Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking


Samin Nosrat - 2017
    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 decisions in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients, anywhere, at any time. Echoing Samin’s own journey from culinary novice to award-winning chef, Salt, Fat Acid, Heat immediately bridges the gap between home and professional kitchens. With charming narrative, illustrated walkthroughs, and a lighthearted approach to kitchen science, Samin demystifies the four elements of good cooking for everyone. Refer to the canon of 100 essential recipes—and dozens of variations—to put the lessons into practice and make bright, balanced vinaigrettes, perfectly caramelized roast vegetables, tender braised meats, and light, flaky pastry doughs. Featuring 150 illustrations and infographics that reveal an atlas to the world of flavor by renowned illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will be your compass in the kitchen. Destined to be a classic, it just might be the last cookbook you’ll ever need. With a foreword by Michael Pollan.

The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen


Sean Sherman - 2017
    Locally sourced, seasonal, “clean” ingredients and nose-to-tail cooking are nothing new to Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef. In his breakout book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, Sherman shares his approach to creating boldly seasoned foods that are vibrant, healthful, at once elegant and easy. Sherman dispels outdated notions of Native American fare—no fry bread or Indian tacos here—and no European staples such as wheat flour, dairy products, sugar, and domestic pork and beef. The Sioux Chef’s healthful plates embrace venison and rabbit, river and lake trout, duck and quail, wild turkey, blueberries, sage, sumac, timpsula or wild turnip, plums, purslane, and abundant wildflowers. Contemporary and authentic, his dishes feature cedar braised bison, griddled wild rice cakes, amaranth crackers with smoked white bean paste, three sisters salad, deviled duck eggs, smoked turkey soup, dried meats, roasted corn sorbet, and hazelnut–maple bites.The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen is a rich education and a delectable introduction to modern indigenous cuisine of the Dakota and Minnesota territories, with a vision and approach to food that travels well beyond those borders.

Mastering Pizza: The Art and Practice of Handmade Pizza, Focaccia, and Calzone [A Cookbook]


Marc Vetri - 2018
    In Mastering Pizza, award-winning chef Marc Vetri tackles the topic with his trademark precision, making perfect pizza available to anyone. The recipes--gleaned from years spent researching recipes in Italy and perfecting them in America--have a variety of base doughs of different hydration levels, which allow home cooks to achieve the same results with a regular kitchen oven as they would with a professional pizza oven. The book covers popular standards like Margherita and Carbonara while also featuring unexpected toppings such as mussels and truffles--and even a dessert pizza made with Nutella. With transporting imagery from Italy and hardworking step-by-step photos to demystify the process, Mastering Pizza will help you make pizza as delicious as you find in Italy.

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods


Sandor Ellix Katz - 2001
    Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation."Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for me," writes author Sandor Ellix Katz. "I invite you to join me along this effervescent path, well trodden for thousands of years yet largely forgotten in our time and place, bypassed by the superhighway of industrial food production."The flavors of fermentation are compelling and complex, quite literally alive. This book takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wide world of fermentation, providing readers with basic and delicious recipes-some familiar, others exotic-that are easy to make at home.The book covers vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and sour pickles; bean ferments including miso, tempeh, dosas, and idli; dairy ferments including yogurt, kefir, and basic cheesemaking (as well as vegan alternatives); sourdough bread-making; other grain fermentations from Cherokee, African, Japanese, and Russian traditions; extremely simple wine- and beer-making (as well as cider-, mead-, and champagne-making) techniques; and vinegar-making. With nearly 100 recipes, this is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging fermentation cookbook ever published.

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace


Tamar Adler - 2011
    F. K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf— written in 1942 during wartime shortages—An Everlasting Meal shows that cooking is the path to better eating. Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks. In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world’s great chefs know: that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them. She explains how to smarten up simple food and gives advice for fixing dishes gone awry. She recommends turning to neglected onions, celery, and potatoes for inexpensive meals that taste full of fresh vegetables, and cooking meat and fish resourcefully. By wresting cooking from doctrine and doldrums, Tamar encourages readers to begin from wherever they are, with whatever they have. An Everlasting Meal is elegant testimony to the value of cooking and an empowering, indispensable tool for eaters today.

