Praise for SALT FAT ACID HEAT
“This beautiful, approachable book not only teaches you how to cook, but captures how it should feel to cook: full of exploration, spontaneity, and joy. Samin is one of the great teachers I know, and wins people over to cooking with real food—organic, seasonal, and alive—with her irrepressible enthusiasm and curiosity.”
—Alice Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Simple Food
“Everyone was impressed when Michael Pollan managed to summarise the huge and complex subject of what we should be eating in just seven words: ‘Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.’ Samin Nosrat has managed to summarise the huge and complex subject of how we should be cooking in just four words: ‘salt, fat, acid, heat.’ Everyone will be hugely impressed.”
—Yotam Ottolenghi, New York Times bestselling author of Jerusalem
“Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a must for anyone wanting to be a better cook. Samin Nosrat, along with Wendy MacNaughton’s fun illustrations, teaches the fundamentals of cooking and dives into the four elements that make food taste great. So do yourself a favour and buy this book. I promise you won’t regret it.”
—April Bloomfield, James Beard Award–winning chef and author of A Girl and Her Pig
“Like the amazing meals that come out of Samin Nosrat’s kitchen, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is the perfect mixture of highest-quality ingredients: beautiful storytelling, clear science, an infectious love of food, and Wendy MacNaughton’s powerful art. Nosrat’s prose combined with MacNaughton’s beautiful illustrations are a perfect guide to employing the science of cooking for maximum deliciousness.”
—Rebecca Skloot, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
“Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a very important book not because it contains many excellent recipes, although it does, or because it is written by a Chez Panisse alum, although it is. It is important because it gives home cooks a compass with which to navigate their own kitchens, and it places trust in them that they will be able to use that compass. Samin’s easygoing, cook-by-feel approach is never condescending or elitist. It is a step towards cooking without recipes and true empowerment (and joy!) in the kitchen.”
—John Becker and Megan Scott, fourth-generation stewards of the New York Times bestselling Joy of Cooking
“Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a wildly informative, new-generation culinary resource. Samin Nosrat’s wealth of experience comes together here in a pitch-perfect combination of charm, narrative, straight-talk, illustration, and inspiration. Ticking all the boxes for new and seasoned cooks alike, this book meets you wherever you are in the kitchen, in all the right ways.”
—Heidi Swanson, New York Times bestselling author of Super Natural Cooking
Published in Great Britain in 2017 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2017 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Samin Nosrat, 2017
Illustrations © Wendy MacNaughton, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
First published in the USA by Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
9781782112303
eISBN 9781782112310
Interior design by Alvaro Villanueva
For Alice Waters, who gave me the kitchen, and for Maman, who gave me the world
Anyone who likes to eat, can soon learn to cook well.
—Jane Grigson
CONTENTS
PART ONEThe Four Elements of Good Cooking
PART TWORecipes and Recommendations
Dressings
Vegetables
Stock and Soups
Beans, Grains, and Pasta 280 Eggs
Fish
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Chicken
Meat
Sauces
Butter-and-Flour Doughs
Sweets
About the Author & the Illustrator
FOREWORD
As I write these words,