Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (Book Review)

“An exhaustively researched treatise on the four pillars of successful cooking.” (New York Times Book Review)

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat is a book about the elements of good cooking. The book teaches the fundamentals, which you can use later in all your cooking. So, throw out the recipes and become a chef yourself. That is the bold claim, and I think Samin follows through. Here are my notes on the book.

Salt

• Tasting is one of the most important things you’re doing in the kitchen
• Salt can help prevent dishes from becoming flat
• Salt can be administered as …uhh… salt, cheese, olives, capers, etc
• Salt is a mineral: sodium chloride (one of the essential ones we can’t live without)
• All salt is from the sea (rock salt is just that from ancient lakes, which lay under the ground nowadays)
• The primary role salt plays in cooking is t amplify the flavour
• With home-cooked meals, don’t worry about adding too much (unless otherwise indicated by your doctor)
• Salt has its own taste and enhances the flavour of other ingredients
• Different types of salt:
  • Table salt: very dense, probably with iodine (which is good but gives metallic taste)
  • Kosher salt: very pure salt, that comes in different sizes
  • Sea salt: use the expensive kind (fleur de sel) only when the flavour will pop out

• We can perceive 5 tastes: saltiness, sourness, bitterness, sweetness, and umami (savouriness)
• Aroma is what our nose perceives (thousands of chemicals)
• Flavour lies on the intersection of taste, aroma, and sensory elements like texture, sound, appearance, and temperature
• Salt affects both taste and flavour
• Anything that heightens flavour is a seasoning
  • Season (salt) food from within

• Salt reduces our perception of bitterness (even better than sugar does)
• Salt enhances sweetness

• Salt moves through food via osmosis and diffusion
  • Osmosis: the movement of water in and out of a cell wall (towards the saltier side)
  • Diffusion: the movement of salt through a cell wall until it’s evenly distributed (this is a slower process)
• Salt meats in advance, to give it plenty of time to diffuse
• Salt seafood only 15 minutes before prepping
• Salt doesn’t dissolve in fat, but luckily most fats contain some water
• Add a pinch of salt to eggs you will scramble, etc
  • Lightly season water for poaching eggs
  • Season eggs cooked in the shell or fried in a pan just before serving
• Salt assists in weakening pectin (an undigestible carbohydrate) in vegetables
  • (in general) Salt vegetables before cooking them
  • Toss vegetables with salt and olive oil before roasting
  • Salt blancing water generously before adding vegetables
  • Add salt into the pan for sautéing
  • Season vegetables with large, watery, cells (e.g. tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines) 15 minutes before grilling/roasting
  • Salt mushrooms only when they are already starting to become brown
• Salt legumes and beans when you soak or cook them
• Salt bread dough early (it’s low in water, so it dissolves slowly)

• When cooking food in water, add enough salt
  • Because of the need for equilibrium, nutrients will stay in the greens
  • This will enhance flavour (duh) and make greens look greener
  • It also allows for quicker cooking (weakened pectins)
  • Salt water for cooking so that it tastes like sea water (i.e. a lot)
  • Taste the water to make sure it’s highly seasoned before you add any food
  • Cooking food in salted water is one of the simplest ways to season from within
• Measuring salt is done by taste
  • And with experience
  • And probably more than you’re used to
  • Take about 1% of weight for vegetables and grains
  • And 2% salinity for water for cooking

• Salt doesn’t necessarily mean you need to use pepper too
  • And if you do, grind it just before you use pepper
• Salt can be used in conjunction with sugar
  • E.g. with a lovely dessert
• If you add too much salt, then:
  • Dilute, add unseasoned ingredients
  • Halve, and put away the rest for later
  • Balance, with acid or fat
  • Select, other things to balance the saltiness
  • Transform, into something that work with more salt
  • Admin defeat…
• Stir, taste, adjust
• Ask yourself: When? How much? In what form?

Fat

• Where oilive oil comes from has a huge effect on how it tastes
  • Oil from hot, dry, hilly areas is spicy
  • From coastal climates is milder in flavour