All Ingredients

Mint is used throughout the world to flavor everything from lamb to candy. It's also a great garnish and breath freshener. Spearmint is the variety you're most likely to encounter in markets, and it's the best choice for savory dishes. Peppermint = brandy mint has a stronger flavor and is best suited to dessert recipes. Used dried mint only in a pinch--it's not nearly as flavorful as fresh.

The British like to serve this with roast lamb.

This is sometimes served with lamb, veal, or game.

This category includes crème de menthe and peppermint schnapps.

Mirasol peppers have a distinctive fruity flavor. These are moderately hot. When dried, these are called Guajillo chiles.

This is a very sweet Japanese rice wine that's used to flavor rice and sauces. It's not usually consumed as a beverage. Aji mirin is salted, so adjust the recipe accordingly.

These come from various parts of the carcass.

These cuts come from all over the pig.

This category includes cuts taken from different parts of the carcass, including ground veal, stew meat, and the shank.

This is a thick paste made from soybeans and grains that has been fermented and then aged for up to three years. It's a staple in Japan, where it's used to flavor soups, dipping sauces, meats, and dressings. There are hundreds of varieties of miso, and the Japanese match them to dishes with the same care that Americans match wines to meals. The darker kinds are saltier and more pungent, the lighter are sweeter and milder. Always add miso to soups and stews at the end, since boiling it destroys beneficial bacteria and causes it to curdle. Look for tubs of miso in the refrigerated section of Japanese food markets, health foods stores, or large supermarkets. It will keep in your refrigerator for many months. Powdered miso is also available, as are powdered soup mixes made with miso and dashi.

Look for bags of these sugar crystals in Indian markets.

These are the common black ones that are ubiquitous in supermarkets, pizza parlors, and salad bars. They don't have as much character as European black olives.

These Filipino wheat noodles are very slender. The dried noodles can be deep-fried to make a crunchy nest, or boiled for 2-3 minutes to make a salad, or added directly to soup.

The Japanese use this to flavor soups and salads.

These are flower buds that emerge from a variety of ginger. They're quite mild. Look for them in Japanese markets.

Don't confuse this salty grating cheese with fresh Mizithra, which is similar to feta. This cheese is dry, crumbly, and very salty. This can be made from sheep’s milk, goat’s milk or both.

Don't confuse this with aged Mizithra, which is a hard grating cheese. This can be made from sheep’s milk, goat’s milk or both.

Mizuna has tender leaves and a pleasant, peppery flavor.

These small brown beans are often sprouted.

Sugar is made by extracting juice from sugar cane or sugar beets, boiling them, and then extracting the sugar crystals. Molasses is the thick, syrupy residue that's left behind in the vats. It has a sweet, distinctive flavor, and it's a traditional ingredient in such things as gingerbread, baked beans, rye bread, and shoofly pie. There are several different varieties: Unsulfured molasses is what you'll most often find in supermarkets. It's milder and sweeter than sulfured molasses. Sulfured molasses has sulfur dioxide added as a preservative. Light molasses = mild molasses = sweet molasses = Barbados molasses is taken from the first boiling. It's the sweetest and mildest, and is often used as a pancake syrup or a sweetener for beverages. Dark molasses = full molasses = full-flavored molasses is left behind after the juices are boiled a second time. It's less sweet but more flavorful than light molasses, and it's a good choice if a recipe simply calls for molasses. Sugar-beet molasses is very bitter and is mostly used as cattle feed or as a medium for growing yeast. When measuring molasses, grease the cup and utensils to keep molasses from sticking. If your molasses crystallizes while being stored, heat it gently to dissolve the crystals. After opening, you can store molasses in your cupboard.

This fish isn't a looker, but it has a flavor and texture that's been compared to lobster and scallops.

This exquisite Japanese delicacy has the texture and richness of a choice pâté de foie gras. It's usually poached, steamed, or sautéed before serving in order. Look for it in well-stocked Japanese markets.

You'll probably have to go to Florida to find this bizarre tropical fruit. It looks like a banana covered with green scales, which buckle and separate as the fruit ripens. Beneath the scales are kernels of pulp, which you scrape off like corn from a cob. The kernels have a pleasant tropical flavor and creamy texture. Wait until the scales separate before eating the kernels--unripe monsteras can irritate your mouth.

This French cow's milk cheese is a mild blue cheese that's soft and creamy like a Brie. It's coated with ash.

During their Harvest Moon Festival each fall, Chinese families decorate their homes with lanterns and eat moon cakes from beautiful lacquered boxes. The cakes come in different flavors, but they're all rich and subtly sweet.

These dark purple elongated sweet seedless grapes are unusually shaped and well regarded.

These are mung beans that have been skinned and split, so that they're flat, yellow, and quick-cooking. They're relatively easy to digest.

This is a smoked and dried red jalapeno pepper. It's very hot.

This creamy and mild cow's milk cheese has a dark stripe running up the middle, a reference to earlier times when a layer of ash was added to the cheese to protect it from insects. Morbier has a rich, earthy flavor. It's a good melting cheese, but you might want to cook with a cheaper cheese like Lappi or Havarti.

This is the Portuguese version of blood sausage.

This is Spain salty version of blood sausage, usually made with onion or rice as a filler.

Morels are highly prized for their rich, earthy flavor, and also because their caps are hollow, which allows them to be stuffed. Dried morels are very flavorful, and they're an excellent substitute for fresh in sauces and stews.

Like the larger mora chili, this is a smoked and dried red jalapeno. It's very hot.

These are shriveled black olives that are somewhat bitter. They're best used for cooking rather than snacking.

This exquisite smoked pork sausage is similar to bologna, only it's flavored with garlic and has bits of fat and sometimes pistachios in it. It's a key ingredient in a muffaletta sandwich. Always serve it cold.

These beans have a rich, creamy consistency that works well in soups and casseroles.

These "little mustaches" are tubes of Italian pasta cut on the diagonal.

The family of moyas includes atemoya, cherimoya, soursop, and sweetsop, all of which can be used interchangeably. All these fruits have scaly peels and hard black seeds, which you need to remove before eating.

Mozzarella is a soft, white Italian cheese. The most common type is low-moisture mozzarella, which is often sold in bricks or firm balls, or is shredded and sold in bags. Don't confuse it with fresh mozzarella = high-moisture mozzarella, which is a fresh cheese used for salads and appetizers, and is often sold in tubs of water. Low-moisture mozzarella is one of the few cheeses that doesn't turn rubbery or ooze oil if cooked too long or too hot, so it's a key ingredient in pizzas and casseroles. It's also stretchy--the long white strings that you often see draped over the sides of pizza boxes are usually mozzarella. It can also be frozen and thawed without too much damage to its texture. Buffalo milk has a much higher fat content than cow's milk, so buffalo milk mozzarella, or mozzarella di bufalo, is creamier and also more expensive than cow's-milk mozzarella = fior di latte.

This unusual variety of Italian pasta consists of poorly wrapped straws of dough, about 8 inches long.