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!
Milk Street: Sofrito
We created our sofrito to be the perfect building block to cook a wide variety of recipes in less time, based on the tradition of Italian and Spanish grandmothers who make this by the jar to simplify cooking and boost flavor. After much testing, we came up with an aromatic base of sautéed onions, carrots and celery, complemented by the bright tones of tomatoes, white wine and vinegar. For additional depth, it has earthy, umami notes from mushroom powder, aromatic notes of rosemary and thyme, and just a hint of heat from black pepper and Kashmiri chili powder. A few tablespoons of this jammy sofrito is all it takes to spread rich, concentrated power into soups, sauces, stews, braises and nearly anything else that needs a boost of big flavor.
BLiS Gourmet Barrel Aged Fish Sauce
This bourbon barrel-aged fish sauce is mellowed by seven months of sitting in oak, so the earthy, meaty funk that one expects from any fermented fish product is beautifully balanced by a complementary sweetness. BLiS's product is also rounded out with soft notes imparted by the seven-month aging process: warming spices, vanilla, and fruit woods, as well as a subtle smoky depth.
Yokofuku Japanese Garlic Paste with Shio Koji
Crafted from Japanese-grown garlic, this velvety, creamy paste is a game-changing flavor booster—every jar contains two whole heads of garlic, finished with a hint of fermented funk from shio koji. Its texture resembles garlic butter—the garlic is raw when pureed into paste. The paste is ready to use out of the jar, bringing garlic, salt and umami to dishes without making a sticky, pungent mess of your hands or cutting board.
The first note is a bold hit of sweet garlic, with zero pungency or bite to follow up. The koji provides an earthy, rounded sweetness like other fermented ingredients—like gochujang or miso—and is our secret to perfect marinades. Shio koji’s enzymes break down proteins, for juicy, tender meat and fish. Mix it into marinades or brines (the fast-working shio koji save tenderizing time), toss with stir-fries or pastas, stir into soup or rub as is on to steak or chicken legs. We also like it as a condiment—slather it on toasted bread, serve on a charcuterie board or with antipasti, dish some up alongside grilled vegetables or fried chicken. This premium seasoning is made with zero artificial additives.
JookJangYeon Premium Gochujang
Made from chili pepper, sweet rice, malt and malt syrup and fermented for at least six months months in traditional crocks, Gochujang is basically a household name at this point. You can buy (crappy) bottles and jars of it at Walmart. But the important thing is to differentiate between the cheap, mass-produced versions and these top-quality versions. While most gochujangs on the market are thick, but will drip off your spoon, this one is more like a glossy ganache—spreadable and scoopable, yet decadently thick. It's clean and complex—a wonderful fruity chili flavor is the star, while it's rounded out with funky fermentation notes and a pleasant tingly heat. There's also a hint of effervescence akin to sake, or even a sparkling wine. Its sweetness is round and balanced, not sticky like most brands.
Demisaem Korean Gochujang Sauce
Savory, spicy gochujang meets sweet plum in Demisaem’s funky, fruity Chojang-Gochujang Sauce. Made in Korea, this red pepper and plum paste is spiked with fermented plum vinegar, Korean chili powder, traditional rice syrup, garlic, ginger and sesame seeds for an aromatic, sweet-sour balance that gives off a quick hit of heat that doesn’t linger on the tongue. The smooth, deep red paste comes packaged in an easy to squeeze bottle, pairing well with noodles, rice, grilled meats, eggs, burgers, burritos, tempura, bibimbap, grilled meats, barbecue and fish. Or use it as a marinade, mixed into sauces or stirred into dressings for a spicy, tangy kick. We especially like it in place of ketchup and sriracha.
Doubanjiang - 3 Year Aged Red Bean Paste
Doubanjiang (alternatively spelled toban djan) is an intensely flavored paste made from fermented broad (fava) beans, chilies, salt and seasonings. Fly by JIng is importing the best version we have tasted of this pantry staple: remarkably deep, savory and spicy—far more so than any supermarket version. It’ll be your new secret ingredient and salvation for midnight noodles or last-minute meals.
Namikura Kyoto-Style White Miso
Savory, sweet and flavor-dense, white miso is an absolutely essential pantry item. Winey-sweet, buttery and deeply rich, this organic version from Japanese family producer Namikura Miso Co. is more complex and less salty than other brands, which means it can be used more freely with soy sauce without dishes tasting overly seasoned.
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.
