Novice cooks get screwed. There are cooking basics that no one remembers to teach you. A good cookbook will tell you how to test a meat for doneness, plenty of them will even tell you how to boil an egg, and some will even guide you through the process of setting a banquet table (thanks, Joy Of Cooking!). All that is great, but there are still plenty of things they don’t tell you. Like, for example, what ingredients you should always have on hand.
It’s not as obvious as you’d think, and especially if you grew up in a house that didn’t do a lot of cooking from scratch, it can be a pretty daunting question. If you’re moving out on your own, or getting started as a cook, there are some basic ingredients you want in your pantry. This isn’t an exhaustive list of everything that’s good to have on hand, but it is the essentials.
Here’s what you need, and why you need it:
