, some coconut some coconut milk, you know,
and cans. Yeah, I always have um red curry paste
in my cabinets, right. And then I have some sweeteners
things like a gove molasses don't even I don't, but
(16:41):
it's but it's in there. I have a gove of molasses.
I have you know, of course, honey maple syrup by
pomegranum molasses. Here's my new favorite one date date nectar,
date molasses so good for what I use it for,
like glazes, and it's really good in like like smoothies,
(17:03):
like a date ching so good. Yeah good. It's good
in dressings as well, delicious. And then of course, like
you know, I have some olives of course, capers, um,
and then mustard's like whole grain dijon. You know, I
have yellow mustard in case somebody wants a hot dog.
(17:24):
What are you making hot dogs? Not exactly? And then
um yeah, and then I actually sometimes I have like
corse rashed mustard or honey mustard in there as well.
All right, so we're gonna start by cooking the garlic.
Just starts hanging it really quickly an showbies. We don't
(17:45):
want to brown the garlic. Put the tomato saus right
over it, and showbies are one of the great things
in the world. Has so much flavor and not enough
people use them. Yeah, right now we have the little
olive oil, garlic ant shobies, tomato sauce. Well, put some
(18:09):
capers in there as well, the pressure at pepper. Let's
just cook in the sauce. We'll cooking spaghetti, you know, Okay,
we use something. Yeah, let's saghetti younie. I've never made
this before. It's like everything I love, Yeah, exactly, lots
of salty flavors. We'll chop up some green olives. He's
(18:30):
a Sicilian olvas olives, which makes sense for this dish.
It's it's really a Southern Italian dish. Some olives in there,
but it's kind of bathe and the tomato sauce with
the anchovies and the garlic, and then we have some
fresh herbs. We're gonna add the fresh erbs at the end,
so we have parsley, we have some fresh oregano and
(18:52):
a little bit of basil, and then of course it's
like baking, you know, baking powder, baking soda. I know.
I feel like it's so easy once you have like
every everything on this list or the list that you're
about to read, But like if you don't have one thing,
(19:13):
it's so stressful. Like half the time when I don't
have like baking powder, I'm like, should I just drive
to Dads and go get like cook it, like a
cop of it. I think it's so annoying. You just
I feel like if you have like five or six
things stocked in your pantry for baking like you're good
to go, like some of the times, Well, the problem
here is like this happened to me the other day.
(19:34):
This this pantry. My pantry is so well stocked all
the time that I always feel like I have everything,
except the other day you wanted to come over for
brunch and you wanted waffles, and then I looked. I
was like, oh my god, I don't have any baking powder.
So you know, Christina got me some baking powder. But
like I didn't realize I didn't have any baking powder.
Like I'm not sitting around doing inventory right but I should.
(19:57):
And then like different kinds of flowers, like all purpose
flower for all purpose things, you know, bread, flour for
different kinds of you know, cakes, etcetera. Then there's almond flower,
semolina flower to make some pastas or things like that,
massa harina to make tortillas. I have Wonder Flower, which
is like it's a brand actually, but it's basically steamed flour.
(20:19):
The flowers already cooked, so it's good to if you're
breading something and you don't want it to be you
don't want the flower to be clumping up on straw.
Wonder Flower like melts very easily. You have stone ground
corn meal on here. Yeah, corn meal corn meal is
really great because you can you can crust like fish
or chicken in corn meal, so you can have a
(20:40):
cornmeal crusted fish. Um. Obviously you can make corn bread,
you can make cornmeal waffles. I'm a I'm a huge
cormeal fan. I love it. UM. Sometimes I have blue
corn meal too, which will it's just it's which is
a little softer, but it's got a great nutty flavor
to it. Um. Then different kinds of sugars. Of course,
(21:02):
you know, you you need gratulated sugar, but then you
know brown sugar, light dark. You know, the darker the sugar,
the more sort of molasses flavor it's going to have. UM.
And you know, of course I have chili peppers everywhere,
you know, pods literally like literally dried chilies, Antio Chili's,
cascabell chili, chili's chili powders. And then of course there's
a spice rack, you know, and that's a whole other thing,
(21:25):
which is you know, you know, it's important to keep
your your dried spices like kind of up to date,
like they don't last forever. You know after a year
or so, like it's time that we've we plenish them.
