5 Pantry Essentials - Italian Edition
We all love Italian food, right? Sometimes there is nothing more comforting than a big bowl of pasta, especially if it can be whipped up quickly after a hell of a day. I always try to keep the following ingredients in stock for those kind of days.
#1 - A variety of pastas
Am I the only one with favourite pasta shapes or is that a thing? I certainly gravitate towards the same ones. I also can’t remember why I fell out with penne but I did. The lowest tier of pasta shape. I will not be taking questions at this time. If I’m making pasta, I usually use one of the following:
Fusilli - how good are pasta twirls? So good.
Linguine - for absolutely no logical reason, I’ve started to prefer linguine over her sister spaghetti. Again, like with penne, I can’t really explain why I feel the way I feel. Does the flatness mean more sauce coverage perhaps?
Orzo - what a shape. I absolutely love rice so rice shaped pasta? TAKE MY MONEY.
Lasagne sheets - I don’t make lasagne as often as I would like to but these are usually lurking about should the urge take me
#2 - Tinned tomatoes
Ah, the humble tinned tomato. I’ve just checked and the cheapest one available in my chosen supermarket is 39p. 39p and you can create the most gorgeous, velvety tomato sauce you’ve ever had in your life. You can also create a watery mess. That, my friend, is the impact time & patience can have.
Simmer a tin of tomatoes for 20 minutes with an onion, couple of cloves of garlic, salt, pepper and a splash of balsamic vinegar and your day will improve by 342%.
#3 - Fresh parmesan
Be gone, little packets of pre-grated parmesan. Good riddance, Nineties-style tubs of dried sawdust (seriously, these are terrible). I highly recommend buying wedges of parmesan and storing them in your fridge. They last for ages and you cannot compete with freshly grated gorgeousness.
#4 - Balsamic vinegar
As I mentioned above, an essential component for turning the humble tin of tomatoes into a banging wee sauce.
#5 - Anchovies
All hail the salty lil’ flavour bombs. I appreciate that these may be a bit of an ick for some of you, but for the grown ups among us (😏), you can’t go wrong with frying anchovies down - in fact, if you added them to the tomato sauce above, you’ve got marinara nirvana.
