Most cooking shows are about how to cook a specific recipe with a few tips along the way. Good Eats and the new Good Eats: Reloaded are grand exceptions though consumed a bit about the science of how cooking happens.
Salt Fat Acid Heat is a 4-part series on Netflix from Samin Nosrat, author of the book that inspired the series. The series helps you to understand cooking breaking things down to the 4 core elements.
The series takes us around the world as each episode is devoted to a region suited to the element:
| Salt | Japan |
| Fat | Liguria, Italy |
| Acid | Yucatan, Mexico |
| Heat | Berkeley, CA |
Salt
Nosrat tells us salt is prevalent in every world cuisine. We seek salt not just in crystals but in foods that contain salt, such as olives, cheese, pickles, and capers. Salt also provides umami to dishes. She shows us how in Japan, they make salt from seaweed.
Nosrat teaches us there are 3 basic decisions where salt is concerned:
- when to salt (Salt meat in advance and do on all sides. Season meat on the bone the minute she gets back from the butcher.)
- layering salt (Use less salt on the meat if you are going to marinade with salty ingredients. You can get other flavor benefits from salty ingredients.)
- how much salt (The less time food spends in the water, the saltier the water has to be.)
The third decision gets us back to a battle we have had over time about the absolute need to salt the pasta water.
What's Tempting: Salting the pasta water
What's Tempting: Salting the pasta water Part II
Taking seasoning advice with a grain of salt
Many cooking shows told of the need to have a lot of salt in the pasta water, but no one explained the concept as well as Nosrat did. In our earlier experiments, perhaps we didn't use enough salt to be able to tell. If you do something because a TV chef tells you to do something, you aren't really learning but doing. With Nosrat, you are learning why to do something.
Fat
Nosrat shares with us that fat provides flavor and texture as well as amplifying other flavors. The key is how to harness its magic.
She points out fat has 5 distinct textures: creamy, flaky, crispy, tender, and light. Fat transforms simple ingredients into a great meal.
We see the collecting of olives that are turned into olive oil. We see the foccacia become buttery and crumbly thanks to the olive oil.
The parts of the pig are on display and how the fat from the pig produces wonderful pork products with that glorious fat. We learn about the milk from the red cows that is sweeter and fatter ultimately turned into Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
We see in a simple ragu dish of the number of fat options, including soffrito (olive oil), beef, pork, and beef fat. Nosrat let us know that fat can transform simple ingredients into a great meal.
Acid
Nosrat teaches us that acid brightens food and balances flavors in dishes. The episodes focuses quite a bit of sour oranges and sweet lemons.
Fermentation also adds acid to dishes such as pickles, vinegar, and red wine. Browning also produces acidity. Marinating a food in acid is more effective in a short-term burst and produces distinct results as opposed to cooking in acid.
Nosrat points out that atypical foods such as coffee, chocolate, bananas, and honey qualify as acidic. She tells the story of her first Thanksgiving dinner in the United States and working cranberry sauce into other dishes to get that acid effect.
Heat
Heat takes us to where Nosrat got started at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA where she was taught to pay attention to the food not the fire. There were no settings on the ovens so you had to learn to use other senses.
We see steaks cooked at Chez Panisse over a fire with the steak cooked more than halfway on first side and browning all over not just doing it for grill marks.
This also happens when Nosrat cooks buttermilk marinated roasted chicken. Since the heat is in the back of oven, put the legs toward the back. When the legs are relaxed, the chicken is done.
Nosrat makes a rice dish with her mother: Persian-ish rice with tahdig. The dish involves steaming and frying, producing the rice at the bottom that is crunchy in a very good way.
BalanceofFood.com television coverage
Even if you are watching an episode of one element, the other elements make cameos in the other segments. Fat will be in the Salt segment while salt plays a part in the Heat segment. We learn in the Heat segment that the same saltiness comes from 1 tsp. of Morton kosher salt and 2 tsp. of Diamond Crystal kosher salt.
The cuisines are defined by the fat and salt that they use.
Nosrat shares her own personal story having grown up in Iran and working at Chez Panisse. Her ability to speak Spanish and Italian (she used to live in Italy) help her help us gather more information. She is very personable, curious about food no matter how spicy or unusual. There is a lot of laughter and all of that laughter feels natural and warm.
She talks about how you don't need fancy ingredients to cook good food. The salad she makes in the Heat episode is white beans with a bunch of roasted vegetables, a few herbs, and a simple dressing. Most American kitchens aren't serving that kind of a meal. Salt Fat Acid Heat is trying to change that dynamic.
video credit: YouTube/Netflix
photo credit: Salt Fat Acid Heat
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