Buy This: Making Vegetables Taste Good

Sauces, condiments, and crowning touches that elevate

Hello, fine readers.

Pilsner Beer and Me.

Today is a roundup of the items I keep in my pantry to “finish” most dishes, especially vegetables.

Most of the time, olive oil and salt is all I require, but it’s nice to have some things in your arsenal to add a nice upgrade to your cooking. A little “hey, what’s thaaat?”

This is the main thing that seems to resonate when I have friends over who don’t cook. They’re always asking, “how did you make it taste like this?” And for the most part, this is what they’re referring to:

Make It Taste Good, Pantry Edition

1. Lemon Agrumato - olive oil is the best sauce. Lemon is the best fruit (in cooking, at least.) Now combine olive oil AND lemons and you have Agrumato. This stuff is insanely good. I use it on any and all roasted vegetables, as well as pasta, tofu, even ice cream. I’ve written about this before and if you still don’t believe me, I can’t do anything more for you at this point.

2. Yakima Smoked Sea Salt - flaky sea salt is undefeated for adding seasoning and texture. Smoked, it has another dimension. I buy it from Duals in NYC, and conveniently, they ship. This is stellar on roasted carrots, steak, my fennel and onion dip, and anything that could benefit from a little touch of smoke. Shoutout to my pal Gerardo Gonzales who first introduced me to this salt (and this shop!) when he was running my favorite (now closed) cafe, El Rey.