Spring Larder Reset

Forgotten flours, rogue pasta shapes and the annual reckoning with my larder - plus a completely flexible and yummy dish to use use up lots of those odds and ends.

Spring has arrived in the UK – on paper, at least. The weather is still dithering, though. The light is shifting (no longer pitch-black by 6pm!), yet I’m still chiselling ice off the windscreen in the early hours. But the true harbingers of spring for me? That sudden, unignorable awareness that my windows are filthy. And my standard avoidance of cleaning out the larder turns into an itch that must be scratched. The change of season demands a new world order in my food cupboard.

Unlike my fridge, with its obvious mouldering herbs and mysterious foil-cloaked bowls, the food cupboard hides its clutter well. Half-used packets have happily lurked in the shadows for months, but now I’m seeing them with different eyes. Odd handfuls of pasta, none of them enough for a full meal, are making me twitch. (“Who leaves ten penne in the bottom of a packet?” I demand of no one in particular, but also everyone, in my household.) And flour. So much flour. Half-used packets of plain, rye, spelt, coconut, chickpea and more - some of which I brought back from a work trip five years ago - are wedged in a drawer.

There’s a graveyard of bottles and jars I had all the best of intentions of using (I’m looking at you, Oak Smoked Water). A jar of sundried tomatoes (was it Nigella who compared them to “old plasters”?). Something fermented that was sent as a PR gift and never opened. Meanwhile, bits of noodle and pasta are strewn confetti-like throughout the drawers. Also: multiple packets of polenta, as no one bothered to check if we had any before buying more. And it’s something we rarely eat.

Clearing it all out will be more satisfying than it should be. Wiping down the shelves. Sweeping up the debris. Consolidating packets of the same ingredient. Re-stacking. Perhaps the olive-in-the-martini will be the purchase of a new marker pen for labelling. It’s the kind of small domestic victory that makes the whole kitchen feel better. And then, of course, there’s the challenge of using stuff up, and this is where I have a recipe idea for you this week.