And they're not cheap, so it's like it's a it's
a pain. But the bottom line is if you're gonna
use these spices and I and and like, you don't
need every spice ever made, right, But like so sometimes
(21:45):
I see like online, Like I was thinking about this
the other day, I don't have like a real spice rack,
Like I just have some random spices that I bought,
like for different recipes and whatnot. Like is there a
good place to go get spices? Like should I just
order like a spice rack online of like where do
you get your spices? I buy them in bulk and
then put them in containers. Okay, so yeah, I don't
(22:06):
necessarily need to do that. You don't need to do that,
but you want, But I'm not. I'm never going to
run through spices like you you want to go to
a place that sells spices a lot because you want
to make sure that that's a spice store. Yeah, that's
a great idea spice store in my area. There's a place,
well there's a place called in New York City called Calusians,
(22:26):
which is an Indian spice store there and it's an
amazing store. Um, you walk in there, you're intoxicated by
the amazing aromas and they have this just gorgeous spices.
It's just so good. So you want like, you don't
want to go, you don't You just don't want to
buy it online because you don't know how long has
been sitting in the warehouse. Oh, spice station, Silver Lake,
(22:50):
there you go, see you there? Interesting? Um, what's a
saffron thread? It's saffron. So the saffron comes from a flower.
And they that the reason why saffron is so expensive
(23:11):
is because because they because there are people that literally
by hand take each thread of the saffron out of
the flower. Oh my god, it's the most expensive spice
in the world. But there's no substitute for saffron because
you can't emulate the flavor. You can emulate the color.
It's a beautiful orangey yellow color like so you can
(23:33):
use tumeric to flavor right to seasoned rice or to
color rice, but it's never gonna have saffron flavor. How
often do you sharpen your knives, Well, I sharpen them
all the time. On a steel. But that's just really
sort of bringing them back into alignment. So you can
do it yourself on a on a on a stone,
either a waterstone or you know, on a regular knife
(23:55):
sharpening stone, or you can take it to a place
and they'll do it on a machine. Not The problem
with this, okay, is that I want to say they ruin.
They can ruin your knives, but they the machines are
so powerful that at some point it starts to change
the shape of your knife. Oh you know, because it
(24:17):
starts getting because of the way that they sharpen them.
They sharpen them so so well that it actually kind
of starts chipping away at the metal. You know. So
what do I need a stone? Yeah, you can do
it yourself. When you didn't go to YouTube and he'll
tease you how to sharpen. Enough, I am not learning
(24:38):
how to sharpen a knife off YouTube. That's so that
freaked me out. I'm just gonna come over here, okay,
I'll show you. And then then there's there. Then there's
(25:02):
like the you know, the pasta section. So I have
cans of whole tomatoes to make tomato sauce. Of course,
I have tomato paste um. And then different kinds of pastas.
You know, every shake, every every pasta, shapen size flavored
pasta's squidding pasta. There's a whole wheat pockery in there
(25:22):
that Christina loves. We made that the other day with
rock fish. It was so good. Um. And then dried fruits, currants, apricots, cranberries,
great for salads. I don't feel like I ever noticed
you having a lot of dried fruits around. Those are
good for. Those are really good for, like chop sells delicious.
I don't remember you having a lot of those when
I was younger. Thing. Yeah, it's sort of like more
(25:47):
of my Mediterranean thing flavor. Yeah, Like you always have
a lot of good candy ginger. I feel like too.
You know, I don't have any candy ginger here, but
I should get some. I like it's a snack. I
feel like that's like something new that I've noticed that
you've had in your pantry more recently. I'll tell you
what I've had a lot in my pants recently. Are
(26:08):
these these nut butters, you know, besides peanut butter and
almond butter, like my new, my new I'm now in June.
The best I mean, you know what I do is
that sometimes I I make a piece of toast and
then I do half half the half the piece of
toast peanut butter and half the other piece of toast
(26:30):
pistachio butter, and then I dress a honey on top.
All right, that sounds really good. Now I'm addicted to it.
It's so good. There's a place in the Hollywood farmers
market that has a really great quality one that I
just I mean, I buy them. I buy like two
jars at a time. It's so good. Also, I think
it's important to have like beans in the like there
was something like there was some colleagues of mine, contemporaries,
(26:52):
I should say, chefs who are like I don't use
canned beans. I'm like, okay, so you be my guest.
Spend four hours cooking white and a lot of times
like the skin on him doesn't get tender for one
reason or the other. And um, but I always have
like cans of like Cantellini white beans in their black
(27:12):
beans chickpeas. It's great to make like a hummus at it.
