Grain Products Category

Germans serve these small dumplings as a side dish, often alongside roasted meats. Spaetzle is often topped with butter, bread crumbs, or a sauce, or tossed with cheese and onions. Look for boxes of dried spaetzle in large supermarkets or gourmet shops.

The most popular pasta variety, spaghetti (Italian for "little strings") works best with light tomato or cream sauces. Don't use it in pasta salads.

This is thin type of spaghetti.

Spelt flour contains gluten, but it's tolerated by many people with gluten allergies. If making bread with spelt flour, don't knead it for as long as you would a wheat bread--its gluten isn't as durable as that in wheat. Freeze any spelt flour that you're not planning to use right away.

Spelt contains gluten, but it's tolerated by many people with gluten allergies.

These are spring-shaped lengths of Italian pasta. They're good with chunky sauces, or in pasta salads. A larger version is called spirali.

Notes: These silky powders are used to thicken sauces, gravies, pie fillings, and puddings. They're popular because they thicken without adding fat or much flavor. To avoid lumps, mix the starch with an equal amount of cold liquid until it forms a paste, then whisk it into the liquid you're trying to thicken. Once the thickener is added, cook it briefly to remove the starchy flavor. Don't overcook--liquids thickened with some starches will thin again if cooked too long or at too high a temperature. Cornstarch, arrowroot, and tapioca are the most popular starch thickeners. They have different strengths and weaknesses, so it's a good idea to stock all three in your pantry. Starch thickeners give food a transparent, glistening sheen, which looks nice in a pie filling, but a bit artificial in a gravy or sauce. If you want high gloss, choose tapioca or arrowroot. If you want low gloss, choose cornstarch. Cornstarch is the best choice for thickening dairy-based sauces. Arrowroot becomes slimy when mixed with milk products. Choose arrowroot if you're thickening an acidic liquid. Cornstarch loses potency when mixed with acids. Sauces made with cornstarch turn spongy when they're frozen. If you plan to freeze a dish, use tapioca starch or arrowroot as a thickener. Starch thickeners don't add much flavor to a dish, although they can impart a starchy flavor if they're undercooked. If you worried that your thickener will mask delicate flavors in your dish, choose arrowroot. It's the most neutral tasting of the starch thickeners. Tapioca starch thickens quickly, and at a relatively low temperature. It's a good choice if you want to correct a sauce just before serving it.

These small star shapes are a type of Italian soup pasta. A smaller version is called stellini.

These pasta shapes look like tiny stars. They cook quickly and are best used in soups.

These tiny pasta shapes are usually served in a broth or very light soup.

This is a small form of elbow macaroni.

An Umbrian specialty, this is a narrow ribbon pasta that's chewier and thicker than spaghetti.

The name means "priest strangler" in Italian, and it refers to a pasta shape that resembles a rolled towel.

This is used by German and Austrian cooks to make strudels, delicate pastries filled with sweet or savory fillings. The dough is made up of many layers, each rolled into a tissue-thin, almost transparent sheet. German cooks make strudels with it by stretching the dough and wrapping it around a filling, and then baking it. It's hard to find, but your best bet is a German market.

These are fresh pasta sheets that are stuffed with a filling and then folded into whimsical shapes. In the past, they were just a fancy way to recycle leftovers, but cooks now stuff them with more elegant fillings, like cheeses, veal, sweet potatoes, wild mushrooms, lobster, and pheasant. After they're cooked, they're often served with a light sauce, or in a broth or pasta salad. They freeze well, and are great to keep on hand for quick and easy meals. If you're cooking frozen stuffed pasta, allow two or three additional minutes for it to cook.

These are similar to potsticker wrappers, but they're intended to be used in soups. While assembling the dumplings, keep the stack of wrappers moist by covering them with a damp towel. Seal the dumplings with a "glue" made with cornstarch and water. Look for stacks of these wrappers in the refrigerator cases of Asian markets. Store them in the refrigerator or freezer, but let them come to room temperature before using.

Asian cooks like to dredge pork in this before frying it.

This thickener has the virtue of remaining stable when frozen. It's often used to make Asian desserts. Don't confuse sweet rice flour with ordinary rice flour. Look for it in Asian markets.

These long ribbons of pasta are very similar to fettuccine. They go well with a hearty meat sauce.

These are thin flat ribbons of pasta.

These are small beads of tapioca that are used to make tapioca pudding. The beads don't dissolve completely, so they end up as small, squishy, gelatinous balls that are suspended in the pudding. Don't confuse this with instant tapioca, which is granulated and often used to thicken fruit pie fillings, or with pearl tapioca, which has much larger balls.

These round pellets are made from cassava roots. Asians use them to make puddings and a beverage called bubble tea. You can also use them to make tapioca pudding, though it's faster and easier to use instant or regular tapioca. The pearls are normally soaked for at least a few hours before they're added to a recipe.

