The One Non-negotiable Food Item In Your Kitchen

[Porthos]

Inspired by Fat Guy's thread "Life is too short to do it the right way..." I thought I'd post a slightly different question. What is the one ingredient in your kitchen that there is no wiggle room for?

In my kitchen it is butter only - you'll never find a stick of margarine hanging around here.

What's your one or single most important non-negotiable food item in your kitchen?

[weinoo]

Coffee?

[codiyioti]

Clean dish towels.

[weinoo]

Clean dish towels.

Only 1 problem - they're not edible.

[LesleyC]

Onions ... and Pepsi Max to keep me going.

[chefmd]

Kosher salt

[SusieQ]

Vermouth. For cooking.

[patrickamory]

Garlic, I guess.

[kayswv]

EVOO

[Toasted]

Celery

[Lisa Shock]

Twining's Earl Grey tea, loose leaf tea. No other Earl Grey, and, absolutely no tea in teabags ever. (I hate the taste of the teabag, plus the tea itself is generally of low quality.)

[Kerry Beal]

Orange pekoe for me - Dilmah these days. And milk to go with it - 1% - somehow the other percentages just don't taste right! Butter as well - while I will use margarine in two recipes (and it's got to be the hard margarine) - only butter for veg, on bread...

[annabelle]

Half and half for my coffee.

Butter.

Salad greens.

Fruit.

Loose tea.

Local honey.

Bacon.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Good ingredients are an inspiration to cook rather than going out, so I can justify just about anything that way.

[Jaymes]

Sign me up with the 'butter' people.

I've read through other's lists and in a pinch I can think of an emergency make-do sub for everything else.

But if there's no real butter in the house, I ain't cooking.

[Magictofu]

Salt

[GlowingGhoul]

Yes butter, but it has to be Kerrygold butter.

[robirdstx]

Fresh ground pepper. And for my DH, only Lee & Perrins brand worcestershire sauce will do.

Edited January 1, 2012 by robirdstx (log)

[Shelby]

I'm in the butter club.

[rarerollingobject]

I've recently shifted from using butter to duck fat, including in baking. Most delicious.

ETA: My one non-negotiable is fish sauce. I really do put it in everything, from salad dressings to curries to ragouts. Everything. OK, except the baking.

Edited January 1, 2012 by rarerollingobject (log)

[liuzhou]

Rice

[GlorifiedRice]

Paper Towels and Lysol kitchen Spray

[Franci]

I'm off dairy so I'm using duck and goose fat, tallow, lard, coconut oil, marrow butter, foie fat and evo but I miss some good butter.

My non-negotiable food is homemade stock. I'd rather use water if I don't have it. But usually I always have some in the freezer.

[conifer]

Yep, fish sauce for me too. Life just wouldn't be the same without nam plaa.

[Jenni]

Chillies.

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