Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Samin Nosrat

texture you’re after, then refer to The World of Fat (here) to guide you in evoking the flavours of wildly different places. Choose to pan-fry Finger-Lickin’ Pan-Fried Chicken, for instance, in clarified butter for a classic French flavour. If you’re craving an Indian-inspired meal and want to dig into that jar of mango chutney in the refrigerator door, change the cooking fat to ghee. If it’s a Japanese chicken cutlet you’re craving, use a neutral oil studded with a few drops of toasted sesame oil. In all of these cases, the fat must be sufficiently hot to swiftly lead to browning and deliver a crisp exterior.

      Before you bake a birthday cake for your sweetie pie, do a little reconnaissance. Is it the moist, tender crumb of an oil cake she prefers, or the dense, velvety one of a butter cake? Since even I won’t recommend improvising when you bake, let this information guide you to a recipe using the right fat to make your honey happy.

      With what you know about fat and what you know about salt, you’ll find that you’re closer to riffing than you might think. Fat has a remarkable capacity to affect texture, while salt and fat can both enhance flavour. Practise using salt and fat to improve flavour and texture every single time you cook. If you intend to finish a salad with a shower of creamy ricotta salata, hold back on some of the salt until after you taste a bite of it with its salty garnish. Similarly, when you’re dicing pancetta to add richness to Pasta all’Amatriciana, wait to season the sauce until after it’s absorbed all the salt from the pork. And if a recipe for pizza dough instructs you to add salt after kneading in olive oil, think twice about following it word for word. Start to use what you know to be true to guide you through the vast forests of myth and misinformation that poorly written recipes comprise.

      Improvising begins with notes, and now you have two with which to compose a Salt-Fat melody. Master a third note, and you’ll experience the transcendent harmony of Salt, Fat, and Acid.

      In contrast to the revelations I experienced with Salt and Fat, I’ve learned the value of Acid gradually. It started at home, with the food my mom, grandmothers, and aunts cooked each night.