She always in mine, you know, like you know, Christina
like makes making like this like this chickpeak curry thing
that she loves to make. And you know, it's great
to make soups with and things like that as well.
They're always good to have around. They're cooked perfectly. You
strain them out, you know, you straight out the juices
in them, and then you know they're they're good to use.
(27:33):
I also have like, like um tetra boxes of like
chicken broth and vegetable broth, good to have around a
lot of times I make my own, but in a pinch,
why not? You know, important important to do that this
thing is sizzling. How high is it? I always cook
on white. That is so scary you can turn it down, no,
(27:58):
I mean you know what you're doing. Yeah, mostly all right,
And then if if the tomato sauce gets a little thick,
you get some Pa. You're learning, girl, you're learning. Let's
give our popular taste perfect. And so what I do
(28:20):
is I just take I take the spaghetti, and I
just bring a little bit of the sauce with it,
I mean a little of the water with it. And
then before I put it in the sauce, I just
seasoned the pasta again with some salt and pepper. And
now I start bathing in the sauce. Yeah, I'll just
look the lesh. Yeah, you have to make sure that
(28:42):
the noodles cooking the sauce for a minute. It's gonna
put splash of pasta water in the air, and I'm
gonna put like a pat of butter to give it
like a nice so the glaze and and it's very classic,
especially in Southern Italian pasta dishes. Um to finish, it
(29:05):
would look a little bit of butter and then as
you know, the freshmer going when at the end, exactly
how does that look really good? Like a nice bright
red with the capers and the olives running through a
lot of good yeah, oh yeah, a little olive oil
(29:31):
topped it off a little more herds right out of
the pantry. Didn't even I didn't have to go to
the store, Lucky me. Always Hungry is created by Bobby
Flay and Sophie Flay. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis.
Always Hungry is produced, edited and mixed by Jonathan how Stressler.
(29:54):
Always Hungry is engineered by Sophie Flay. For more podcast
from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Ray You
app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
My name is Bobby Flay and I'm here with my
daughter and co host. I'm Sophie Flay, and I'm Always Hungry.
Sophie and I gathered around my stove to cook together.
Well you cook, I asked the questions, and eat the food.
If does any food left, we come to the table
together to share a meal, connect as a family, and
tell the stories that matter to us. So today we're
(00:28):
talking about essential kitchen tools and also pantry items. And
I wanted to talk about this because I was trying
to cook something out of your Bobby at Home cookbook,
trying to cook. I told you I failed on the muffins.
But I noticed in here which I hadn't noticed before
because I've made, I've made somethings. Out here was Bobby's
essential pantry and equipment. And you really give such a
(00:51):
great list of what you should have in your pantry
and what equipment you should have to set yourself up
for success. So, because I knew we were doing this
podcast today on this particular subject, I literally went around
my kitchen a little while ago and I just wrote
down what I have not everything. But what do you
want to start with your equipment? I want to talk
(01:13):
about equipment. So basically, UM have like a little container
right next to my stove that I called my hand
tools or the things that I go to most that
I that I use when I'm at the stove. So
like a rubber spatula, a metal spatula, a wooden spoon,
a zester. Yeah I don't have a zester. Yeah, you
should get one. And then a couple of whisks of
(01:34):
different sizes, some tongs both long and short, very important.
Then I have some brushes if if I'm going to
glaze something, you know, I don't have any brushes ladles
in case I want to, like I don't know, pasta
water into the pan so to speak. Um, I have
something called a spider you know what that is. It's
(01:54):
like a big like a basically like a big spoon
strainer sort of thing. It's round and it has a
lot of holes in it so you can actually take
something solid out of something liquid and the liquid will
stay in the pot. Right yeah yeah, And then um,
I have a meat thermometer. I don't have one of those. Well,
this is what you should get to meet them. Roometer
(02:16):
because a lot of people say, how do you know
when it's done? Well, check check you know, I meat
thermometer is important. Um. And then like then I have
a host of things. I want me to read some
of the things I have. So I have a citrus juicer,
like a hand citrus juice used to squeeze like lemon
and limes juice basically, Um, Christina, there's some pasta pots
(02:37):
and desk here if you want it, okay, And then um,
I have a mallet. Do you know what that's for?
You have to pound like chicken breast or you know,
if you're making milonnaise or chicken cutlets or something like that.
