Grain Products Category

These tiny Hungarian egg noodles are shaped like screws.

This is flour ground from Indian legumes. Varieties include besan flour (made from channa dal), urad dal flour, and mung dal flour.

This Indian flour is made from a blend of rice, urad dal, and chickpeas. It's used to make cakes that look like squares of cornbread, which Indians steam and garnish with grated coconut, tamarind sauces, and other seasonings.

These are small tubes of pasta, well suited for vegetable soups. It's also one of the shapes used to make Spaghetti-Os.

This is a small version of ditali, a tubular pasta shape. Tiny ditalini are usually served in a broth or vegetable soup, and is one of the shapes used to make Spaghetti-Os.

These thin round wrappers are used to make the delicate dumplings that are so popular at dim sum restaurants. They're made to be stuffed and steamed, but they're not sturdy enough to be fried. While assembling the dumplings, keep the stack of wrappers moist by covering them with a damp towel. You can seal the dumplings with a "glue" made with cornstarch and water. Look for fresh or frozen wrappers in Asian markets. Store them in the refrigerator or freezer, but let them come to room temperature before using.

Semolina is made from durum wheat.

These are flat Chinese egg noodles that are formed into round 8"-diameter patties, fried and then dried. Before using, cook them in boiling water briefly, then drain. The noodles can then be added to stir-fries, soups, or salads.

These Hungarian dumplings are made of flour, eggs, and water. To prepare them, fry them in butter or lard, then add water to cover. Simmer for about 30 minutes, adding more water if necessary, until the dumplings are soft. Look for packages of them in Hungarian or German markets.

The Chinese use these dough squares to make deep-fried egg rolls. While assembling the egg rolls, keep the stack of wrappers moist by covering them with a damp towel. You can seal the rolls with a "glue" made with cornstarch and water. Look for fresh wrappers in Asian markets and many supermarkets. Store them in the refrigerator or freezer, but let them come to room temperature before using.

Higher in fat, but increasing the egg yolks in a baked good often makes it moister and more flavorful. Egg yolks make wonderful thickeners--imparting both a rich flavor and velvety smooth texture--but they're tricky to use. You can't just whisk them into a simmering sauce--they'd curdle on contact. Instead, you need to "temper" them by adding some of the hot liquid to the egg yolks, whisking the mixture together, and then adding it to the sauce. To prevent the yolks from coagulating, you need to keep the sauce below 190°, although this rule can be broken if the sauce has a lot of flour in it. Finally, never cook sauces with egg yolks in aluminum pans or they'll turn gray.

Einkorn flour is made from an ancient variety of wheat first domesticated in the southern Turkey 10,000 years ago. Einkorn is a hardy wheat species but is low yielding. It has a nutty flavor and results in a chewy bread.

This Italian pasta consists of medium-sized, flat-cut tubes with spiraling ridges on the outside (elicoidali is Italian for "helix").

Hispanic cooks wrap these six-inch diameter rounds of dough around sweet or savory fillings, and then bake or fry them. Look for them among the frozen foods in Hispanic markets.

This Italian stuffed pasta is usually filled with ricotta cheese and various vegetables.

Farfalle is an Italian pasta, often made with eggs, that resembles bowties or butterflies. It's often served with chunky sauces or in pasta salads. A smaller version is called farfallini, while a larger version is called farfallone. Strichetti is farfalle made with an egg dough.

This Italian pasta is a small version of farfalle, or bow-tie pasta. Farfalline is usually served in a broth or very light soup.

Cream of Wheat is a popular brand.

These Italian pasta rods are just a bit thicker than vermicelli. They're usually served with a very light sauce, or broken up and served in a broth.

Fettuccine noodles are long, relatively thick ribbons of pasta. A narrower version is called fettuccelli, while a wider one is called fettucci. Egg fettucine goes well with cream sauces.

Mexican and Spanish cooks use these short, curved strands of pasta in soups.

