Maalouf Authentic Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
Stone-milled exclusively from a single grove of small, slender Souri olives grown in North Lebanon, Maalouf's early-harvest oil possesses a potent green-yellow color and a buttery, rich flavor with hints of green apple and artichoke. It has a subtle peppery kick and addictively long, nutty finish. This is truly an all-purpose, extra-virgin olive oil without the overpowering bitterness that mars many other brands. We have a very limited inventory of this small-batch oil; once we're sold out, we can't get more until next year's olive harvest.
Mymouné Pomegranate Molasses
I discovered this Pomegranate Molasses from Mymouné through a Cambridge restaurant called Moona; the Lebanese company makes all of its products by hand in small batches, and their pomegranate molasses is the sharpest and brightest I have ever tasted. The bottle will last a long time, and it is so much better than the sweeter, less balanced supermarket products. It's a a powerhouse ingredient used throughout the cooking of the Middle East and the Caucasus region that I guarantee you'll love. — Christopher Kimball
Megachef Premium Oyster Flavored Sauce
Megachef Oyster Sauce is made with premium oysters that are harvested off the Gulf of Thailand and smoked over hardwood for a deeper flavor and smoky, grilled aroma. We love its complex yet clean flavor: robust and savory, slightly briny and almost sweet. Although it's prepared by cooking down oysters until their juices caramelize, this sauce does not taste like oysters; rather, it has a molasses-like richness and sweet, savory and umami flavor that's slightly similar to soy sauce. Megachef's version has no added artificial flavors or colors—in contrast, even high-quality brands tend to augment their oyster sauce with ingredients like MSG and caramel coloring, resulting in an artificial taste.
While oyster sauce is mostly used as an ingredient for marinades, stir-fries or flavoring rice or noodle dishes, Megachef's Oyster Sauce is also delicious on its own as a condiment—the sauce's smoother consistency compared to other brands is perfect for dipping or drizzling over dishes.
Mutti Triple-Concentrated Tomato Paste (2-Pack)
Mutti Tomato Paste is tomato paste as it was originally intended. Traditionally, this ingredient was made by drying tomato sauce on wooden boards in the sun; likewise, Mutti's modern version has a sun-dried flavor and caramelized richness reminiscent of molasses. Yet the tomato paste is not overly sweet—as tomatoes cook, their amino acids break down, which produces savory umami compounds. And unlike most tubed tomato pastes which are double-concentrated, this version is triple-concentrated, so a little goes a long way. We far prefer it to other tomato pastes in tubes, not to mention canned varieties that inevitably have a metallic taste from reacting with acidic tomato juice.
Yakami Orchard Yuzu Marmalade
Juicy, flavorful and wonderfully textured Yakami Orchards Yuzu Marmalade is made with fresh, local yuzu from a collective of family farms in Japan’s Miyazaki prefecture. Balanced out with honey and sugar, this yuzu marmalade is bright, tart and warmly sweet with every bite. Just by opening a jar of Yakami Orchards’ product, you’ll be able to smell the bright and subtly floral aroma of yuzu. We love the plentiful chunks of yuzu rind, which are thinly sliced and add texture without making the marmalade clumpy. The yuzu pieces contribute a pop of piney bitterness that is a pleasant counterbalance for the overall sweet spread.
Tân Tân Vietnamese Hoisin Sauce
Too many supermarket hoisin sauces come across as cloying—usually candy-sweet with an occasional aftertaste of unpleasant chemical bitterness. Tan Tan’s version of the classic Chinese fermented soybean condiment, however, yields the perfect balance of sweet, earthy and savory notes with an addictive umami core that adds even more depth. An elegant hint of anise floats in and adds aromatic, nuanced complexity, while garlic grounds the sauce without overwhelming its other flavors. It’s texture is satisfyingly syrupy, not too molasses-thick like some brands, and it’s made with no preservatives from a family recipe—the epitome of an elevated pantry essential.
Milk Street Kitchin-to™ Knife
Standard chef’s knives are big and heavy because they evolved from Middle Ages daggers, which were designed for defense. It stabs fine, but how well does it handle standard kitchen tasks such as chopping and slicing? Our solution was to look toward Japan, where knives are based on the design of the featherweight samurai sword. Japanese knives are thinner and designed for the task at hand. Based on these lighter, safer knives and our own cooking experience, we developed an all-new modern chef’s knife that’s remarkably easy to use. It’s the Milk Street Kitchin-to, part Chinese cleaver and part vegetable knife. It can handle small jobs such as slicing garlic but also makes heavy-duty jobs a breeze. With the Kitchin-to, you let the knife do the work!
Milk Street Garlic Confit
The worst recipe ingredient is, “4 cloves garlic, minced.” You know that it is going to be hard to do, it will make a mess, and you will end up with garlic all over your cutting board and knife. Jarred supermarket garlics are, well, awful! They often taste bitter and harsh or lack flavor altogether. Our solution to this problem is to create a garlic confit—mellow but full-flavored and enhanced with a few nice touches, including bay leaves, Aleppo pepper, ghee, olive oil and a hint of lemon. You will never have to mince garlic again with Milk Street Premium Essentials Garlic Confit!
