All Ingredients

This thickener is made from the tuber of the kudzu, the obnoxious vine that was imported from Japan a number of years ago and is now growing out of control all over the South. It's very expensive, and the main reason to buy it is for its reputed medicinal benefits. It comes in small chunks. To thicken a liquid, crush the chunks into a powder, mix them with an equal amount of cold water, then stir the mixture into the hot liquid and simmer for a few minutes until the sauce is thickened. Look for kudzu in health food stores.

This German specialty is a sweetened yeast bread with currants and almonds baked inside. It's usually shaped in a ring and served at breakfast.

This African herb is a powder made from the leaves of a baobab trees.

Russians serve this rich, sweetened yeast bread at Easter. It typically has raisins in it and icing on top.

Like kefir, kumiss is a beverage made from milk cultured with bacteria. Asian nomads originally made it with the milk of camels or mares, but commercial producers now use cow's milk.

This is a sweet liqueur based on grain alcohol and flavored with caraway seeds and cumin. Gilka Kümmel and Allasch Kümmel are well-regarded brands.

These look like grape-sized oranges, and they can be eaten whole. The flavor is a bit sour and very intense. They peak in the winter months.

This is a liqueur flavored with kumquats.

This Middle Eastern cracked green olive is hard to find in the U.S.

These are used as meat wrappers in Vietnam.

These beans can be brown, reddish-brown, or cream colored, and they're easily identified by a white seed scar which runs along one edge. They have a pleasant nutty flavor, but they need to soaked and peeled before cooking. Skinned and split lablab beans, called val dal in Hindu, are more convenient to use. Both whole and split beans are available in Indian markets.

This dry-cured smoked pork loin is wrapped in a thin layer of fat. It hails from Bavaria.

These are very small apples, and usually used for decoration.

These are tongue depressor-sized sponge cakes that are used to make charlottes, tiramisu and other desserts. American ladyfingers are smaller and moister than their Italian counterparts. If substituting them for Italian savoiardi, use more and toast them briefly in the oven before using.

This is a kind of Italian ribbon pasta, similar to lasagne only narrower.

These are the light-bodied, effervescent beers that are so popular in America. They're brewed from malted barley, hops, and water, and then stored (or "lagered") until the sediment settles. The beer is then clarified and carbonated. Dark lager beers are brown in color and sweeter than the more popular pale lagers. Pilsner Urquell beer is a famous lager that's made in the Czech Republic. Producers elsewhere sometimes call their better brews Pilsner beer = Pilsener beer, but they're not as good as their namesake. Light beer = lite beer has fewer calories and less alcohol than conventional beer.

This is a strong even stinky cow's milk cheese.

This is a mild French semi-soft cow's milk cheese.

Vietnamese sprinkle this herb on their laksa soups. It has a strong, minty, peppery flavor. It's sold in bunches with lots of pointy leaves on each stem.

These rice noodles look like white spaghetti. They're used to make laksa, a noodle dish popular in Indonesia and Malaysia. Don't confuse the noodles with laksa leaves, a kind of mint that's often used to season the noodles.

These are usually broiled, grilled, or pan-fried.

The breast gives us spareribs, along with some other meat that's usually made into ground lamb.

Like beef steaks, lamb chops are pieces of meat that are cut small enough to serve as individual portions. They're often grilled, broiled, or pan-fried. The most elegant choices are the lamb rib chop and the lamb loin chop. The lamb sirloin chop and lamb leg chop aren't quite as tender, but they're quite good if you take care not to overcook them. The most economical cuts are the lamb shoulder chop and lamb blade chop. They're chewier than the pricier cuts, but they're more flavorful.

These are tender one-inch cubes that are put on skewers for grilling. The best kabobs are made with meat from the leg.

Like veal heart, lamb heart is tender and delicate. You can grill or sauté it as long as you don't overcook it, or cook it slowly using moist heat.

Lamb kidneys are tender enough to be cooked using dry heat, say by grilling or sautéing them. Don't overcook them, though, or they'll quickly become very tough. Before cooking them, peel off the outer membrane. Due to their mild flavor, they don't need to be soaked.

These are sold either with or without bones. The full leg is too large and unwieldy for many families, so it's often cut into two half leg pieces: the lean shank half and the more tender but more bony sirloin half. Alternatively, you can buy a short leg = 3/4 French style leg, which includes the shank half plus half of the sirloin half, giving you three-quarters of a leg. Legs are usually roasted, but boneless legs of all sizes can be either rolled and tied or butterflied so that they lie flat for grilling or broiling. If a leg of any size has some meat cut away to expose the bone at the end, it's called a Frenched leg. If the bone at the end is simply lopped off, it's called an American leg.

Cut from the leg, these are usually braised, broiled, or grilled. They're available boneless or bone-in

This is as tender as calf's liver, but not as flavorful.

This is where the most tender and expensive cuts come from, including loin chops and loin roasts.

These are the lamb's answer to Porterhouse steaks. They're the most tender chops on the lamb, and they're usually grilled or broiled. They cook best if they're thick. A chop cut from the saddle (incorporating the loin roasts from both sides of the lamb) is called a double loin chop = English chop. Double loin chops include two pieces of tenderloin, two of the eye, and two T-bones, and they're usually formed into a tidy circle. If a single loin chop is boned and rolled, it's called a noisette.

This is a very tender, flavorful, and expensive roast. If you want more servings, you can get a saddle of lamb = double loin roast, which combines the loin roasts from either side of the lamb. If boneless, a loin roast is called a loin roll = boneless loin roast = rolled lamb roast, or a double loin roll = rolled double lamb roast if made from the saddle.

These are usually braised or made into stew.

These exquisite chops are cut from a rack of lamb. They usually contain one rib per chop, but you'll get a thicker and juicier steak with double cut lamb rib chop, which includes two ribs.

A full rack contains eight ribs, which are usually cut into small and tender rib chops. Left in one piece, the rack makes a delicious roast, or you can tie two or three racks together to form an elegant crown roast.

When you buy this, you're usually getting the lamb fore shank = lamb foreshank, but sometimes you'll get the lamb hind shank = lamb hindshank. Don't confuse the shank with the shank half lamb leg, which is a bigger and nicer cut. Shanks are fairly lean and if they're braised slowly, the meat pulls apart into delicious, juicy strands. You can also cube the meat for stews or grind it. Lamb shanks can also stand in for veal shanks in osso bucco.

Several economical, if bony, cuts come from the shoulder.