I have a cheese grater, a box grater if you
want a great cheese of course, a potato peeler. I
(02:57):
have lots of different sizes of mixing bowls. Yeah, see,
I have like three any more than that. Then I
have measuring measuring cups, both for liquid and for dry.
So I have measuring cups, and then I have measuring spoons,
you know for like baking, but also measuring cups for
like liquid measure Okay, and then uh, I have a
(03:18):
colander to strain things out and then some other strainers
that are finer, you know, if there's like smaller particles
that you want to sort of get rid of, then
then like pants, pots and pans. Definitely, I definitely have
my cast iron pans. I use you use those two.
I love my cast iron pan. Yeah, those should you
should be able to have those forever. Then I also
(03:39):
have stainless steel pans. But then I also have my
green pans, which are uh, nonstick, and I love them
because they go in the dishwasher and you can also
see in them. It's the one pan that I found
where it's non stick and you can get it hot
hot enough that they can see see her at the
same time, It's very hard to find a pan like that. Um,
cutting boards, so I like cutting on wood, especially when
(04:01):
I'm cutting vegetables, onions and things like that. But then
I also have plastic ones for like meats and fish. Okay. Um.
Then I have oh, I have these plastic cord containers
that I get from restaurants supply house. You get them
on Amazon, and those are good for leftovers, you know,
because because the plastic cord containers, you should just you
(04:24):
should go on Amazon just buy a bunch of them
because you can never have enough for those things. Then
of course I need a roasting pan or two with
a rack, so I can roast a chicken or a
roast or a turkey what have you. Um, I have
one or two stock pots so I can make big
things of chicken soup so to speak, every seven to
ten days exactly. I have some sheet trays, um, and
(04:48):
I used she trees a lot. I used she trays
to kind of like, especially if I'm doing a dinner
party or a lunch party, I UM like, I'll I'll
put you know, different preparations on different sheet trays to
keep them, to keep them in lime. And I also like,
I'm gonna bake biscuits, I need a shoot tray or
(05:08):
make chocolate or something like that. So this is a
really good example of how do you use something, how
to make something right out of your pantry, Like I
couldn't make it to the store snowstorm, or you're just
lazy and hungover whatever it is like, and you're like,
(05:31):
I just want I'm hungry, and you know what can
I what can I make from out of my pantry? Okay,
we're gonna make pasta, putanesca which actually is translated as
um in pasta in the style of prostitutes. Puttanesca is yeah, yeah,
it's The stories are like varied as to how it
(05:52):
became part of that one of it. One of the
stories I read was that they would make this dish
because it was had such strong because it has anchovies
and capers and garlic, et cetera, and olives, and it
would lore like the like the men to the to
the to the brothels what. I don't believe it, but anyway,
(06:13):
it's called possible, and who knows what the story is.
This is a classic Southern Italian dish. It's so good. Um. So, basically,
what we're gonna do is we're gonna start with some
garlic and crushed garlic. So we have garlic, we have anchovies,
we have tomato sauce, we have crushed red pepper capers,
(06:36):
and then we have we have some herbs, and then
to put some basil the bag, you know, and parsley
in it, and then some some palmers and cheese. This
is a good dish. Are you hungry? So hungry? This
is a you know, it's really flavorable. But what's really
great is, you know, you have all these things that
(06:58):
are basically coming out of your pantry, you know, Aunt Showby's,
the capers. They always hopefully have some garlic in the
refrigerator or on top of your counter, which I always do.
And then you know, a good quality Jared tomato sauce
or some can tomatoes make you make your own sauce
to you. Yeah, today, I'm usings. I always have a
(07:21):
good quality tomato sauce in my just in case. I
you know, you never know who's gonna come over here exactly.
It's I usually have it for you because when you
like like show up unannounced, um, and you're like, Dad,
I'm hungry, it's like all right here of course. Um.
(07:50):
Then I have some things that a lot of people
might not have. I have like a tortilla press because
I'm gonna make tortillas. Although I'd like one of those, yeah,
I mean, they're cheap and it's cool to make your
own tortillas. Well, you need some massa herrena and some
water and you can make your tortillas. They're not easy
to do. And frankly, I've been cooking Southwestern food and
you know, Mexican inspired food for a very long time.
(08:13):
I'm not great at it because there are people that
do it every single day and they're sleep Those people
were good. Um. I have a pasta machine, so I
have pasta attachments that I actually, Um, you can have
like a a hand cracked pasta machine, which are the
classic ones. But I also have attachments for my kitchen aid.