Milk Street: Nakiri
What if we told you there is a Japanese knife specifically designed for vegetable prep that will make your cooking safer, easier and faster? It is vastly better than the all-purpose European chef’s knife, which is clunky, heavy and too thick to precisely slice and dice onions, cut carrots into perfect coins or reduce chard into feathery ribbons. The solution is the Milk Street Nakiri. It’s light, thin and sharp, with a design that resembles a mini cleaver—2 inches deep with a squared-off tip. A very thin blade, just 1.6 millimeters at the top, tapers down even thinner toward the end so it slices through even tough ingredients effortlessly without bending. The broad blade shields your fingers when you chop and works as a bench scraper to transfer chopped veggies to the simmering pot. With the help of veteran industrial designer David Lewin, we added a few special touches. The blade is embossed with a nonstick file pattern that replicates the kourochi (blacksmith) or tshuchime (pear skin) finish to traditional nakiris, so sliced ingredients fall right off. A gentle curve accommodates fingers when choking up tight for control, and the handle has been designed to provide a nonslip grip.
Pic's Crunchy Peanut Butter
Fans of chunky peanut butter will love this version from New Zealand. Whereas many chunky peanut butters are just smooth peanut butter with occasional nut pieces, the New Zealand brand has a full mouthfeel, with the right ratio of plentiful crunchy bits to smooth butter for a satisfying consistency with every bite. It also boasts a shelf stability up to 10 times greater than regular peanut butter. And the peanut butter itself is always made without any added sugar, oil or emulsifiers, so the peanut flavor comes through clearly in both sweet and savory recipes.
Milk Street: Közmatik
The Milk Street Közmatik will ship by July 30
When a recipe calls for charring vegetables, what do you do? Well, you can fire up the grill but that is a lot of work for just one eggplant or two bell peppers. In Turkey, however, they have a better solution called the Közmatik, a metal disk that fits perfectly over the burner of a gas stove. Evenly spaced holes allow heat to circulate around the vegetables, so you are truly roasting, rather than searing as you would on a skillet. The holes are close enough to hold even small veggies, like slender spring onions, and the disk is large enough to keep several bulbous eggplants from rolling off. It’s also less messy than charring directly on the burner: The Közmatik catches nearly all of the bits of charred vegetable skin and juices that would leak onto the surface of the stove. And, once cooled, it can be thrown in the dishwasher for easy cleanup.
Pic's Smooth Peanut Butter
Pic’s Peanut Butter works equally well for classic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as it does for baking and cooking. Choose between salted or unsalted—even the salted version has only half the salt of comparable brands. And while not impervious to separating, we find the peanut butter comes together quickly with just a stir or two, as opposed to the vigorous blending required with other versions. It also boasts a shelf stability up to 10 times greater than regular peanut butter. And the peanut butter itself is always made without any added sugar, oil or emulsifiers, so the peanut flavor comes through clearly in both sweet and savory recipes.
Milk Street The World in a Skillet
The World in A Skillet brings you quick and easy recipes from around the world, each one cooked in just a skillet. Bold flavors from just one pan – transform your cooking today!
Little Apple Treats Original Apple Cider Vinegar
Produced from hand-picked apples, not the low-grade and windfall apples most companies use, and aged in oak barrels for two years before bottling, Little Apple Treats cider is bright and sharp, with a bold apple flavor and subtle caramel tones contributed by the barrel aging. This is the best American apple cider vinegar we’ve tasted, every bit on par with the fancy, expensive French stuff from Normandy.
Milk Street Tri-Edge Knife
The typical bread knife tears its way through loaves and mashes tomatoes to pulp. So we spent months re-engineering the bread knife from the ground up, testing competitors’ knives to learn what we wanted and discarding what we didn’t. The result, the *Milk Street Tri-Edge Bread Knife*, perfectly handles it all, slicing easily through any style of bread, delicate pastries, overstuffed sandwiches and tough tomatoes. It's also the perfect knife for difficult tasks, like chopping nuts and chocolate, handling dried fruit, and cutting up large blocks of butter.
Kinto Butter Dish
Angkor Food Lemongrass Paste
Angkor Food's Lemongrass Paste is an all-purpose curry paste made with bright and aromatic lemongrass, makrut lime leaves and galangal, balanced out by earthy garlic, onion and turmeric; fish sauce gives the paste a savory and complex boost.
Milk Street: 3-Piece 13-Inch Hammered Carbon Steel Wok
The typical wok is lousy for home cooking. With a round bottom that doesn’t heat on a flat American burner, poorly conductive steel and low-quality construction, most woks don’t perform well enough to be worth the storage space. That’s why we designed the Milk Street Hammered Wok specifically for American home cooks. After dozens of hours testing 10 woks of varying shapes, sizes and materials, we understand the features that make a great wok. Our redesigned 13-inch wok has high-quality construction, oversized handles for better control, a special dimpled surface for nonstick cooking and a tight-fitting tempered glass lid. It will last a lifetime, and it’s guaranteed to improve your day-to-day cooking.