5 Game Changing Pantry Items

These 5 pantry items are staples around the Milk Street kitchen—they’re easy to use, always ready to go and deeply flavorful. Sautéeing minced garlic is a first step for so many recipes, but frankly, it’s a pain: it’s sticky, time consuming and your hands smell like garlic all day. Milk Street’s Garlic Confit is a solution in a jar: It’s a rich, mellow blend of slow-cooked garlic, olive oil, ghee and herbs that we developed ourselves. Similarly, Milk Street’s Sofrito is a jammy concentrate of the base of many dishes: onions, carrots and celery, boosted with herbs and spices to give any recipe a head start. We can’t keep a jar of Pure Indian Foods Mango Puree open for more than a day, either; we use it up instantly, adding this luscious, silky puree into everything from cocktails to glazes. Megachef’s Premium Oyster Flavored Sauce is made with smoked oysters from the Gulf of Thailand, boiled down until they’re dark and sweet (without any help from food coloring or extracts, like supermarket versions). And Casablanca Market’s Preserved Lemons are some of our favorite on the market. They’re firm enough to chop without falling apart, with a balanced saltiness and brininess that brighten up any dish.