All Ingredients

This is a variety of table salt. Some recipes call for non-iodized salt, since iodine can impart a bitter taste and adversely react with certain foods. For example, iodine darkens pickles and inhibits the bacterial fermentation needed to make sauerkraut.

These small colored balls are used to decorate cakes and cookies.

The canned version is acceptable substitute for fresh, but it has an inferior texture.

These tart, firm apples are terrific in pies, but they're hard to find.

Nova is made by curing salmon through both curing with salt and smoking. It is similar to lox.

Nuoc cham is a Vietnamese dipping sauce. It has a fish sauce base.

This German ham is cured, smoked, and dried.

If you mix roasted nuts, vegetable oil, salt, and maybe some sugar in a blender or food processor for awhile, you'll get a smooth, spreadable paste called nut butter. Nut butters can be spread on bread or crackers, blended into savory sauces, or teamed up with chocolate to make desserts.

Most nut crackers can also be used to crack open crab legs.

Nut flours are ground from the cake that remains after oils are pressed from nuts. They're great for breading fish or chicken, and they add a rich flavor to baked goods. Nut flour lacks the gluten that baked goods need to rise, so in those recipes substitute no more than 1/4 of the wheat flour with nut flour. Nut flours go stale quickly, so store them in the refrigerator or freezer, and use them up quickly.

Nut meals are ground from whole nuts, and are grittier and oilier than nut flours, which are ground from the cake that remains after the oils are pressed from nuts. To make your own nut meals, grind toasted nuts in a nut mill until the meal has the consistency of cornmeal. You can also use a food processor fitted with a steel blade to do this, but it's hard to keep the nut meal from turning into nut butter. It helps to freeze the nuts before grinding, to use the pulse setting on the processor, and to add any sugar in the recipe to the nuts to help absorb the oils. Store nut meals in the refrigerator or freezer, and use them soon after you buy or make them.

Freshly grated whole nutmeg tastes far better than packaged ground nutmeg, and has a much longer shelf life.

This nutritional supplement has a pleasant nutty-cheesy flavor and is packed with protein and B vitamins. It comes in flakes or powder and is popular with vegans and health buffs who use it to make cheese substitutes, gravies, and many other dishes. It's also a great topping for popcorn. Nutritional yeast is very similar to brewer's yeast, which is also used as a nutritional supplement and is made from the same strain of yeast. The difference is that brewer's yeast is a by-product of beer production and retains some of the bitter flavor of hops. Don't confuse nutritional yeast, which is deactivated, with active forms of yeast, like the kinds bakers, brewers, and winemakers use. If you eat them, active yeasts will continue to grow in your intestine, robbing your body of valuable nutrients. Look for nutritional yeast at health food stores. Get fortified nutritional yeast if you're taking it as a source of vitamin B12.

Cooks and grocers define nuts as anything with edible kernels and hard shells. This includes true nuts like chestnuts and acorns, but also things that botanists would class as seeds, like Brazil nuts, or legumes, like peanuts. Nuts are usually high in fat and protein, and people throughout the world eat them as snacks or incorporate them into both sweet and savory dishes. Many nuts can be eaten raw but roasting them helps intensify their flavor. Nuts are usually harvested in the fall, and it's best to buy unprocessed nuts then. Many unshelled nuts can be kept for up to a year in a cool place, but shelled nuts, especially those that have been cut or roasted, are more prone to rancidity and should be stored in the refrigerator or freezer in an airtight container.

These black olives from France are salt-cured, which makes them wrinkly and more bitter than standard lye-cured American black olives.

Oakleaf lettuce has crunchy stems and tender leaves. There are red and green varieties.

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

Oat groats are minimally processed--only the outer hull is removed. They're very nutritious, but they're chewy and need to be soaked and cooked a long time.

This comes in aseptic containers. A fortified version is available that supplies many of the nutrients normally found in cow's milk. Shake well before using.

Oats are highly nutritious and filled with cholesterol-fighting soluble fiber. They also have a pleasant, nutty flavor. Most of us are familiar with rolled oats, which are used as a hot breakfast cereal and cookie ingredient, but many health food stores also stock oat groats and oat bran.

