My Pantry. Your Pantry.

There's a voyeur deep down in every one of us. Then for some of us, it's not that deep. 

I'll show you mine if you show me yours... 

Strangers in the night... exchanging trousers... wondering what's inside... 

Okay. Perhaps I'm on a sugar+caffeine high. Or perhaps it's the wind. I get carried away.

My pantry at the moment exists only in my head. We haven't secured our "home" in KL yet. No panic despite our one-way flight four days from now. But since we were talking about cooking at home earlier on, I might as well share with you my pantry list. My apologies for not having any photos as show-and-tell. Another day, maybe.

Because of the things I cook at home, I prefer to categorize my pantry staples into Asian and Everything Else. The lists below were compiled to the Frenchinos diet. It'll be best that you form your own list according to your family's needs. Come on, it'll be fun!

The Asian stuff

• Shaoxing wine, sesame oil, dark and light soy sauce, kicap manis, hoisin sauce
  
• Dried chinese mushrooms, dried oysters, dried shrimps, wolfberries, peanuts
• Dry noodles - bee hoon, yee mee, vietnamese rice noodles
• Fried shallots & garlic
• Pearl barley, winter melon strips, longan, red dates, brown rock sugar
• S&B curry cubes, teriyaki sauce, rice wine vinegar
• Japanese rice, Thai jasmine rice, brown rice
• Garlic, onions, lemongrass, young ginger

The others

• Assorted dry pasta (linguine, farfalle especially), couscous
• Canned tomatoes, sweet corn kernels, mushrooms, sauerkraut
• Canned sardine in tomato sauce, sardine in water
• Tomato paste, Prégo pasta sauce
• Provençal herbs mix, extra virgin olive oil, ground nutmeg, salt, mixed peppercorns

For the fridge

• Juice, milk, yoghurt, cheese, eggs, butter spread, jam, wholemeal bread
• Grapes, kiwi, oranges
• Kalamata olives, cornichons, dijon mustard, feta cheese in oil
• Carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes
• Miso, udon

For breakfast

• Bananas, dried cranberries, dried apricots, raisins
• Nuts (almond, walnut especially), sunflower seeds
• Cereal, muesli 
• Coffee (beans and ground), assorted teabags, honey

For baking

• Plain flour, self-raising flour
• Caster sugar, icing sugar, brown sugar
• Dark chocolate, butter
• Pure vanilla extract, cocoa powder, rose water, orange water
• Bicarbonate soda, baking powder

The above are always stocked up, leaving only fresh produce, poultry, fish and meat as my weekly variables, depending on what's best available, the occasional craving or if there's any entertaining at home. But that's basically the Frenchinos pantry where no one goes hungry, only a matter of whether one gets to eat what one craves for at the moment.