Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

Mastering the Art of Elements Cooking

Electronic resource, 480 pages

English language

Published Jan. 14, 2017 by Simon & Schuster.

OCLC Number:
1109773259

View on OpenLibrary

5 stars (29 reviews)

A visionary new master class in cooking that distills decades of professional experience into just four simple elements, from the woman declared “America’s next great cooking teacher” by Alice Waters.

In the tradition of The Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything comes Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, an ambitious new approach to cooking by a major new culinary voice. Chef and writer Samin Nosrat has taught everyone from professional chefs to middle school kids to author Michael Pollan to cook using her revolutionary, yet simple, philosophy. Master the use of just four elements—Salt, which enhances flavor; Fat, which delivers flavor and generates texture; Acid, which balances flavor; and Heat, which ultimately determines the texture of food—and anything you cook will be delicious. By explaining the hows and whys of good cooking, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach and inspire a new generation of cooks how to confidently make better …

4 editions

Review of 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Finally. A book that explained cooking to me in a way that I understand. All the basics of why some things are cooked a certain way. I really hope that I will be able to get from my "cook with the recipe" to a "cook with whats in the fridge" mode soonish :) . At least I now have a clear path to it.

Review of 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking' on 'GoodReads'

5 stars

I'm a fairly confident cook. Reading this book was like seeing a map of my neighborhood for the first time. I had intuitive knowledge about these different dimensions of food, but had no such framework for thinking about my cooking. This helps me orient myself when I'm cooking and points out areas where I haven't explored as much. So I highly recommend it. I myself couldn't put it down.

Some people complain that the recipes are too vague. That's the point, dummies! Learn to trust your senses!

I do want someone to give me a similar framework for thinking about spices and herbs - that was sort of handwaved in this book, and I accept that, but that doesn't mean I don't want it.

Review of 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Finished the first half and various parts of the second, which is enough given that most of the second half is recipes.

A good book that's well written, engaging and amusing. A few things have been badly localised (referring to a 10-dollar steak and remembering 185ºC for something by thinking about the number of days in a year...) and the references to "seasoning from within" and capitalising the books four elements were both a little distracting. Some of the advice in it also disagrees with other things I've read from e.g. Serious Eats and occasionally with itself (saying a good cook doesn't need a thermometer and then recommending one a few pages later). However, all of these are definitely nitpicky issues given how well and how concisely it presents a wealth of information.

(I've yet to try any recipes and they aren't really the point of the book, but since …

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