Oca potatoes are root vegetables that are popular in New Zealand. They come in a range of colors, inclucing pink, yellow, orange and most commonly, red. Oca can be eaten raw or cooked.

You can buy these seeds either whole or ground at African markets. Nigerians grind them and use them to thicken stews, to which they add a distinctive flavor and a slimy texture.

This melon hails from Israel, and it's very highly regarded by melon fans.

For information about the different varieties of oil, click here.

This is a very potent flavoring oil that's sold in small bottles and measured by the drop. Natural bitter almond oil isn't available in the United States since it's slightly toxic, but you can buy a synthetic version in bakers' supply shops or through mail order companies. Don't confuse this with the mildly flavored almond oil that's used in savory dishes.

This comes from lemon peels, and it's so concentrated that it's usually measured by the drop. Don't confuse it with lemon extract, which is diluted with alcohol and not nearly as concentrated as the oil. Recipes for hard candies usually call for a flavoring oil rather than an extract, since extracts tend to evaporate when heated.

This comes from orange peels, and is so concentrated that it's usually measured by the drop. Don't confuse it with orange extract, which is diluted with alcohol and not nearly as concentrated as the oil. Recipes for hard candies usually call for a flavoring oil rather than an extract, since extracts tend to evaporate when heated.

This Canadian semi-soft cow's milk cheese has a mild, nutty flavor and melts nicely.

This is the ivory pulp that's left over after the soy milk is squeezed from soybeans. It's moist and crumbly, full of protein and fiber, and about as flavorful as a wad of paper towels. Look for it in the produce section of Japanese markets.

The flesh of this tropical Asian sweet potato is vivid purple. It's perfect for tempura, but it can also be baked, sauteed, boiled, steamed, or mashed. It is very popular in desserts in the Philippines where it is know as ube.

When cooked, okra exudes a slimy substance, which serves as a wonderful thickener in stews. Unfortunately, that sliminess puts off many diners, but you can minimize it by buying small, fresh okra and by cooking it very briefly. Okra's popular in the South, where they fry it in cornmeal, pickle it (this also gets rid of the sliminess), and use it to thicken their gumbos.

This cross between a youngberry and a loganberry is black and fairly sweet.

This is a mixture that combines celery seed, black pepper, salt, paprika, mustard seed, red pepper, bay leaves, cloves, allspice, ginger, mace, cardamom, and cinnamon. To make your own: See the recipe for Old Bay seasoning posted on RecipeSource.com.

Olive butter is a mixture of olive oil and butter.

This is like bologna, only with bits of stuffed olives embedded in it.

ranked from highest to lowest quality; extra-virgin, superfine, fine, virgin, and pure.

A staple of Mediterranean cuisines, olives are most often eaten out of hand, though cooks also use them to flavor everything from pizzas to martinis. Raw olives must be cured before they can be eaten, and the curing medium--usually lye, brine, or salt--affects their flavor and texture. So too does the olive's degree of ripeness when it's picked. Green olives are picked while unripe, which makes them denser and more bitter than brown or black olives, which stay on the tree until fully ripened. Olives become bitter if they're cooked too long, so always add them to hot dishes at the last minute. Opened cans or jars of olives should be refrigerated, but some olives can be stored at room temperature if they're submerged in brine or olive oil.

Sometimes it is ok to omit an ingredient from a recipe

Onions (also called dry onions or bulb onions or common onions) are often separated into two categories: storage onions and sweet onions. Storage onions are more pungent and flavorful than sweet onions, and they're best if cooked before eating. They also store well and so are available year-round. Sweet onions have a lower sulfur content are usually served raw or lightly cooked. They're easiest to find from April to August. Onions should be firm and heavy for their size. Avoid onions that have sprouted or that have an odor, or that have green or moldy blemishes. If you're prone to crying while cutting onions, try chilling them first, then peeling them under running water. Always cook onions over low or medium heat, since they become bitter when cooked at high temperatures. Store them in a cool, dry place (not in the refrigerator). To learn about different varieties of onions, click here.

These are onions that have been chopped and then dehydrated. They lack much of the pungency of fresh onions, but they're convenient and great for backpacking.

Onion powder isn't as pungent as fresh onions, but it's a great time-saver.