These are great for wrapping delicately flavored foods before grilling them.

In their soups and stir-fries, Filipinos like to use pancit canton, yellow noodles made of wheat flour and coconut oil. Slippery cornstarch noodles (called pancit luglug), are used in soups and salads.

Several manufacturers make flavored pastas, many of which have vibrant colors. Popular flavors include egg (egg pasta, or pasta all'uovo), spinach (green pasta, or pasta verde), tomato, beet (purple pasta, or pasta viola), carrot (red pasta, or pasta rossa), winter squash (orange pasta, or pasta arancione), squid ink (black pasta, or pasta nera), truffle (truffle pasta, or pasta al tartufo), and chile.

These thin flour wraps from northern Mexico are used to make burritos, chimichangas, fajitas and other Mexican dishes. They're more pliable than corn tortillas, so they're a good choice if you need to roll or fold the tortillas before cooking them. Flour tortillas come in different sizes, including small, thick "fajita tortillas" to large, thin "burrito tortillas."

This Sardinian specialty is thought to be an ancestor of modern pasta. It consists of small, chewy balls made from coarsely ground semolina. It can be used as a bed for sauces, but it's also terrific in soups.

These tiny pasta shapes look like mushrooms and are usually served in a broth or very light soup. A larger version called funghetti works well in thicker soups.

This is a type of Italian pasta that's shaped like either like screws or springs. This is a good choice for pasta salads and casseroles, or for serving with hearty, thick sauces. A long version of the spring-shaped fusilli is called fusilli col buco.

This is a long version of the spring-shaped fusilli.

With its quill shapes, this type of Italian egg pasta resembles penne. It's often served with a simple meat sauce.

This Nigerian flour is made from cassavas that have been fermented, roasted, and ground. Look for it in African markets.

Gelatin is flavorless and colorless, and if you dissolve it in a hot liquid, the liquid will gel as it cools. When reheated, say in your mouth, the gel melts. Most of us know gelatin as the key ingredient in the quivering dessert we call Jell-O®, but cooks also use it to make cheesecakes, mousses, marshmallows, meringues, chiffon pies, ice cream, nougats, aspics, and many other things. Gelatin will break down if exposed to the enzymes of certain raw fruits, like kiwi fruit, papayas, pineapple, peaches, mangos, guavas, and figs. Cooking these fruits, though, destroys the enzymes. If you plan to add these fruits to a gelatin salad, it's often easiest to buy them in cans, for all canned fruit is pre-cooked. Gelatin is made from the bones, skins, hooves, and connective tissue of animals, including pigs, so it's objectionable to vegetarians and members of certain religions. Kosher gelatins are available, and some of these are also vegetarian.

This is a powdered mixture of gelatin, sweetener, and artificial fruit flavoring that's used to make a molded, translucent, quivering dessert that Americans call jello. People in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand call this dessert "jelly," and use the word "jam" for the preserved fruit spread that Americans call jelly.

The name means "twins" in Italian. These are short rods twisted together in a spiral pattern. They're great with any sauce, or in pasta salads or casseroles.

This Italian pasta consists of flower shapes (gigli is Italian for "lilies"). It's good with heart, chunky sauces.

A glace is a meat or fish stock that's been cooked for many, many hours until it's thick and rich with flavor. French cooks add dollops of it to their sauces at the last minute to thicken them and boost their flavor. You can make a glace yourself or buy it ready-made, but count on paying dearly with either time or money. There are several varieties, including glace de viande (also called meat glace or meat jelly), glace de poisson (fish glace), glace de poulet (chicken glace), and glace de veau (veal glace). A demi-glace is made the same way as a glace, but it's not as thick.

This is flour with the starch and bran removed. Don't confuse it with bread flour (high-gluten flour), which is gluten-fortified flour, or with gluten (seitan), a meat analogue used in vegetarian dishes. Pure gluten flour is usually added to regular flour to turn it into bread flour, or it's used to make seitan.