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zehazoltan's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
3.0
unfortunately written from a way too much american perspective
mitskacir's review against another edition
5.0
This is a super approachable book for someone (like me) who loves cooking but is intimidated by the idea of cooking without a recipe. I loved how nerdy Nosrat is about cooking and all the science explanations she provides. I have not attempted to cook anything yet using her guidance so I cannot comment on that part, and the recipes are not optimal for a vegan household. However, I was still inspired and will try to implement what I can.
daumari's review against another edition
5.0
Really, really liked this to the point of buying my own copy after the library one was due, though I have yet to put it in practice yet (as typical with my reading of cookbooks... though she does point out that recipes can sometimes restrict you too much) However, I do think about the elements when eating, so there's that? Samin Nosrat really gets into the *why* of how different cooking methods and elements influence flavor, taste, texture, etc. and offers ways to balance and adjust as you go along. Easy to follow along, and Wendy MacNaughton's watercolor illustrations really brighten up the book as you go. Will absolutely refer to this in the future
I have yet to watch the companion Netflix series (I believe the book came first) so I'm curious about how it's presented in video format.
I have yet to watch the companion Netflix series (I believe the book came first) so I'm curious about how it's presented in video format.
carolynsbookshelf's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
slow-paced
5.0
ilsimisi's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.0
This book is a really great book to learn more about cooking! It's one of those books you keep on your side for the rest of your life. You reread it, try out all kinds of techniques. I'm a newbie to cooking, and I'm also European. This made it a bit difficult to understand some stuff, which is why I'm giving it four instead of 5 stars. Give it a go!
bookph1le's review against another edition
5.0
I want to preface this review by saying that anyone can cook. I know because I'm living proof. Until I was in my 30s, I never did much cooking, and what cooking I did was often disastrous. I'm no stranger to burned, jerky-like chicken breasts or all varieties of blackened foods that should never be blackened. Because my kitchen endeavors often became such disasters, I relied on processed foods for years, telling myself I was destined to be a failure in the kitchen.
But as I had a family and started to become concerned with what's in processed foods (hint: lots of nasty things that aren't only bad for you, they're just plain gross), I wanted to start taking up cooking so I could control what went into what my family and I were eating. I began by sticking entirely to recipes. It took a lot of trial and error for me to figure out what worked and what didn't, and how to fix things when they didn't work (the day I figured out that if my chicken was nice and brown on the outside but raw in the inside, I just had to stick it in the oven to finish cooking was one of the most exciting days of my life).
I grew to love cooking. I love being able to control every last ingredient that goes into our food. I love chopping vegetables, which I find relaxing and almost meditative. My pantry grew to house what I would once have considered an insane number of spices, and I started growing fresh herbs in my backyard garden. As my skills increased, cooking became a lot quicker, to the extent that I can put together a home cooked meal from start to finish in as little as thirty minutes. I continue to experiment, rarely cooking the same things twice, and as I figured out how to put together my own stir fry sauces and make my own Mexican-inspired dishes, we started to eat out less and less. Simply put, food cooked at home tastes better and is cheaper and healthier than what can be bought at a restaurant or what comes out of a box.
By now, with some years of experience under my belt, I'm able to improvise my own meals without needing recipes to guide me, and I can also riff on recipes, changing and adjusting them to better suit my family's tastes and what I have on hand. However, I still wanted to improve on and refine my understanding so that I could more or less free myself from recipes and feel confident I'd be able to achieve good results using a variety of flavors. Enter this book.
I have a lot of cookbooks and copious amounts of recipes I've pulled from the internet and cooking magazines over the years. While cookbooks are great, none of them could really give me what I was looking for, which was essentially a course in how to combine elements to create whatever flavors I wanted. As soon as I started reading this book, I knew it was going to become my cooking bible.
Nosrat's writing is very approachable. She's funny, she doesn't use big, complex words you can't understand unless you've been to culinary school, and she's encouraging. I was fascinated by every page of this book, and at multiple points thought, "Oh! *That's* the secret!" I started implementing some of her simple techniques right away, like presalting meat and adding a TON more salt to my cooking pot before making rice. It was kind of scary, but I was floored by how much of a difference taking these simple steps made. She got me excited about cooking all over again, especially because she provides lots of handy sources of reference, such as wheels of fats and acids, enabling the home cook to mix and match and create flavors reminiscent of whatever ethnic cuisine they're in the mood for.
Because I wanted to test this book out, I borrowed a copy from my library and read the whole thing, and it didn't take me long to know that I was going to purchase my own copy. I would recommend this for anyone, whether you're just starting out or looking to take your cooking to a whole new level. It's going to be an invaluable part of my home cooking library, and I'm looking forward to being able to ditch the recipes and cook according to my own whims and the seasonality of produce in my area.
But as I had a family and started to become concerned with what's in processed foods (hint: lots of nasty things that aren't only bad for you, they're just plain gross), I wanted to start taking up cooking so I could control what went into what my family and I were eating. I began by sticking entirely to recipes. It took a lot of trial and error for me to figure out what worked and what didn't, and how to fix things when they didn't work (the day I figured out that if my chicken was nice and brown on the outside but raw in the inside, I just had to stick it in the oven to finish cooking was one of the most exciting days of my life).
I grew to love cooking. I love being able to control every last ingredient that goes into our food. I love chopping vegetables, which I find relaxing and almost meditative. My pantry grew to house what I would once have considered an insane number of spices, and I started growing fresh herbs in my backyard garden. As my skills increased, cooking became a lot quicker, to the extent that I can put together a home cooked meal from start to finish in as little as thirty minutes. I continue to experiment, rarely cooking the same things twice, and as I figured out how to put together my own stir fry sauces and make my own Mexican-inspired dishes, we started to eat out less and less. Simply put, food cooked at home tastes better and is cheaper and healthier than what can be bought at a restaurant or what comes out of a box.
By now, with some years of experience under my belt, I'm able to improvise my own meals without needing recipes to guide me, and I can also riff on recipes, changing and adjusting them to better suit my family's tastes and what I have on hand. However, I still wanted to improve on and refine my understanding so that I could more or less free myself from recipes and feel confident I'd be able to achieve good results using a variety of flavors. Enter this book.
I have a lot of cookbooks and copious amounts of recipes I've pulled from the internet and cooking magazines over the years. While cookbooks are great, none of them could really give me what I was looking for, which was essentially a course in how to combine elements to create whatever flavors I wanted. As soon as I started reading this book, I knew it was going to become my cooking bible.
Nosrat's writing is very approachable. She's funny, she doesn't use big, complex words you can't understand unless you've been to culinary school, and she's encouraging. I was fascinated by every page of this book, and at multiple points thought, "Oh! *That's* the secret!" I started implementing some of her simple techniques right away, like presalting meat and adding a TON more salt to my cooking pot before making rice. It was kind of scary, but I was floored by how much of a difference taking these simple steps made. She got me excited about cooking all over again, especially because she provides lots of handy sources of reference, such as wheels of fats and acids, enabling the home cook to mix and match and create flavors reminiscent of whatever ethnic cuisine they're in the mood for.
Because I wanted to test this book out, I borrowed a copy from my library and read the whole thing, and it didn't take me long to know that I was going to purchase my own copy. I would recommend this for anyone, whether you're just starting out or looking to take your cooking to a whole new level. It's going to be an invaluable part of my home cooking library, and I'm looking forward to being able to ditch the recipes and cook according to my own whims and the seasonality of produce in my area.