All Ingredients

his cut is tougher than a top blade pot roast, but it's flavorful and economical. It makes a fine pot roast, but it's too tough to roast with dry heat. A steak cut from this is called an under blade steak.

This is a steak cut from an under blade roast. It's not tender enough to grill, broil, or fry, but it's quite flavorful if braised.

Most beers are brewed from malted barley and flavored with hops, which makes them slightly bitter. Beer is good with salty and spicy foods, like pretzels, pizza, and hot dogs, but it can also be used as a cooking ingredient, adding a pleasant bitterness to chili, stews, and soups, and softening the texture of baked goods. If a recipe calls simply for beer, use a lager beer; a strong ale can easily overpower a dish. De-alcoholized beers are also available.

This is used to produce alcohol and bubbles in beer. There are several varieties, each matched to specific varieties of beer. It's available either as a liquid or powder at beer-making supply stores. Don't confuse this with the brewer's yeast that's used as a nutritional supplement. That type of yeast is deactivated, so it won't produce any alcohol or bubbles.

Beets have a distinctive earthy flavor that's enhanced by roasting, but they can also be steamed, microwaved, or boiled. A beet will be more flavorful and colorful if you leave the peel and some of the stem on while it's cooking. After it's cooled down, the peel comes off fairly easily. Varieties include the familiar red beets, golden beets, which turn a golden orange when cooked and are slightly sweeter than red beets, white beets, and chioggia (pronounced KYAHD-dja) = candy-stripe beets = candy cane beets which have alternating white and red rings inside. Baby beets are sweeter and faster-cooking than larger beets. Select beets that are heavy for their size. Canned beets are a good substitute for fresh.

Like their close relative, Swiss chard, beet greens have lots of flavor and a good, sturdy texture. The best ones are young and tender, and sometimes come with small beets attached.

This is a mild, semi-soft Italian cow's milk cheese that's good with apples, pears, and fruity red wines. It's also shredded and used to make pizza, risotto, and pasta dishes.

These crunchy, slightly bitter leaves are often used to make hors d'oeuvres, but they can also be chopped and added to salads, or braised to make an exquisite (and expensive) side dish. Select heads with yellow tips; those with green tips are more bitter. Their peak season is the late fall and winter.

Red and yellow peppers are riper, more flavorful, and pricier than the more common green ones. You can occasionally find bell peppers in other colors as well, like brown, white, pink, orange, and purple. Bell peppers are the perfect size for hollowing out and stuffing, or you can slice them into strips for snacking or dipping.

In recent years, over-fishing in the Caspian Sea has greatly depleted sturgeon populations. Please consider using caviar and roe from more abundant species until the Caspian Sea sturgeon populations can recover. Beluga caviar is one of the best and priciest of the caviars. The eggs are large and bluish-grey, and slightly sweet. A pasteurized version is available in jars, but fresh caviar is much better. Malossol (lightly salted) beluga is the finest, and the most expensive. If substituting an inferior caviar, consider perking it up with a splash of fresh lemon juice. For substitutions for caviar in general, click here.

These glisten when they're cooked, which makes them look like beluga caviar. They're great in soups or salads.

This light green liqueur was first produced in the 16th century by a French monk, who combined various herbs, spices, and peels with brandy. It's somewhat sweet by itself, so many people cut it with brandy or buy B&B, which is premixed Bénédictine and brandy. The letters D.O.M. stand for Deo Optimo Maximo (To God, the best and greatest), which is the Bénédictine motto

This is a spicy chili blend.

This is a spicy sauce made with berbera powder and other spices.

This is a small acidic orange, used for its peel. The flesh is too bitter and sour to be eaten raw. Don't confuse it with the bergamot herb.

These bulb-shaped onions have a sweet mild flavor. They're available in the spring.

Bernaise sauce is similar to hollandaise sauce. It is often served with beef and chicken.

Berry syrups make a wonderful topping to pancakes, waffles, French toast, oatmeal, ice cream, pies, and other dishes. To make your own: See the recipe for Sweet Berry Syrups on recipegoldmine.com, or for Berry Syrup on RecipeSource.

These wines are made from berries, including blackberries, loganberries, cranberries, elderberries, strawberries, raspberries, kiwi fruit, boysenberries, and currants. They tend to be very sweet, and some are fortified to raise the alcohol level. They're usually served chilled as a beverage, or poured on ice cream or fruit as a dessert.

The Vietnamese wrap beef in these leaves, while others chew them like gum.

This flour-butter mixture is used to correct overly thin sauces at the last minute. To make it, blend equal weights of butter and flour, then knead them together. After you whisk it into a sauce, let it cook for no more than a minute or two, since sauces thickened with flour pick up a starchy taste after they've cooked for a few minutes.

Plant based meat substitutes.

This red short-grain rice is a staple in rural areas of Bhutan, a small kingdom nestled high in the Himalayas. It has a strong, nutty flavor and is best served with other assertive ingredients. It cooks much faster than brown rice.

These chewy Jewish rolls have indentations on top which are filled with onions. Look for them in bagel shops.

This butterhead lettuce has delicate, loose leaves and lots of flavor. The only downside is that it's usually expensive.

This is a soft, stinky cow's milk cheese. German like to put it on rye bread along with some sliced onion, and have it with beer. It's too overpowering to serve with wine.

This is a chunky, tubular German sausage that's usually sliced and served cold in sandwiches. It's made with pork and beef.

This Venetian pasta resembles thick spaghetti, only it has a rough surface to better absorb flavorful sauces. It's good with shellfish, beans, or hearty meat sauces.

This small, tart berry is the European counterpart to the American blueberry. Bilberries are usually made into preserves.

This South Africa's spicy version of beef jerky. It's often made with game animals, like wildebeests and zebras.

This is a creamy, yellow-fleshed potato that's especially good for roasting and making fries

Available at some Chinese markets. The white nests are cleaner and more expensive than the black ones.

Biscotti are cookies that are hard, dry, and intensely flavored--think of them as teething biscuits for adults. They're made by baking a loaf of cookie dough, slicing it, and then baking the slices a second time. They come in several flavors, including almond, chocolate, anise, and hazelnut. They can be stored for a long time in a dry, airtight container.

Use this mix to make biscuits as well as pancakes and other baked goods. Bisquick is a well-known brand. To make biscuits from biscuit mix, combine 2 parts biscuit mix with 1 part water, roll out on floured surface, cut into biscuits, and bake for about 10 minutes at 425º.

Unprocessed bitter almonds have a more intense flavor than ordinary almonds, but they aren't available in the United States since they're mildly toxic if eaten raw. Instead, they're processed and used to make oil of bitter almonds, almond extract, almond liqueurs, and orgeat syrup. This name is often used (incorrectly) for the Chinese almond.

These are liqueurs and fortified wines that have a bittersweet flavor. They're often mixed with soda and served as apéritifs. These liqueurs are sometimes called bitters, but they're not as intensely flavored as the bitters that come in little bottles, which are normally measured out in drops. Popular brands include Campari, Fernet Branca, Byrrh, Dubonnet, Punt è Mes, Cynar, Suze, Jägermeister, and Amer Picon.