The Italian pantry: anchovies, capers, cheese, guanciale and more
How to use the handful of preserved ingredients that give Italian cooking its depth: melting anchovies, soaking capers, grating Parmigiano, rendering guanciale, soaking porcini and picking tinned tomatoes.
Why it works
Italian cooking gets a lot of flavour from very few ingredients. A plate of pasta might have five things in it. It tastes deep and savoury because one or two of those five carry a great deal of flavour: a salted anchovy, a spoon of capers, a hard aged cheese, a little cured pork, a handful of dried mushrooms. They are mostly preserved foods. Salting, curing, ageing and drying all concentrate flavour, and they break proteins down into glutamates, the compounds that taste savoury on the tongue.
That is why a small amount goes so far, and also why the way you handle them matters. Most of these ingredients are salty, so they replace salt rather than sit on top of it. Most of them change completely with heat. An anchovy cooked gently in oil stops tasting of fish and turns into a rich, rounded seasoning. Guanciale rendered slowly gives you crisp meat and a pan of clear, sweet fat to cook in. Parmigiano added off the heat melts into a sauce; added to a boiling pan it turns into strings.
This guide covers the handful of Italian pantry ingredients worth keeping in at all times, and how to get the most from each: anchovies and capers, Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano, guanciale and pancetta, dried porcini and tinned tomatoes. Keep these in and you can make a proper supper from almost nothing on a Tuesday night.
The anchovy technique at the top comes from two readers, Emil and Morten, who wrote in to say what Italian cooks have always known: anchovies melt into the oil, they work as seasoning, and you need not worry about them being too strong. Thank you both. Their simple pasta is in the extras below.
What you need
- Small heavy frying pan: For melting anchovies and frying capers. Stainless steel or cast iron holds a gentle, even heat.
- Fine rasp grater: Turns hard cheese into a fluffy snow that melts evenly into sauces.
- Wooden spoon: For pressing anchovies into the oil and crushing tinned tomatoes against the pan.
- Fine sieve and kitchen paper: For straining the grit out of porcini soaking liquid.
- Small clean jars: For keeping opened anchovies covered in oil and soaked capers in the fridge.
Step by step
Melt anchovies into oil
Put 3 to 4 anchovy fillets in a cold pan with 3 to 4 tablespoons of olive oil and a sliced garlic clove. Set it over low to medium-low heat. After 2 or 3 minutes the fillets start to fall apart; press them with a wooden spoon and stir until they dissolve completely into the oil. Keep the heat gentle so the garlic turns pale gold and never brown. You now have a savoury base for pasta, a dressing for greens, or the start of a tomato sauce. It will not taste fishy.
Tip: Emil and Morten's rule: do not worry about the taste being too much. Melted gently, anchovies season the dish the way salt does, only deeper. Add less salt to the pasta water when you use them.
Choose and prepare anchovies
Oil-packed fillets are ready to use: lift them out with a fork and let the excess oil drip off. Salt-packed whole anchovies have a firmer texture and a cleaner flavour. Rinse them under cold water to remove the salt, then open each fish along the belly with your thumb, lift out the spine, and rinse again. Pat the fillets dry. If they still taste very salty, soak them in cold water for 10 minutes. Once opened, keep oil-packed anchovies in the fridge, always covered with oil, and use them within a few weeks.
Rinse, soak or fry capers
Capers come packed in salt or in brine or vinegar. Salt-packed capers have the best flavour: rinse them, then soak in cold water for 15 to 20 minutes, changing the water once, and taste before using. Brined capers need only a rinse and a pat dry. Add them near the end of cooking so they keep their shape and tang. For crisp capers, pat them very dry and fry in 1 cm of hot oil for about a minute, until they open like small flowers and stop sizzling. Drain on kitchen paper and scatter over fish, salads or pasta.
Tip: Dry capers fully before frying. Wet capers spit hard in hot oil.
Grate hard cheese at the last moment
Parmigiano Reggiano is a cow's milk cheese aged for at least 12 months, usually 24 or more. Grana Padano is milder and younger, aged at least 9 months. Pecorino Romano is a sheep's milk cheese, sharper and saltier, and it belongs in cacio e pepe, carbonara and amatriciana. Grate all three finely, just before using, because grated cheese dries out and loses aroma fast. When you add cheese to a sauce, take the pan off the heat first. Cheese stirred into a boiling sauce seizes into rubbery strings; in a hot but not boiling sauce it melts smoothly.
Tip: Keep Parmigiano rinds in a bag in the freezer. Scrape the outside, then drop one into minestrone, bean soup or a pot of risotto stock for an hour of simmering. Fish it out before serving.