(08:33):
You know. I think you've seen me do that before.
I also have a good expressive machine, very important for
me to to get both through the day. Then I
have criswellas, which are these earthenware sort of these brown
earthenware dishes around that you'll see like in a lot
of Mexican and Spanish cooking, lots of Latin cuisines. And
I use them for for for kitchen from oven to
(08:56):
table cooking, you know, roasting mushrooms, roasting shrimp, roasting. You're
usually using them in your pizza oven though, right, you
can put them in any of it. Absolutely, Yeah, yeah,
for sure. Um that I have a muffin tin to
make muffins or the other day I made those morning
buns from tarteen. Do you ever make cupcakes? Never? I've
(09:19):
never seen a cupcake and I'm not a cupcake fan.
A cupcake. There's only one good part of the cupcake,
the topping. A kind of garden said to me that cupcakes,
like the bottom of the cupcake is just the vehicle
for the top. She's right, that's face facts, all right. Anyway, Um,
(09:41):
I'm looking on your equipment list here in your book.
It's a ramkin. What's a ramican? So a ramican is
like a round little porcelain um, not a bowl. But
it's like strange and that's what it was. So like
the thing that I think about most is it makes
su flames in them, right, you know exactly. I just
(10:02):
didn't know that's what it was called. Um. Spice grinder. Yeah, oh,
that's actually a good point. It's a it's a coffee grinder,
like for coffee greens, coffee greens, coffee, coffee beans. I
use it to grind spices so like black peppercorns, like
literally your coffee grinder. I have to. I have one
(10:22):
for coffee and one for spices. Um, you don't get
it mixed up because then your coffee is gonna be
very spicy, which could be cool to wait wait, wait,
digital scale? Do I really need that? You need a
scale if you're gonna bake because basically, instead of like
good bakers will tell you that you can't measure cups,
(10:45):
you have to weigh grahams. It drives me a little crazy.
But I'm not a baker. So but when I'm making now,
when I make pizza dough, I weigh it. You do
do what? I also take temperature of the air and
the flour. Are you serious? Oh my god? Yeah, you're
getting well because the guy who owns Rotsa, Dan Rickert,
(11:07):
told me, like took me through it. He's like, dude,
this is science. This isn't like you know, this isn't
pancake batter. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, I'm gonna make
it this weekend. Um, okay, So then I'm sorry, Well,
I just have questions about this. I don't have I
(11:27):
don't have these things. A deep fried thermometer and an
instant read thermometer are different. They are you can you can,
I guess. But the deep fried ones. The thing. The
thing about the deep fried ones is that it actually
it's you can. You can. You can submerge it the
(11:48):
whole thing in the in the oil and it will
actually attach to the pot that you're cooking, that you're
heating the oil up in so you can watch it rise.
A a instant read thermometer, you just kind of like
you probe whatever the meat is and then it tells you,
like in the next few seconds, what the temperature is. So,
I mean, they do somewhat the same thing, but they
(12:09):
are different. I don't have a food processor. Let me
write this down seriously. I need to know what to
get you for certain holidays, like your birthday. Great food processor.
For my birthday, listen, I bought you an this Presso machine.
You were thrilled because I love Like, do I really
(12:29):
need a food press food processor if I have a blender? Yes,
they're very different. Just think about it for a second.
A blender is incredibly powerful from the bottom up, and
a food processor will actually cut and mix things in
a circle. It does things very differently. Sometimes a blender
is too powerful for something you want a food process microplane.
(12:54):
That's that's what it's called a microplane. Yeah, because it
was used for something else and then somebody figured out
that it made It made a better zester than the
zesters that we used to use. Got it, Okay, Okay,
(13:27):
now we can move on to pantry. Okay, So here's
the things that I have in my pantry. So I
have a couple of different olive oil. I've a couple
of different oils. I have extra virgin olive oil, and
I have cooking oils like canola oil for instance, something
light canola or vegetable oils, and and basically the extra
virgin olive oil I don't. I don't usually heat up
very often because you can get really bitter very quickly.