The Bread Bible


Rose Levy Beranbaum - 2003
    The accessibility of Beranbaum's recipes and the incomparable taste of her creations make this book invaluable for home cooks and professional bakers alike. Easy-to-use ingredient tables provide both volume and weight, for surefire recipes that work perfectly every time.

My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method


Jim Lahey - 2009
    Witnessing the excitement that Bittman’s initial piece unleashed worldwide among bakers experienced and beginner alike, Jim grew convinced that home cooks were eager for a no-fuss way to make bread, and so now, in this eagerly anticipated collection of recipes, Jim shares his one-of-a-kind method for baking rustic, deep-flavored bread in your own oven.The secret to Jim Lahey’s bread is slow-rise fermentation. As Jim shows in My Bread, with step-by-step instructions followed by step-by-step pictures, the amount of labor you put in amounts to 5 minutes: mix water, flour, yeast, and salt, and then let time work its magic—no kneading necessary. Wait 12 to 18 hours for the bread to rise, developing structure and flavor; then, after another short rise, briefly bake the bread in a covered cast-iron pot.The process couldn’t be more simple, or the results more inspiring. My Bread devotes chapters to Jim’s variations on the basic loaf, including an olive loaf, pecorino cheese bread, pancetta rolls, the classic Italian baguette (stirato), and the stunning bread stick studded with tomatoes, olives, or garlic (stecca). He gets even more creative with loaves like Peanut Butter and Jelly Bread, others that use juice instead of water, and his Irish Brown Bread, which calls for Guinness stout. For any leftover loaves, Jim includes what to do with old bread (try bread soup or a chocolate torte) and how to make truly special sandwiches. And no book by Jim Lahey would be complete without his Sullivan Street Bakery signature, pizza Bianca—light, crispy flatbread with olive oil and rosemary that Jim has made even better than that of Italy’s finest bakeries. Other pizza recipes, like a pomodoro (tomato), only require you to spread the risen dough across a baking sheet and add toppings before baking. Here—finally—Jim Lahey gives us a cookbook that enables us to fit quality bread into our lives at home.

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen


Laurie Colwin - 1988
    Equal parts cookbook and memoir, Laurie Colwin's "Home Cooking" combines her insightful, good-humored writing style with her lifelong passion for wonderful cuisine in essays such as "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant," "Repulsive Dinners: A Memoir," and "Stuffed Breast of Veal: A Bad Idea." "Home Cooking" is truly a feast for body and soul.

Asian Dumplings: Mastering Gyoza, Spring Rolls, Samosas, and More


Andrea Nguyen - 2009
    Wrapped, rolled, or filled; steamed, fried, or baked–Asian dumplings are also surprisingly easy to prepare, as Andrea Nguyen demonstrates in Asian Dumplings. Nguyen is a celebrated food writer and teacher with a unique ability to interpret authentic Asian cooking styles for a Western audience. Her crystal-clear recipes for more than 75 of Asia’s most popular savory and sweet parcels, pockets, packages, and pastries range from Lumpia (the addictive fried spring rolls from the Philippines) to Shanghai Soup Dumplings (delicate thin-skinned dumplings filled with hot broth and succulent pork) to Gulab Jamun (India’s rich, syrupy sweets). Organized according to type (wheat pastas, skins, buns, and pastries; translucent wheat and tapioca preparations; rice dumplings; legumes and tubers; sweet dumplings), Asian Dumplings encompasses Eastern, Southeastern, and Southern Asia, with recipes from China, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Tibet, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Throughout, Nguyen shares the best techniques for shaping, filling, cooking, and serving each kind of dumpling. And she makes it easy to incorporate dumplings into a contemporary lifestyle by giving a thorough introduction to essential equipment and ingredients and offering make-ahead and storage guidance, time-saving shortcuts that still yield delectable results, and tips on planning a dumpling dinner party. More than 40 line drawings illustrate the finer points of shaping many kinds of dumplings, including gyōza/pot stickers, wontons, and samosas. Dozens of mouth-watering color photographs round out Asian Dumplings, making it the most definitive, inviting, inspiring book of its kind.

The Frugal Gourmet


Jeff Smith - 1984
    All the ingredients that make THE FRUGAL GOURMET one of the most popular cooking shows on television are in this bestselling cookbook, including: a complete range of cooking techniques, advice on kitchen equipment, special hints and tips, exciting ideas for vegetarian meals, PLUS more than 100 illustrations of recipes and techniques.