Pure Indian Foods Organic Tamarind Paste
Pure Indian Foods’ organic tamarind paste has a pure, clean flavor with a bracing tartness. This thick, smooth paste is our favorite form for using tamarind as a souring agent. While fresh pods are available in some markets, it’s more commonly sold as a concentrate or as dense blocks of pulp that need labor-intensive soaking and straining; both forms sacrifice nuanced flavor in favor of convenience, whereas this tamarind paste is both easy to use and intensely flavorful. Pure Indian Foods, which traces its roots to 1889 in northern India, still uses traditional methods to make its products. The company’s pantry staples have a complexity and authenticity that just can’t be imitated.
Crazy Korean Cooking Chung Jung One Gochujang
Gochujang is a Korean hot pepper paste that has a savoriness similar to Japanese miso and is fermented with glutinous rice, which gives it a slightly sticky texture and subtle sweetness. It’s a real powerhouse ingredient that we’ve come to rely on and consider an essential element of the Milk Street pantry. Chung Jung One's version has an approachable, mild heat level for adding to everything from tofu stew to barbecue meats.
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.
Yokofuku Japanese Black Garlic Paste
Soft and mildly sweet with savory, rich undertones, black garlic is an umami-packed ingredient that sets itself apart from normal garlic, which can be sharper and pungent. Still not found in most grocery stores, black garlic has grown in popularity in recent years as a simple way to add a complex, earthy-sweet boost to dishes. This Japanese Black Garlic Paste from Yokofuku is made from garlic planted in mid-September in Kagoshima Prefecture, an area with active volcanoes that makes for the most fertile soil. It’s harvested in early June, then steamed in a pot to create a constant temperature and humidity, which helps turn its enzymes from white to black—no additives or coloring required. Reminiscent of roasted garlic but a bit sweeter, the flavor is subtle yet deeply rich with tart hints of prunes and molasses. Ready to use right out of the jar without making a sticky, pungent mess of your hands or cutting board, add to sauces, aiolis, eggs, noodles, rice, marinades, meats and more.
Yamashin Ginger Shiro Dashi – Concentrated Soup Base
For over 200 years, Yamashin Jyouzou has been creating exceptional soy sauce, featured prominently in their Ginger Shirodashi Concentrated Soup Base. The rich, umami-packed base of salty bonito stock and savory white soy sauce are accented with a bright zing of fresh ginger. A common broth base or seasoning in Japan, this shirodashi is ideal for enhancing broths, seasoning rice, drizzling over tofu and more with its refreshing ginger spice and complex depth.
Trunas 'One Tablet' Chopped Garlic
Minced garlic brings the flavor, but at what cost? It stinks up your cutting board, is sticky and takes time to chop. Enter Trunas One Tablet Chopped Garlic, the freeze-dried version of minced garlic that actually maintains the potent taste, scent and color in a single cube. With zero additives or chemicals, and unlike grocery store renditions that are murky in flavor and slimy when they defrost, Trunas requires only a few drops of water to rehydrate and resemble freshly minced garlic. Quicker, more convenient and easy to store (no freezer required), use these tablets in soups, stews, noodles, marinades, sauces and anywhere else you’d need freshly minced garlic. Each bag contains about 20-25 tablets.
Trunas 'One Tablet' Ground Ginger
Fresh ginger brings the flavor, but at what cost? It’s a pain to peel, is stringy and takes time to chop. Enter Trunas One Tablet Ground Ginger, the freeze-dried version of minced ginger that actually maintains the potent taste, scent and color in a single cube. With zero additives or chemicals, and unlike grocery store renditions that are murky in flavor and slimy when they defrost, Trunas requires only a few drops of water to rehydrate and resemble freshly minced ginger. Quicker, more convenient and easy to store (no freezer required), use these tablets in soups, stews, noodles, marinades, sauces and anywhere else you’d need freshly minced ginger. Each bag contains about 20-25 tablets.
Fundodai Liquid Miso Dashi
Restaurant-quality miso soup at home just got easier—no need to spend days making your own dashi or using an instant version with little flavor. Enter Fundodai’s Liquid Miso Dashi, made from a duo of powerhouse Japanese ingredients. It’s crafted in Japan from a miso made of rice and barley paste, incorporated with a rich dashi containing bonito, scallops, sardines and kombu. The dashi’s unique blend of seafood gives it far more flavor and complexity than a typical dashi, while the combination of rice and barley makes for an equally flavorful miso. With a well-balanced salt level, the toasty, nutty miso pairs well with the umami notes from the dashi, dissolving easily into broths, sauces, marinades and more. Use it to add slow-cooked depth to soups and stews in minutes, as a marinade on its own, mixed into sauces, tossed into noodles, as the base for a stir-fry and so much more.
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