Samin Nosrat

Cooking is part artistry, part chemistry.

My general ratios for measuring salt are simple: 1 percent salt by weight for meats, vegetables, and grains, and 2 percent salinity for water for blanching vegetables and pasta.

food can only ever be as delicious as the fat with which it’s cooked.

A few secret drops of lemon juice will produce creamier, more tender scrambled eggs.

understanding that as a foundational ingredient, the flavor of olive oil, and indeed any fat we choose to cook with, dramatically alters our perception of the entire dish

Just as an onion cooked in butter tastes different from an onion cooked in olive oil, an onion cooked in good olive oil tastes different—and in this case better—than one cooked in a poorer quality oil

food can only ever be as delicious as the fat with which it’s cooked

we used peppery Tuscan extra-virgin olive oil more liberally than any other ingredient. We used it to make salad dressings. We used it to drench the dough for the focaccia we baked each morning. We used it to brown soffritto, the aromatic base of onions, carrots, and celery at the foundation of all of our long-cooked foods. We used it to deep-fry everything from squid to squash blossoms to bomboloni, the cream-filled doughnuts I ate with gusto every Saturday morning

As I traveled throughout Italy, I saw how fat determines the particular flavors of regional cooking. In the North, where pastures and the dairy cattle they sustain are abundant, cooks use butter, cream, and rich cheeses readily in dishes such as polenta, tagliatelle Bolognese, and risotto. In the South and on the coasts, where olive trees flourish, olive oil is used in everything from seafood dishes to pastas and even desserts such as olive oil gelato.

WHAT IS FAT?
The best way to appreciate the value of fat in the kitchen is to try to imagine cooking without it. What would vinaigrette be without olive oil, sausage without pork fat, a baked potato without sour cream, a croissant without butter?