Condiments

This Korean red pepper paste will add serious kick and depth of flavor to anything you stir it into.

I’ve been adding curry paste to an assortment of old standby dishes to give them a bit of kick. If you have half a can of curry paste lying about here are a few unexpected ways to put it to good use!I’ve written about my favorite curry paste in the past and it should be noted that I am a huge fan of green over red curry pastes. That’s simply a matter of taste, but I have found that I have better luck controlling the heat without many surprises.

Celery leaves — known primarily as a throwaway top to an already underappreciated vegetable — are so often discarded. It’s a real shame. Celery leaves are actually a bonus to their stalks and completely virtuous on their own. Here’s everything you need to know about prepping them and turning them into a vibrant pesto. Celery leaves are delicious, nutritious, and packed with intense celery flavor.

Nut-free? These tasty alternatives will make you forget all about peanut butter.

These tangy little buds are a pantry staple when it comes to jazzing up a weeknight pasta or adding the perfect finishing touch to a plate of cured salmon. Just a spoonful of capers can make a whole dish sing. Do you ever cook with them?Capers are actually the immature flower buds of the caper bush, a shrub-like plant that hails from the Mediterranean region. The buds are picked just before they reach ripeness and pickled either in a salt brine or in vinegar.

Do you have a bottle of clam juice in your pantry? Maybe the bottle you have is lurking in the back of the fridge after you used it in that one recipe that called for one tablespoon. Let’s be honest — this isn’t an ingredient making it into your everyday cooking. Well, not until now. Clam juice can also be used in cocktails, pastas, stir-fries, and deglazing your pan. Here are five ways to use clam juice so that bottle doesn’t get lost in the dark depths of your fridge.

Maybe you’ve heard of harissa, but have you ever tried it? If you love condiments and adding a kick of spice to your meals, you’ll want to check this out! Harissa is a spicy and aromatic chile paste that’s a widely used staple in North African and Middle Eastern cooking. Harissa recipes vary between countries and regions, but a standard version includes a blend of hot chile peppers (which are often smoked), garlic, olive oil and spices, like cumin, coriander, caraway and mint.

Both rice wine and rice vinegar are widely used in Asian cooking, but they’re two very distinct products. Do you know what sets them apart, and when to use each one? While both products are made from fermented rice, the difference is in the manner in which each one is produced, as well as how they’re used. These two can easily be confused, since rice vinegar is sometimes also labeled as rice wine vinegar (which is a vinegar, and not wine).

That little jar of red or green Thai curry sitting in your fridge adds a powerful punch of spicy flavor to whatever it’s added to. And while it’s great for making curries, don’t be afraid to use it in other dishes too — here are some of our favorites ways to use it. The beauty of soups that use Thai curry paste is that you usually don’t have to simmer them for very long since the paste is so flavorful by itself.

I have an ongoing real estate battle in my refrigerator door between condiments and cocktail ingredients. While I can ignore boozes and bitters since they seem to last practically forever, condiments definitely have shorter shelf lives and need to be pruned occasionally. We can all read a date stamp, but an opened container is another thing. Here’s a rundown of some of the most common condiments and how long they last once they’re opened.

Pomegranate molasses has become one of my favorite ingredients, but it’s a tricky one for many people. Perhaps you, like our assistant editor Ariel, bought a bottle to make one recipe, such as muhammara, and now you’re wondering what else to do with it. Ariel has been after me for months to write down a list of more ideas for pomegranate molasses.

More and more of us are discovering what a fantastic ingredient concentrated miso paste can be in our daily cooking – and not just for soup! Happily, many major stores have caught on and are starting to carry a variety of traditional misos to choose from. There are different types of misos and each is made from soybeans that have been fermented with either rice, barley or other grains. The real question is: how to choose?

These are the two best ways to do it!