The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook


Paula H. Deen - 1998
    Paula H. Deen, the owner and proprieter, has created a friendly cookbook filled with hundreds of quick and easy recipes. Perfect for home entertainment, family picnics, or Sunday dinners, The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook completes any kitchen."I tell Savannah-bound friends that if they want a short course in the meaning of Southern cooking--the flavors, the ambience, indeed the very heart of Southern cooking--they should drop in at The Lady & Sons."--from the introduction by JOHN BEHRENDT, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"The recipes in this book are so wonderful, I almost ate the book!"--FANNIE FLAGG, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper


Lynne Rossetto Kasper - 2008
    As they do on their weekly show, host Lynne Rossetto Kasper and producer Sally Swift approach their topic with attitude and originality, making The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper one of the most engaging cookbooks of this or any other year.As loyal listeners know, Lynne and Sally share an unrelenting curiosity about everything to do with food. Their show, The Splendid Table, looks at the role food plays in our lives—inspiring us, making us laugh, nourishing us, and opening us up to the world around us. Now they have compiled all the most trenchant tips, never-fail recipes, and everyday culinary know-how from the program in How to Eat Supper, a kitchen companion unlike any other.This is no mere cookbook. Like the show, this book goes far beyond the recipe, introducing the people and stories that are shaping America’s changing sense of food. We don’t eat, shop, or cook as we used to. Our relationship with food has intensified, become more controversial, richer, more pleasurable, and sometimes more puzzling. How to Eat Supper gives voice to rarely heard perspectives on food—from the quirky to the political, from the grassroots to the scholarly, from the highbrow to the humble—and shows the essential role breaking bread together plays in our world.How to Eat Supper takes you through a plethora of inviting recipes simple enough to ensure success even if you’ve never cooked before. And if you are experienced in the kitchen, you’ll find challenging new concepts and dishes to spark your imagination.

The Foods and Wines of Spain


Penelope Casas - 1982
    To search out the finest Spanish recipes, Penelope Casas traveled over 25,000 miles, crisscrossing the country. Region by region, she found local cooks and discovered their secrets, often putting to paper recipes that had never before been set down. In The Foods and Wines of Spain, she brings us savory meat and fish pies from the Celtic lands of Galicia; a legendary bean dish from the coastal mountains of Asturias; the renowned romesco sauce of ground almonds and dried sweet peppers from Cataluña; paellas from the rice paddies of Valencia; simple but exquisite fish dishes from Andalucía; breads from the wheat fields of Castilla; honey-drenched pastries from Extremadura; and much more.

Eat: The Little Book of Fast Food


Nigel Slater - 2013
    From the BBC One presenter and author of ‘The Kitchen Diaries’, this beautiful and easy-to-use book contains over 600 recipe ideas and is your essential go-to for what to cook every day.Returning to the territory of Nigel’s bestselling ‘Real Fast Food’, ‘Eat’ is bursting with beautifully simple and quick-to-cook recipes, in a stylish and practical flexible format that’s easy to read and use anywhere.Enjoy sizzling chorizo with potatoes and shallots; a sharp and fresh green soup; a Vietnamese-inspired prawn baguette; a one-pan Sunday lunch.Covering everything from quick meals to share with friends to comfort food, ‘Eat’ is a new, and highly innovative, classic from Nigel Slater.

Tacos: Recipes and Provocations


Alex Stupak - 2015
    Now he'll change the way you make--and think about--tacos forever.    TACOS is a deep dive into the art and craft of one of Mexico's greatest culinary exports. We start by making fresh tortillas from corn and flour, and variations that look to innovative grains and flavor infusions. Next we master salsas, from simple chopped condiments to complex moles that simmer for hours and have flavor for days. Finally we explore fillings, both traditional and modern--from a pineapple-topped pork al pastor to pastrami with mustard seeds.    But TACOS is more than a collection of beautiful things to cook. Wrapped up within it is an argument: Through these recipes, essays, and sumptuous photographs by Evan Sung, the 3-Michelin-star veteran makes the case that Mexican food should be as esteemed as the highest French cooking.From the Hardcover edition.