The Five-Ingredient Pantry

Most weeknight cooking falls apart at the same point: there is food in the house, and none of it adds up to a meal. The fix is not more recipes. It is five things that make almost anything taste deliberate.

1. Something acidic

Lemons, or a decent vinegar. Nearly every dish that tastes flat and heavy is missing acid, not salt. A squeeze at the end of a soup, a stew, a bowl of beans or a plate of roast vegetables does more than any other single addition.

2. Good salt, and the confidence to use it

Flaky salt for finishing, cheap fine salt for cooking water. Season as you go in small amounts rather than once at the end — the difference is enormous and costs nothing.

3. A jar of something punchy

Anchovies, capers, olives, miso, gochujang, harissa — pick two you like. These are concentrated savoury depth in a jar, and a teaspoon turns plain pasta or plain rice into something with a point of view.

4. Tinned tomatoes and tinned beans

The most reliable dinner in the world is a tin of each, an onion, a clove of garlic and whichever punchy thing from point three you have open. Fifteen minutes, one pan.

5. Something crunchy for the top

Toasted breadcrumbs, seeds, nuts, crispy onions. Texture is the thing home cooking most often lacks, and a handful scattered over the top makes a plain bowl feel finished.

What you do not need

A spice rack of thirty jars, most of them stale. Six spices you actually use, bought small and replaced when they stop smelling of anything, will beat a full rack every time. Ground spices lose their flavour in months, not years — if it smells of dust, it tastes of dust.