Sunday Prep Part 3 - Pantry staples

Before we can cook foods in a jiffy, we need to stock a pantry to support that. Here are my pantry items to help you. You can make this your grocery list too. For the purpose of this discussion, I am excluding the routine daals, wheat flour, rice and spices that an Indian household always stocks. 

Lets look at the pantry:

Breakfast and snack fixes

All purpose flour (maida)

Oats

Broken wheat (Dalia / ghau na fada) - roast, cool and store

Semolina (suji / rava) - most recipes need it to be roasted. So roast, cool and store

Pre-roasted vermicelli

Gram flour (besan)

Maggi

Cereal - any of your choice

Bread

Khatta (rice) and Khaman Dhokla mix for the instant version (I like Gits)

Instant Pancake (and waffle) mix

Eggs if you are not vegetarian 

Main course

Pasta - penne, fusili, spaghetti

Noodles (for Chinese preparations)

Chickpeas (chole) - either have cans at home or soak for 12 hours, drain and freeze upto a month 

Kidney beans (rajma) - same as chickpeas

Tomato purée

Coconut milk

Thai curry pastes - I like red and green

Chinese sauces - soy, schezuan, green chili, red chili

Taco seasoning

Sesame seeds

Fridge:

Milk

Butter 

Cheese

Freezer:

Peas (I usually stock about 10 kilos in winter when they are cheap; it's 10Rs a kilo right now)

Chopped carrots (in winter)

Sweet corn

Armed with these pantry and fridge items you can make Indian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Lebanese and American cuisines. 

If you are starting a new kitchen, I am listing below an Indian households pantry items:

Wheat flour

Rice - basmati for pulao's n biryani and a pieces version for khichdi (tukda basmati)

Yellow pigeon peas - Arhar (toor daal)

Green gram - Moong daal

Bengal gram - Chana daal

Black gram - Urad daal

Pink lentil - Masoor daal

Bengal gram whole - Kala chana

Chickpeas / Garbanzo - Kabuli chana (chole)

Black eyed peas - Chola / lobia / barbatti

Green gram whole - Sabut Moong

Green gram split - Moong daal chilkewali

Whole / khada masalas:

Cinnamon - dalchini / taj

Cloves - long / laving

Star anise - badiya

Cardamom, small & large - elaichi / elchi

Bay leaves - tej patta 

Nutmeg - jayphal

Masala dabba items:

Chili powder - lal mirch powder

Turmeric powder - haldi powder

Mustard seeds - raee

Cumin seeds - jeera

Cumin-coriander powder - dhaniya-jeera

Kokum

Roasted cumin powder (bhuna jeera)