Tapioca is a good choice for thickening pie fillings, since it thickens at a lower temperature than cornstarch, remains stable when frozen, and imparts a glossy sheen. Many pie recipes call for instant tapioca instead of tapioca starch, but instant tapioca doesn't dissolve completely and leaves small gelatinous blobs suspended in the liquid. This isn't a problem in a two-crust pies, but the blobs are more noticeable in single-crust pies. Tapioca starch is finely ground so that it dissolves completely, eliminating the gelatinous blob problem. The starch is also sometimes used to thicken soups, stews, and sauces, but the glossy finish looks a bit unnatural in these kinds of dishes. It works quickly, though, so it's a good choice if you want to correct a sauce just before serving it. Some recipes for baked goods also call for tapioca flour because it imparts a chewier texture.

Look for these noodles in Asian markets.

Thai cooks use rice noodles of various sizes, as well as bean threads and Chinese egg noodles.

Thickeners add substance and body to sauces, stews, soups, puddings, pie fillings, and other dishes. Tips: Before you add a thickener to a sauce, skim the fat from the top. Once you've added the thickener, the fat will be harder to remove. Flour is a good thickener for gravies, gumbos, and stews, since it gives them a smooth, velvety texture. It's best to mix it with fat first, either by making a roux or beurre manié, or by flouring and frying stew meat before adding a liquid to the pot. If you wish to cut fat from your diet, you can instead mix the flour with water and add it to the sauce, but you'll need to cook it for quite awhile to get rid of the starchy, raw flour taste. Sauces thickened with flour become opaque, and they may become become thin again if they're cooked too long or if they're frozen and then thawed. Starch thickeners like cornstarch are mixed with an equal amount of cold water, then added to warm liquids to thicken them. They're a good choice if you want a low-fat, neutral-tasting thickener. They give dishes a glossy sheen, which looks wonderful if you're making a dessert sauce or pie filling, but a bit artificial in a gravy or stew. If you get lumps in your sauce from a thickener, blend the sauce in a blender or food processor until it's smooth. Cereal grains like oatmeal, couscous, soup pasta, farina, are often used to thicken soups. Reduction is a slow but low-fat way of thickening sauces and concentrating flavors. Just cook down the sauce in an uncovered pan until it's thickened to your liking. Meat and fish glaces are a time-consuming--or expensive, if you buy them ready-made--way of thickening and enriching sauces. They're made by reducing stocks until they're thick and gelatinous. A good way to thicken soups or stews is to add grated starchy vegetables, or to purée the vegetables in the sauce. Nuts make good, flavorful thickeners for stews, though they're often expensive and high in fat. Just grind them down to a flour or butter, and add them to the dish. Egg yolks add a silky, velvety texture to soups and sauces, but they'll turn into scrambled eggs if they're not introduced carefully into the hot liquid. Cream, once reduced, gives sauces a rich texture and flavor as it thickens them, but it's high in fat. To make a low-fat cream sauce, use evaporated milk mixed with a starch thickener. Yogurt is a popular soup thickener in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

This thickener has no calories, fat, or carbohydrates. It's great for thickening gravies, sauces, and soups, but it won't set up sufficiently to make puddings or custards. A little goes a long way, so use about half as much as you would a starch thickener.

These are used throughout Asian in soups, spring rolls, cold salads, and stir-fries. They're similar to bean threads, only they're longer and made with rice flour instead of mung bean starch. Before using, soak the dried noodles in hot water until they're soft (about 15 minutes), then boil them briefly (from 1 to 3 minutes) and rinse with hot water. You can also deep-fry the dried noodles until they're crunchy and then use them in Chinese chicken salad, or as a garnish or bed for sauces.

South Pacific islanders use these to wrap food and to line the imu pits in which they roast pigs.

These thin round sheets resemble rice paper, but they're made with mung bean starch and used as noodles. Before cooking, soak them in hot water until they're soft, then cut them into noodles.

These chewy noodles look like a pack of rubber bands, but they're made from compressed tofu and packed with protein and nutrients. They're usually served in salads, soups, or stir-fries. Look for them in the refrigerated or frozen foods section of Asian markets. Dried tofu noodles are also available; before using, soak them in water mixed with baking soda until they soften, then rinse. Don't confuse these with bean curd skin noodles, which are darker and chewier.

These pasta shapes resemble torches, the better to scoop up chunky sauces.

These are circles of 2-inch diameter pasta that are stuffed and then folded over.

These are circles of pasta that are stuffed with a meat or cheese filling, and then folded into little hats. A larger version is called tortelloni.

These are circles of pasta that are stuffed with a meat or cheese filling, and then folded into little hats. A smaller version is called tortellini.

This is a tubular Italian pasta that's often served with chunky sauces or in casseroles.

This is a type of Italian ribbon pasta that's thinner than fettuccine and linguine. It's traditionally served with a pesto sauce. Don't confuse it with trennette, a small rod with a triangular cross-section.

This Italian pasta is triangular, and cut into short lengths. It's good with chunky sauces or in casseroles.