Ham El-Waylly's 40 essential ingredients

Welcome to Dinner Tetris, an advice column at 40 Ingredients Forever where a reader shares the ingredients they always have on hand and I dream up three dinners using those ingredients. If you’d like your ingredients Tetris-ed into dinner, head here.

The recipes in Ham El-Waylly’s new book Hello, Home Cooking: Do-Able Dishes for Every Day are wild and free. Masa waffles. Zucchini poached in yogurt. Giardiniera rice. Frito ganache tart.

It reminds me of books by Superiority Burger and Shopsin’s, where well-trained chefs unbutton their chef’s coats and let loose. Like Brooks Headley and Kenny Shopsin, Ham happens to be cooking from Manhattan’s Lower East Side (something in the water?) and seems to have expansive, limitless creativity — which is why I wanted to give him some guardrails: If you could only cook with 40 ingredients for the rest of time, what would they be?

Here are his picks, along with three ways to turn them into dinner. Some surprises to me? No soy sauce (only fish sauce). No legumes, nuts, or seeds. Scallions and chives. And Russet instead of a more buttery potato.

Pantry: Diamond Crystal kosher salt, Black peppercorns, Cumin, Coriander, Cobanero chili flakes, Granulated sugar, All-purpose flour, Rigatoni, Di Napoli canned tomatoes, Brodo chicken bone broth, Za’atar, Grove & Vine extra-virgin olive oil, Zero Acres oil, Tamaki Gold rice, Red Boat fish sauce

Proteins & dairy: Black cod, Bone-in skin-on chicken thighs, Ground lamb, Grass-fed ribeye steak, Eggs, Heavy cream, Whole milk, Cultured butter, Labneh, Tahini, Parmesan

Produce: Lemon, Lime, Garlic, Yellow onion, Scallion, Russet potato, Heirloom tomato, Chives, Parsley, Honeycrisp apple, Savoy cabbage, Persian cucumber, Little Gem lettuce, La Cabra sourdough loaf

Baked potatoes with lamb & labneh