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Keeping Spice Bowls on Your Stove

Posted Tue, Dec 05, 2006, 11:55 am PST

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Sometimes I feel like a blind man in the kitchen. If something isn't right in front of me, I just don't see it. Yes, I have a large collection of interesting spices, vinegars, dried fruit, and plenty of other exotica, but when I'm cooking dinner, do I take an inventory of what I have before I start? No! I just grab whatever's most visible and prominent.

So my solution, at least for spices, is this: I keep small ceramic bowls (nothing matches, of course) of ready-to-use spices right on my stove, where I can see them and use them freely. Right now I have a typical selection going: several kinds of salt (see my salt entry), black peppercorns, green peppercorns, coriander seeds, star anise, fennel seeds, cardamom, and cumin. All have been ground in my little $20 coffee grinder, which acts as a dedicated spice grinder. I keep the quantities purposely small, and replenish them as needed.

I take inspiration from these bowls. If all I have in my fridge are some chicken breasts, for example, I might rub them with olive oil and then sprinkle on some ground fennel, black and green pepper, and plenty of tangerine salt, and then broil them, which produces a beautiful spicy crust on the chicken. I then might heat up some rice vinegar and butter and drizzle that reduced combination over the chicken.

Or if I have a little tofu on hand, I'm likely to dry it off, spoon an egg yolk over it, and dust it with plenty of ground star anise, pepper, and kaffir lime salt, and fry it in a combination of butter and olive oil. Delicious and easy.

Lately I've been making a lot of spiced carrots. Skin the carrots and dice them into irregular shapes, then sauté them in olive oil with way more cardamom than you think is reasonable, and finish the dish off with some milk. Creamy, beautifully spiced carrots; I can eat them by the gallon.

Would I have thought of those combinations were they not staring me in the face? No.

If you make your spices visible -- and I mean REALLY visible -- your cooking can't help but get more interesting.

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10 Comments

1. Posted by Scott A on Tue, Dec 05, 2006, 2:33 pm PST

Good idea, although it would be harder in my kitchen; I have a backside downvent exhaust, with no place to put spices. My cabinet is nearby, however, and I'll usually do a browse while I'm cooking, and am certain that no spice is left behind. I do have some concerns: 1) Heat, air exposure, grease in the air - don't these degrade the spices? 2) How do you keep track of what is what? Or, more importantly, if you are not the only one cooking, how does the other cook know what you've put out in the bowls?
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2. Posted by JasonTrue on Tue, Dec 05, 2006, 6:15 pm PST

I've bought a big metal board and a bunch of those magnetic, relatively well-sealed spice jars, which I've mounted just a bit higher than my refrigerator doors on the only unoccupied wall in my kitchen. None of the kits seem to come with enough room for 20-40 jars, so I've done the mix-and-match thing. That works for me. Having direct light exposure through the transparent lids of the jars may diminish the useful life of some of the spices and dried herbs that I have, but on the other hand, when they were hidden in the spice cupboard the often died slowly anyway, like forgotten old hermits.
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3. Posted by Steffles on Tue, Dec 05, 2006, 10:05 pm PST

Tag this post 'kitchen design' . What you're describing is like a painter with his pallete of colors. I think you raise alot of interesting points, for both the design and cooking disciplines. Your kitchen is your studio. Oh, and what exactly do you do with the milk in that carrot dish?
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4. Posted by breakawaycook on Thu, Dec 07, 2006, 1:52 pm PST

s-ashkenaz, yes, your concerns are valid. It's true that heat, air exposure, and grease in the air can adversely affect spices just sitting out all exposed, but: I make them in such small quantities that they tend to disappear in a week or so anyway. I'm willing to live with the small degree of degradation that comes with this method. I consider that downside trivial compared to the upside of actually SEEING and USING all this stuff on a regular basis. If it sat around for months or even weeks, it wouldn't work so well. Keeping track of what's what: I guess I'm pretty familiar with all this stuff, so I can tell at a quick glance that I have star anise, fennel, coriander, etc. in each bowl. Color and textural differences give them away. (and a good whiff should remove any lingering doubts). And yes, I'm basically the only one cooking.
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5. Posted by breakawaycook on Thu, Dec 07, 2006, 1:57 pm PST

Jason, I've been eyeing those magnetic setups--they look very cool. For the spices that don't make it to "stove shelf status," I use an IKEA small wooden shelf, loaded with spices in small IKEA glass jars. SEEING IS EVERYTHING in cooking -- you gotta know what you've got.
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6. Posted by breakawaycook on Thu, Dec 07, 2006, 1:58 pm PST

ssawchenko, thanks! Yes design really is connected to good kitchen use. Milk goes into the carrots after you've sauted them for a bit. When the milk disappears, you're done!
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7. Posted by Alex on Mon, Dec 11, 2006, 8:44 am PST

I think having your spices within eye's view is a great idea...in my case, i have my spices in a cabinet right above my stove (i don't have an exhaust over stove/oven) on multiple racks of mini-lazy susans, and all my salts next to the stove. I usually have about 6 or 7 different salts displayed there (ie. himalayan pink, murray river flakes, szechuan pepper/salt), and i change the selection about once a week. I think i will do the same for spices - have a selection of about 8 or 10 ground and ready to go, and change the selection every week or so... thanks for the inspiration.
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8. Posted by Kathleen Fitzpatrick on Thu, Jun 21, 2007, 5:01 am PDT

Please be advised that the light destroys the flavor and color f spices. I hd one of those magnetic racks with the clear top jars. I began to notice that the top layer of the spice becam brown, while the rest stayed green. For salt and pepper, I can't se why you wouldn't leave it out, but keep the expensive stuff away from light and heat.
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9. Posted by Phil L on Thu, Jun 21, 2007, 7:22 am PDT

You should never leave spices, herds and oi;s exposed to light and heat! It destroies the flavores and the shelf-life!
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