Grain Products Category

These look like rings of squid ("calamari" in Italian). They're great with sauces.

Cannelloni ("big reeds" in Italian) are large pasta tubes that are usually stuffed with a meat or cheese filling, covered in sauce, and baked. The name is also used for the finished casserole.

Canneroni ("big reeds" in Italian) are small, short tubes of pasta.

These are short, grooved tubes of pasta.

These are thin rods of Italian pasta, just a bit thicker than angel hair pasta. They're normally served in a broth or with a very light sauce.

These are two-inch squares of Italian pasta that are stuffed with filling, and then folded into the shape of a hat. They're usually served with a light sauce, or in a broth or pasta salad.

This purple seaweed can be cooked as a nutritious vegetable, but cooks are often more interested in the liquid it cooks in, for it thickens like gelatin when it cools. It's widely used in the British Isles to make puddings and molded gelatin desserts, or to thicken soups. A carrageen extract, called carrageenan, is used commercially to make ice cream, jelly, and other things. To use the dried seaweed as a thickener, first rinse it carefully, then soak it in water until it swells. Next add the carrageen to the liquid you wish to set, boil the liquid for about 10 minutes, then strain out and discard the carrageen. Look for dried carrageen in health food stores.

Casarecci means "homemade" in Italian, and these short lengths of rolled and twisted Italian pasta are great at trapping sauces.

This is hard to find.

Brazilians use this as a thickener for stews. Look for it in Hispanic markets.

This is a type of Italian pasta shaped like a short, slender corkscrew.

Cavatelli has two meanings. It usually refers to small pasta shells that resemble tiny hot dog buns and are often served with thick, chunky sauces or in pasta salads. The name is less commonly used for a type of dumpling made with ricotta cheese.

This is a blend of wheat and malted barley flours used to make chapatis. Look for it in Indian markets.

Italian use chestnut flour to make rich desserts, and sometimes breads and pasta. It also makes terrific pancakes. Don't confuse it with water chestnut flour, which is used in Asian cuisine.

Look for this in Indian markets or health food stores.

These wheat noodles are made with eggs, which adds flavor, color, and body. They're often used to make chow mein (in which the cooked noodles are formed into a pancake and fried on both sides) and lo mein (in which the noodles are stir-fried along with the other ingredients). Chow mein noodles are usually cut a bit thinner than lo mein noodles, but the two can be used interchangeably. Chinese egg noodles are available both fresh and dried; and some are flavored with shrimp. Cook fresh noodles in boiling water for about 3 minutes, dried for about 5 minutes. Don't confuse these with fried chow mein noodles, which are used in Americanized Chinese dishes, particularly Chinese chicken salad. Some brands are labeled "imitation noodles"; these aren't made with eggs, but have yellow food coloring added.

The Chinese like their noodles long and slippery, the better to slurp down noisily. They're especially fond of wheat noodles, which they use in soups, and wheat and egg noodles, which they use in stir-fries and chow mein, their famous fried noodle dish. Rice noodles and bean threads are also popular.

These delicate noodles are mostly used in soups. They're available fresh, dried, or frozen, and they come in various sizes, some as thin as vermicelli, others as thick and wide as fettuccine. Before using, the Chinese boil the noodles (about 3-4 minutes for fresh, 5-10 for dried) and then rinse them in cold water.

These pasta rods resemble spaghetti, only their cross-sections are square instead of round. They're named after the guitar strings that were traditionally used to cut the pasta.

These egg and wheat flour noodles are used to make chow mein, in which the cooked noodles are formed into a pancake and fried on both sides.

These are Japanese ramen noodles that are dyed yellow and usually lower in fat.

A specialty of the Umbrian region of Italy, this is a ribbon of pasta that's been twisted and stretched until it's a long, thin rod, roughly twice the diameter of spaghetti.

This modified cornstarch is the secret ingredient that many commercial bakers use in their fruit pie fillings. Unlike ordinary cornstarch, ClearJel® works well with acidic ingredients, tolerates high temperatures, and doesn't cause pie fillings to weep" during storage. ClearJel® is an especially good choice if you're canning homemade pie fillings, since it doesn't begin thickening until the liquid begins to cool. This allows the heat the be more evenly distributed within the jar during processing. This is such an important safety advantage that ClearJel® is the only thickener the USDA recommends for home canning. You can also use ClearJel® to thicken sauces, stews, and the like, though it's a rather expensive all-purpose thickener. One downside is that products thickened with ClearJel® tend to break down if they're frozen and thawed. If you plan to freeze what you're making, use Instant ClearJel®, arrowroot, or tapioca starch. ClearJel® is available either as pearls or powder from mail-order suppliers, but it's not yet available in grocery stores.

This Italian pasta resembles conch shells. It's often served with tomato or meat sauces, or in pasta salads. A smaller version for soups is called conchigliette, while larger, stuffable shells are called conchiglioni.

This is a tiny version of a classic Italian pasta shape: the conchiglie or conch shell. Conchigliette is most often used as a soup pasta.

Pasta shaped like conch shells come in various sizes; this is the largest. It's often stuffed and baked.

These tiny tubes of pasta are normally used in soups.

To see how to substitute other flours for wheat flours when making yeast breads, see the listing under all-purpose flour.

Hispanic cooks use these, both fresh and dried, to wrap tamales before steaming them. Before using, soak the husks in hot water for about 30 minutes to make them more pliable.

This is made with corn flour instead of the traditional durum wheat. It's popular among people with wheat allergies, but it tends to get mushy.

One tablespoon (1/4 ounce) thickens one cup of liquid. Notes: This silky powder is used to thicken sauces, gravies, and puddings. Like other starch thickeners, cornstarch should be mixed into a slurry with an equal amount of cold water before it's added to the hot liquid you're trying to thicken. You then need to simmer the liquid, stirring constantly, for a minute or so until it thickens. Cornstarch doesn't stand up to freezing or prolonged cooking, and it doesn't thicken well when mixed with acidic liquids. Cornstarch is called cornflour or maize cornflour in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Don't confuse cornstarch with the finely ground cornmeal that Americans call corn flour

These thin round wraps are widely used in southern Mexico, and they're the preferred tortilla for making tacos and enchiladas. They should be served hot. If you're watching calories, do this by cooking them on a hot, dry frying pan or by wrapping them in moist paper towels and briefly heating them in a microwave oven. If calories aren't an issue, fry them in oil. You can make corn tortillas at home if you have a tortilla press. Just mix masa harina with enough water to make a bread-like dough, press the dough until it's very thin, and then cook the tortilla in a hot, dry frying pan. Readymade corn tortillas are available in most supermarkets.

Cornmeal comes in different colors: white, yellow, and blue. Yellow cornmeal has more beta carotene than the others, while blue cornmeal has more protein and turns baked goods purple. Larger supermarkets also carry stone-ground cornmeal = water-ground cornmeal, which is more tasty and nutritious than regular cornmeal, but doesn't keep as long. See also self-rising cornmeal.

These Filipino noodles are made with cornstarch. Before using, soak them in hot water until they're soft.

Includes pre-cooked couscous = instant couscous, which is the most common form, and traditional couscous, which takes longer to cook. Many cooks think traditional couscous is worth the extra trouble.

This version of Italian pasta is shaped like creste di galli ("cockscomb" in Italian).

These fried noodles add crunch to Chinese chicken salad. They're also used, improbably enough, to make chocolate haystack cookies. Don't confuse this with Chinese wheat noodles, which are also sometimes called chow mein noodles.