(13:48):
I usually finished things with it. It's almost like a
sauce because it's so it's so pungent in terms of
flavor and um, it's it's got such a rich, sort
of thick texture to it, and you don't I think
when you add heat to it, I think it loses
its properties. So I use something that has a higher
smoke point, a lighter oil like canola or vegetable oil,
(14:11):
peanut oil, something along those lines to cook with. I
also use a ton of honey. Am I cooking not
to make things sweet, but to make I mean to
to kind of balance out the big flavors that I use. Um,
I use coach of salt and sea salt. Um. I
grab I cracked my own black pepper, So I always
(14:31):
have a big bowl of crack black pepper or ground
black pepper. I use the season everything. But what's the
difference between black peppercorns and white peppercorns other than obviously
the color the whole, Like do they taste different? They
do taste different white pepper, yes, um, yeah, they definitely don't. Yeah,
I find how do you describe the flavor? Like why
(14:55):
would you choose to use one over the other? They
have different flavors. I mean, black pepper tastes to me
like what peppers supposed to taste like. White pepper is
peppery as well, but it almost has like a what's
the best way to describe this, almost like a like
a like an earthier flavor. I don't know. I just
like the flavor of white pepper. One of the things
(15:15):
I'm really into is sexion on peppercorns, and they give
like they give you like a tingle on your tongue.
But I'm gonna make a session one peppercorn hot sauce
tacos with it. I don't know why anybody hasn't done
that yet. We don't tell anyone about that. That could
be like a new business whatever. I mean, there's no
(15:37):
secrets in the world, alright. So then um, then I
have like, uh, you know, then I have different things
in my pantry, so lots of different kind of vinegars,
balsamic vinegar, cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar,
white wine vinegar. Yeah, I have some of these, you do, right, Yeah, yeah,
vinegars are great to have around, yeah, definitely. And then
(15:59):
I have you know, I have I have a handful
of like, you know, different bottles of Asian ingredients, you know.
So there's you know, soy sauce of course, and tomari
which is a gluten free soy sauce tomori. And then
I have sesame oil delicious, you know, rice wine, vinegar.
(16:20):
Then I have like some thaie things like um red curry,
green curry paste, some coconut some coconut milk, you know,
and cans. Yeah, I always have um red curry paste
in my cabinets, right. And then I have some sweeteners
things like a gove molasses don't even I don't, but
(16:41):
it's but it's in there. I have a gove of molasses.
I have you know, of course, honey maple syrup by
pomegranum molasses. Here's my new favorite one date date nectar,
date molasses so good for what I use it for,
like glazes, and it's really good in like like smoothies,
(17:03):
like a date ching so good. Yeah good. It's good
in dressings as well, delicious. And then of course, like
you know, I have some olives of course, capers, um,
and then mustard's like whole grain dijon. You know, I
have yellow mustard in case somebody wants a hot dog.
(17:24):
What are you making hot dogs? Not exactly? And then
um yeah, and then I actually sometimes I have like
corse rashed mustard or honey mustard in there as well.
All right, so we're gonna start by cooking the garlic.
Just starts hanging it really quickly an showbies. We don't
(17:45):
want to brown the garlic. Put the tomato saus right
over it, and showbies are one of the great things
in the world. Has so much flavor and not enough
people use them. Yeah, right now we have the little
olive oil, garlic ant shobies, tomato sauce. Well, put some
(18:09):
capers in there as well, the pressure at pepper. Let's
just cook in the sauce. We'll cooking spaghetti, you know, Okay,
we use something. Yeah, let's saghetti younie. I've never made
this before. It's like everything I love, Yeah, exactly, lots
of salty flavors. We'll chop up some green olives. He's
(18:30):
a Sicilian olvas olives, which makes sense for this dish.
It's it's really a Southern Italian dish. Some olives in there,
but it's kind of bathe and the tomato sauce with
the anchovies and the garlic, and then we have some
fresh herbs. We're gonna add the fresh erbs at the end,
so we have parsley, we have some fresh oregano and
(18:52):
a little bit of basil, and then of course it's
like baking, you know, baking powder, baking soda. I know.
I feel like it's so easy once you have like
every everything on this list or the list that you're
about to read, But like if you don't have one thing,
(19:13):
it's so stressful. Like half the time when I don't
have like baking powder, I'm like, should I just drive
to Dads and go get like cook it, like a
cop of it. I think it's so annoying. You just
I feel like if you have like five or six
things stocked in your pantry for baking like you're good
to go, like some of the times, Well, the problem
here is like this happened to me the other day.
(19:34):
This this pantry. My pantry is so well stocked all
the time that I always feel like I have everything,
except the other day you wanted to come over for
brunch and you wanted waffles, and then I looked. I
was like, oh my god, I don't have any baking powder.
