How Samin Nosrat’s “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” Forever Changed My Culinary Life

I was never much of a cook until I started helping a family friend who had Lyme disease with food prep for her family. That gig really taught me that I have a serious love for cooking, and from there I went on to work as a personal chef for several other families over the course of the next few years. I kind of taught myself as I went along and made plenty of mistakes along the way. And because I’d never gone to culinary school, I devoured any information about the mechanics and science of cooking I could get my hands on — including Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. And let me tell you, Samin’s lessons are a game changer. Here’s some of what Samin taught me that seriously upped my cooking game.

The Four Elements to Cooking

Salt, fat, acid, heat. I salivate even just typing those words. Can good cuisine really be boiled down into four elements? Not to get all new-agey on you, but I see a cool synchronicity here. After all, we have four essential elements of the universe: water, earth, air, and fire. So why shouldn’t there also be four elements to the very stuff that allows us to live?

Okay, maybe I’m boiling it down a bit too much here, but I really appreciated Samin framing food in terms of four core elements. I hate following recipes, so salt, fat, acid, heat has become sort of a mantra when I’m cooking on the fly — it’s an easy way of making sure my dish is as delicious as possible.

.    .    .    .

Salt

I remember as a kid being so shocked when I learned that my mom put salt in cookies. Salt? But cookies are supposed to be sweet! She explained to me that the salt helps bring out the sweet flavors in the cookies, and I didn’t believe her until we did a little experiment: we made one batch of cookies with salt, and one without. And even my little five-year-old taste buds could tell that the cookies with salt were far better. 

In Salt, Samin Nosrat takes us on a journey to Japan, and I never knew I could be so fascinated by salt! Japan has thousands of kinds of salt, whereas my home cupboard never seems to get more exotic than coarse-grained sea salt. We learn how salt is made and the secrets behind miso, we see one of the last people alive who still makes soy sauce the traditional way, and we learn why salt is truly the key ingredient to good cuisine. And it looks like Japan does it best. 2021 vacation, maybe…?

.    .    .    .

Fat

This was my personal favorite episode, quite possibly because it’s set in my favorite country (Italy) and showcases my favorite food group (carbs). I wanted to be Samin in this episode. Can I make pesto with an intimidating Italian mother and bake focaccia while exercising my limited grasp on the language? Please?

I can sum up this episode (and its subject) in just one word: yummy. You’ll learn all about olive oil: how it’s made, how it’s stored, and how to use it. And you’ll learn about the functions fat has in good cuisine. Good fat is good for you, and the fat in Fat is the best fat (how many times can I use the word fat in a sentence? Was that too many?). You’ll salivate and you’ll want to book the next flight to Northern Italy. And you won’t be able to because #COVID. So instead you’ll settle for a little taste of abroad shipped directly to your door. And you can thank Samin Nosrat for that.

Oh, I forgot to mention the cheese. And the pork fat and beef fat. Brb, gonna go whip up some spaghetti.

.    .    .    .

Acid

Think: citrus. Oranges? Limes? Lemons? These might not be the first things that come to mind when you think of crucial elements of good cuisine, and I get that. But the reason they shine can be summed up in one word: balance.

Have you ever turned to the internet after over-salting your food and been told to use acid to help balance it out? Well, acid isn’t only good for fixing your kitchen nightmares — it’s really the secret ingredient to making amazing dishes even better. And if that’s not amazing enough, here’s what really stunned me about this episode (set in the absolutely gorgeous Yucatan region, btw): acidic foods actually stretch far beyond what I’d originally thought. Honey? Acidic. Chocolate? Acidic. Tomatoes? Acidic. Adding acid to a meal doesn’t just mean topping off your homemade fish tacos with a hint of lime juice; it’s about taking into account the overall pH balance of the cuisine and using acidic foods to manipulate that scale. I don’t know about you, but I’m obsessed. Time to find some more of those litmus papers I used in high school chemistry…

.    .    .    .

Heat