Render guanciale or pancetta from cold
Guanciale is cured pork cheek, fattier and more aromatic than pancetta, which is cured belly. Cut either into batons about 1 cm thick. Put them in a cold, dry frying pan with no oil and set it over medium-low heat. As the pan warms, the fat melts out slowly and the meat crisps in it. After 8 to 10 minutes the fat is clear and the batons are golden at the edges but still slightly tender in the middle. Lift out the meat and use the fat to start your sauce.
Tip: Starting cold is the whole trick. A hot pan browns the outside before the fat inside has time to melt out, leaving the batons hard outside and chewy inside.
Soak dried porcini and keep the liquid
Put 20 to 30 g of dried porcini in a bowl and pour over about 250 ml of warm water. Leave for 20 to 30 minutes until soft. Lift the mushrooms out with your fingers, squeezing them gently back into the bowl, then rinse them briefly to remove any grit and chop. Let the soaking liquid stand for a minute so any sand settles, then pour it through a sieve lined with kitchen paper, leaving the last gritty spoonful behind. This liquid is pure mushroom stock: add it to risotto, ragù, a braise or a pan sauce.
Pick the right tinned tomato
Pelati are whole peeled tomatoes and usually the best quality in the tin; crush them by hand or against the pan with a spoon. Polpa is chopped tomato, quicker but often firmer. Passata is sieved raw tomato, smooth and ideal for long-simmered sauces and soups. Concentrato is tomato paste. Fry a tablespoon of it in the oil for a minute or two, until it darkens a shade, before adding liquid: that caramelises its sugars and takes away the raw, tinny edge. San Marzano tomatoes from the protected area near Naples carry a DOP mark on the tin.
Tip: A sauce that tastes sharp often needs longer cooking, a knob of butter or a few drops of the anchovy oil rather than sugar.
The Italian pantry at a glance
| Ingredient | What it brings | Prepare | Keep once opened | Classic uses |
|---|
| Anchovies in oil | Deep savoury seasoning | Melt slowly in warm oil | Fridge, covered in oil, a few weeks | Pasta, bagna cauda, salsa verde, lamb |
| Salted anchovies | Cleaner, firmer flavour | Rinse, fillet, soak 10 minutes if needed | Fridge, kept covered in salt | Pizza, puntarelle, dressings |
| Capers | Salty, sour, floral | Rinse and soak salted; rinse brined; fry for crunch | Fridge, in their salt or brine | Piccata, puttanesca, vitello tonnato, fish |
| Parmigiano Reggiano | Nutty, savoury, salt | Grate fine at the last moment | Fridge, wrapped in paper, then loosely in a bag | Risotto, pasta, soups, shaved over salads |
| Pecorino Romano | Sharp, salty, sheepy | Grate fine; add off the heat | Fridge, wrapped in paper | Cacio e pepe, carbonara, amatriciana |
| Guanciale or pancetta | Sweet pork fat, crisp texture | Cut 1 cm batons, render from cold | Fridge, wrapped, about two weeks | Carbonara, amatriciana, gricia, beans |
| Dried porcini | Intense, woody mushroom | Soak 20 to 30 min; strain the liquid | Airtight jar, cool and dark | Risotto, ragù, braises, pan sauces |
| Tinned tomatoes | Body, sweetness, acidity | Crush pelati; fry tomato paste first | Fridge in a clean container, a few days | Sauces, soups, braises, pizza |
Troubleshooting
The anchovies fried hard and tasted bitter
The heat was too high. Anchovies need gentle heat to dissolve; on a hot pan they crisp and burn, and the garlic with them. Start in a cold pan, keep the heat low and give them time.
The dish is too salty
Anchovies, capers, cured pork and hard cheese are all salty, so they add up fast. Salt the pasta water lightly when you use them, taste before adding more salt, and rinse or soak salted capers and anchovies. To rescue a dish, add more unsalted pasta, a squeeze of lemon or a spoonful of plain ricotta.
The cheese went stringy or lumpy
The sauce was too hot. Take the pan off the heat, let it stop bubbling, and add finely grated cheese a little at a time with a splash of pasta water, stirring hard. For cacio e pepe, mix the cheese to a paste with a little cooled pasta water first.
The guanciale is chewy or burnt
It went into a hot pan or the heat was too high. Start from cold over medium-low heat and let the fat render for 8 to 10 minutes before the edges crisp.
The porcini sauce is gritty
The soaking liquid was not strained, or the mushrooms were not rinsed. Strain the liquid through kitchen paper and leave the last spoonful in the bowl.
The tomato sauce tastes tinny or raw
It needs a little longer cooking, or the tomato paste was not fried before the liquid went in. Simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes and finish with a knob of butter or good olive oil.