So you know, Christina got me some baking powder. But
like I didn't realize I didn't have any baking powder.
Like I'm not sitting around doing inventory right but I should.
(19:57):
And then like different kinds of flowers, like all purpose
flower for all purpose things, you know, bread, flour for
different kinds of you know, cakes, etcetera. Then there's almond flower,
semolina flower to make some pastas or things like that,
massa harina to make tortillas. I have Wonder Flower, which
is like it's a brand actually, but it's basically steamed flour.
(20:19):
The flowers already cooked, so it's good to if you're
breading something and you don't want it to be you
don't want the flower to be clumping up on straw.
Wonder Flower like melts very easily. You have stone ground
corn meal on here. Yeah, corn meal corn meal is
really great because you can you can crust like fish
or chicken in corn meal, so you can have a
(20:40):
cornmeal crusted fish. Um. Obviously you can make corn bread,
you can make cornmeal waffles. I'm a I'm a huge
cormeal fan. I love it. UM. Sometimes I have blue
corn meal too, which will it's just it's which is
a little softer, but it's got a great nutty flavor
to it. Um. Then different kinds of sugars. Of course,
(21:02):
you know, you you need gratulated sugar, but then you
know brown sugar, light dark. You know, the darker the sugar,
the more sort of molasses flavor it's going to have. UM.
And you know, of course I have chili peppers everywhere,
you know, pods literally like literally dried chilies, Antio Chili's,
cascabell chili, chili's chili powders. And then of course there's
a spice rack, you know, and that's a whole other thing,
(21:25):
which is you know, you know, it's important to keep
your your dried spices like kind of up to date,
like they don't last forever. You know after a year
or so, like it's time that we've we plenish them.
And they're not cheap, so it's like it's a it's
a pain. But the bottom line is if you're gonna
use these spices and I and and like, you don't
need every spice ever made, right, But like so sometimes
(21:45):
I see like online, Like I was thinking about this
the other day, I don't have like a real spice rack,
Like I just have some random spices that I bought,
like for different recipes and whatnot. Like is there a
good place to go get spices? Like should I just
order like a spice rack online of like where do
you get your spices? I buy them in bulk and
then put them in containers. Okay, so yeah, I don't
(22:06):
necessarily need to do that. You don't need to do that,
but you want, But I'm not. I'm never going to
run through spices like you you want to go to
a place that sells spices a lot because you want
to make sure that that's a spice store. Yeah, that's
a great idea spice store in my area. There's a place,
well there's a place called in New York City called Calusians,
(22:26):
which is an Indian spice store there and it's an
amazing store. Um, you walk in there, you're intoxicated by
the amazing aromas and they have this just gorgeous spices.
It's just so good. So you want like, you don't
want to go, you don't You just don't want to
buy it online because you don't know how long has
been sitting in the warehouse. Oh, spice station, Silver Lake,
(22:50):
there you go, see you there? Interesting? Um, what's a
saffron thread? It's saffron. So the saffron comes from a flower.
And they that the reason why saffron is so expensive
(23:11):
is because because they because there are people that literally
by hand take each thread of the saffron out of
the flower. Oh my god, it's the most expensive spice
in the world. But there's no substitute for saffron because
you can't emulate the flavor. You can emulate the color.
It's a beautiful orangey yellow color like so you can
(23:33):
use tumeric to flavor right to seasoned rice or to
color rice, but it's never gonna have saffron flavor. How
often do you sharpen your knives, Well, I sharpen them
all the time. On a steel. But that's just really
sort of bringing them back into alignment. So you can
do it yourself on a on a on a stone,
either a waterstone or you know, on a regular knife
(23:55):
sharpening stone, or you can take it to a place
and they'll do it on a machine. Not The problem
with this, okay, is that I want to say they ruin.
They can ruin your knives, but they the machines are
so powerful that at some point it starts to change
the shape of your knife. Oh you know, because it
(24:17):
starts getting because of the way that they sharpen them.
They sharpen them so so well that it actually kind
of starts chipping away at the metal. You know. So
what do I need a stone? Yeah, you can do
it yourself. When you didn't go to YouTube and he'll
tease you how to sharpen. Enough, I am not learning
(24:38):
how to sharpen a knife off YouTube. That's so that
freaked me out. I'm just gonna come over here, okay,
I'll show you. And then then there's there. Then there's
(25:02):
like the you know, the pasta section. So I have
cans of whole tomatoes to make tomato sauce. Of course,
I have tomato paste um. And then different kinds of pastas.
