Five Jars That Do the Work of Fifteen: A Turkish Grill Pantry on One Shelf

Every cuisine arrives in a British kitchen with an entourage. You buy one jar of something for a single recipe, it lives at the back of the cupboard for three years, and eventually you move house with it. Turkish grilling is a particular risk, because the flavours are so distinctive and the ingredient lists online so long. But here is the thing worth saying plainly: the difference between a decent grilled chop and one that tastes properly of the ocakbaşı comes down to about five things. Everything else is variation.

This is not a shopping list so much as an argument for restraint. If your cupboard is a single shelf — as mine is — you can still cook like you have a whole spice market.

Pepper paste is the backbone, not an accessory

If you buy one thing, buy biber salçası. Turkish pepper paste comes in two main types: sweet (tatlı) and hot (acı), and the sweet version is not actually sweet so much as deep, roasted and faintly fruity. It is tomato purée's more interesting cousin, and it does an enormous amount of work — spread under a lamb shoulder before roasting, stirred into bulgur, thinned with water and olive oil into an instant marinade, or spooned into yoghurt for a sauce that tastes like you tried harder than you did.

Buy a jar of the hot and a jar of the sweet if you have room. If you don't, buy hot and use less of it. Once opened, keep it in the fridge with a film of oil on top and it will outlast your enthusiasm — which is saying something, given how fast it goes.

Pomegranate molasses: the sour note British cooking forgets

Nar ekşisi is the ingredient that makes Turkish grilling taste like Turkish grilling. It is sharp, dark, slightly syrupy, and it does the job that lemon alone cannot: it gives sweetness and acidity at the same time, and it clings to charred meat.

Look for one that lists only pomegranate juice and perhaps a little citric acid, rather than sugar syrups. A bottle lasts months in the cupboard. Use it in marinades, whisked into dressings, drizzled sparingly over grilled aubergine, or stirred into a jug of iced water with mint on a hot afternoon, which is how it is drunk in Gaziantep and how it should be drunk here in July.

If you cannot find it, a decent balsamic vinegar with a teaspoon of blackcurrant jam is a workable stand-in for marinades. It is not the same, but it will not ruin your dinner.

Pul biber and the case for one good chilli flake

Pul biber — Aleppo-style flake — is mild, oily and slightly fruity, which is exactly why it is scattered over everything rather than used as a heat source. British supermarkets now stock it widely, and Turkish grocers sell it far cheaper by the bag. Buy the bag.

Isot pepper, from Urfa, is darker, smokier and worth trying once you've worked through your first bag of pul biber; it tastes of tobacco and dried fruit in the best way. And if you can only keep one smoked element in the cupboard, let it be a smoked paprika rather than a liquid smoke, which tends to taste like a bonfire that has been put out with a kettle.

Sumac and dried mint: the two that make food taste fresh when nothing is

Sumac is sour, purple-red and slightly astringent, and it is the reason a plate of sliced onion can be a revelation. Toss red onion with sumac, lemon and salt, leave it ten minutes, and you have the garnish that makes any grilled meat taste lighter.

Dried mint is the quiet hero of the yoghurt bowl and the reason grilled halloumi works so well in a Turkish register. Crumbled over yoghurt with a little garlic and salt, it turns a £2 block of cheese into something worth putting on a table. Both keep for a year in a sealed jar, away from the light, and both cost very little.

What to make, and what not to bother making

Honestly? Make the yoghurt sauce, make the sumac onions, and make a batch of marinade base — pepper paste, olive oil, lemon, pul biber, dried oregano — that keeps in a jar in the fridge for a fortnight and can be spooned over anything within seconds.

Do not make pepper paste at home unless you have a sunny balcony, three days and a lot of patience. Do not make pomegranate molasses. These are the products of places with more sun than Wiltshire, and buying them is not cheating; it is sensible.

Substituting without apologising

A few swaps work well enough that you needn't hunt down a specialist shop. Sumac can be replaced by finely grated lemon zest mixed with a little salt, in a pinch. Dried oregano — the Greek or Turkish kind, not the dusty supermarket version labelled simply 'mixed herbs' — is a better stand-in for kekik than anything else. And where a recipe calls for fresh Turkish pepper, a British red romano or long sweet pepper will char beautifully and taste perfectly good, if slightly different.

What you should not substitute is the yoghurt. Full-fat, thick, ideally strained, salted before it hits the plate. A thin yoghurt will split and weep, and no amount of pul biber will hide it.

The shelf, assembled

Pepper paste, pomegranate molasses, pul biber, sumac, dried mint, dried oregano, good olive oil, and a tub of salt. That is eight items, most of them small, and together they cover lamb chops, chicken wings, köfte, grilled vegetables, halloumi, flatbreads and a week of lunches. It is a pantry that earns its shelf space because you will actually reach for it — and in a small British kitchen, that is the only test that matters.