You know, every shake, every every pasta, shapen size flavored
pasta's squidding pasta. There's a whole wheat pockery in there
(25:22):
that Christina loves. We made that the other day with
rock fish. It was so good. Um. And then dried fruits, currants, apricots, cranberries,
great for salads. I don't feel like I ever noticed
you having a lot of dried fruits around. Those are
good for. Those are really good for, like chop sells delicious.
I don't remember you having a lot of those when
I was younger. Thing. Yeah, it's sort of like more
(25:47):
of my Mediterranean thing flavor. Yeah, Like you always have
a lot of good candy ginger. I feel like too.
You know, I don't have any candy ginger here, but
I should get some. I like it's a snack. I
feel like that's like something new that I've noticed that
you've had in your pantry more recently. I'll tell you
what I've had a lot in my pants recently. Are
(26:08):
these these nut butters, you know, besides peanut butter and
almond butter, like my new, my new I'm now in June.
The best I mean, you know what I do is
that sometimes I I make a piece of toast and
then I do half half the half the piece of
toast peanut butter and half the other piece of toast
(26:30):
pistachio butter, and then I dress a honey on top.
All right, that sounds really good. Now I'm addicted to it.
It's so good. There's a place in the Hollywood farmers
market that has a really great quality one that I
just I mean, I buy them. I buy like two
jars at a time. It's so good. Also, I think
it's important to have like beans in the like there
was something like there was some colleagues of mine, contemporaries,
(26:52):
I should say, chefs who are like I don't use
canned beans. I'm like, okay, so you be my guest.
Spend four hours cooking white and a lot of times
like the skin on him doesn't get tender for one
reason or the other. And um, but I always have
like cans of like Cantellini white beans in their black
(27:12):
beans chickpeas. It's great to make like a hummus at it.
She always in mine, you know, like you know, Christina
like makes making like this like this chickpeak curry thing
that she loves to make. And you know, it's great
to make soups with and things like that as well.
They're always good to have around. They're cooked perfectly. You
strain them out, you know, you straight out the juices
in them, and then you know they're they're good to use.
(27:33):
I also have like, like um tetra boxes of like
chicken broth and vegetable broth, good to have around a
lot of times I make my own, but in a pinch,
why not? You know, important important to do that this
thing is sizzling. How high is it? I always cook
on white. That is so scary you can turn it down, no,
(27:58):
I mean you know what you're doing. Yeah, mostly all right,
And then if if the tomato sauce gets a little thick,
you get some Pa. You're learning, girl, you're learning. Let's
give our popular taste perfect. And so what I do
(28:20):
is I just take I take the spaghetti, and I
just bring a little bit of the sauce with it,
I mean a little of the water with it. And
then before I put it in the sauce, I just
seasoned the pasta again with some salt and pepper. And
now I start bathing in the sauce. Yeah, I'll just
look the lesh. Yeah, you have to make sure that
(28:42):
the noodles cooking the sauce for a minute. It's gonna
put splash of pasta water in the air, and I'm
gonna put like a pat of butter to give it
like a nice so the glaze and and it's very classic,
especially in Southern Italian pasta dishes. Um to finish, it
(29:05):
would look a little bit of butter and then as
you know, the freshmer going when at the end, exactly
how does that look really good? Like a nice bright
red with the capers and the olives running through a
lot of good yeah, oh yeah, a little olive oil
(29:31):
topped it off a little more herds right out of
the pantry. Didn't even I didn't have to go to
the store, Lucky me. Always Hungry is created by Bobby
Flay and Sophie Flay. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis.
Always Hungry is produced, edited and mixed by Jonathan how Stressler.
(29:54):
Always Hungry is engineered by Sophie Flay. For more podcast
from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Ray You
app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Monster: BTK
'Monster: BTK', the newest installment in the 'Monster' franchise, reveals the true story of the Wichita, Kansas serial killer who murdered at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991. Known by the moniker, BTK – Bind Torture Kill, his notoriety was bolstered by the taunting letters he sent to police, and the chilling phone calls he made to media outlets. BTK's identity was finally revealed in 2005 to the shock of his family, his community, and the world. He was the serial killer next door. From Tenderfoot TV & iHeartPodcasts, this is 'Monster: BTK'.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.