by Samin Nosrat
I lived to regret this shortcut. When I went to rotate the trays, the packed zucchini was floating in a lake of its own juices, while the spread-out zucchini was browning nicely. Between the weeping brought on by osmosis and the lack of room for steam to escape, the first tray of squash emerged from the oven a sopping, soggy mess. I’d unwittingly made steamed zucchini soup. The only positive result from that experiment was that I’ve never again overstuffed a tray of roasting vegetables.
For even browning, don’t pack too many vegetables on a tray. Leave space between the pieces for steam to escape and allow temperatures to rise high enough for browning to begin. Tend to your vegetables as they roast—stir them, turn them, rotate trays, and change the oven racks.
Resist the urge to combine vegetables with vastly different sugar, starch, or water contents on a single tray when roasting. They will not cook evenly—some will steam, some will burn, and none will be satisfying to eat. Refer to Plants, Above and Below for a refresher on which vegetables will cook similarly. If you only have one baking sheet to your name, get thee to a thrift store! And in the meantime, roast your potatoes on one side of the pan, the broccoli on the other, and remove each as it’s finished cooking.
Meats
Well-marbled, tender cuts of meat such as prime rib and pork loin are ideal for roasting, because they’re juicy enough to stand up to the dry heat of the oven. As I explained earlier, as meat cooks, rendering fat bastes it from within. With the built-in safeguard of copious fat, then, tougher cuts of meat such as pork shoulder or chuck are also apt for roasting.
Take preemptive measures if you plan to roast very lean meats such as turkey breasts by brining or barding, or wrapping them with a layer of fat to ensure moistness.
For even cooking, remember to season roasts in advance to give salt the time it needs to penetrate the meat and impede proteins from relinquishing all their entrapped water as they cook. Bring meats for roasting to room temperature (this can take several hours for very large cuts). Start roasts in a hot oven (about 400 to 425°F) and then gradually decrease the temperature in 25°F increments after browning commences, until done.
And any time you think of cooking bacon or browning meat in an oven hotter than 400°F in order to save a few minutes, remember this cautionary tale. A few years ago, I was running behind on the prep for a dinner party I was catering out of my tiny apartment kitchen. I cranked the oven up to the broil setting and threw in a pan of short ribs to brown. Though I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, I’d noticed earlier that the ribs were extraordinarily fatty. A few minutes later, smoke started billowing out of the stove at an alarming rate. It was so dramatic, it looked staged! I realized all that fat was rendering from the short ribs and immediately turning to smoke. Before I had a chance to do anything, some of the rendering fat splattered onto the broiler and caught fire. I whipped open my cupboards and grabbed the first thing I saw that could extinguish the flames: a five-pound bag of flour. Let’s just say I didn’t serve the short ribs that night. (Another kitchen shortcut that backfired. Sometimes the long way is the best—and only—way.)
Learn from my mistake. Once fat begins to render, cook meat at temperatures below 375°F—the smoke point of most animal fats—to prevent repeatedly setting off the smoke alarm, or worse.
Invest in an instant-read meat thermometer for roasting meats (and use it for smoking meats, too). Check large roasts in multiple spots, because one part can appear done while another is undercooked. An internal temperature variance of just a few degrees can mean the difference between juicy and dry. My rule of thumb for cooking a large roast is once its internal temperature hits 100°F, it’ll start climbing at a rate of about a degree a minute, if not faster. So if you’re aiming for medium-rare, around 118 to 120°F, then know that you’ve got about 15 minutes before it’s time to pull. Large roasts carry over about 15°F, while steaks and chops will carry over about 5°F, so account for this any time you pull meat off the heat.
If you prefer the kind of crust searing produces, start your roast on the stove. This can also be a handy way to speed up a weeknight roast—I do it all the time with my Crispiest Spatchcocked Chicken: I brown it breast side down in a cast iron pan, then flip and slide it into the oven to halve the time it takes to roast a chicken. This technique also works beautifully for pork, lamb, and beef loins and sirloins and, if you’re feeling decadent, filet mignon.
Layering Heat
Just as with Salt, Fat, or Acid, sometimes you’ll need to use more than one type of heat to get the results you need. This is what I call layering heat.
Toasted bread is a great example. As with any starch, wheat needs water and heat to cook through. In bread, that’s done in the form of combining milled wheat with water to make a dough, and then baking that dough in the oven until it’s cooked through. When we toast bread, we cook it a second time.
Learn to break down the cooking process into chunks so that you can finish cooking delicate things at the time of serving, preventing the inevitable overcooking associated with reheating. This is exactly the kind of thinking restaurant cooks employ to cut down on the time it takes to prepare a dish to order without compromising quality. Foods that require long exposure to gentle heat—tough meats, dense vegetables, and hearty grains—are entirely or partially cooked in advance and reheated to order. Delicate foods that will cook quickly or suffer from reheating—fried foods, tender meats, fish and shellfish, and baby vegetables—are cooked to order.
Braise pork shoulder overnight, but grill it up for tacos for a party the next day. To achieve depth of flavor, gently roast or blanch any number of tough vegetables—broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, or winter squash—before sautéing them. Simmer chicken thighs until they’re falling off the bone, then shred the meat to use in a pot pie.
Learn to combine two different cooking methods to get the flavor and texture contrasts that so please our palates—such as crisp, brown crusts and soft, tender insides.
Measuring Heat: Sensory Cues
As American poet Mary Oliver wrote, “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” She must be a great cook. Indeed, the best cooks I’ve ever met—whether in home or professional kitchens—are careful observers.
With Salt, Fat, and Acid, your tongue can guide you as you cook. Other senses take on greater importance when considering Heat, since generally you can’t taste its effects until its work is done. Use these sensory cues to help you determine when various foods are cooked, or nearly there.
See
• Cakes and quick breads develop a golden-brown color and pull away from the sides of a pan. A toothpick inserted into the center will come out with just a couple of crumbs, or totally clean when inserted, depending on the type of cake.
• Fish will change from translucent to opaque. Fish on the bone starts to peel away from the bone. The flesh of flaky fish, such as salmon and trout, begins to break apart into flakes.
• Shellfish, such as clams and mussels, open up as they are cooked. Lobster and crab meat won’t cling to the shells. Scallops should remain translucent inside. Shrimp change color and begin to curl.
• When quinoa is cooked through, its germ, which looks like a little tail, will stick out. Fully cooked whole grains, including barley and wheat berries, will just begin to split. Fresh pasta droops when it’s cooked, and lightens in color. Dried pasta also lightens in color, though when broken open or bitten into it should still be white in the center, indicating it’s al dente.
• Gauge deep-fried foods not only by their surface color but also by the rate of bubbles they’re giving off. As deep-fried foods cook further, they emit fewer bubbles because there is less moisture left to escape from the food.
• When properly cooked, chicken meat turns from pink to opaque but is still juicy. You can always nick and peek at poultry, meat, or fish. Cut into the thickest part of the piece and see if it’s cooked. Roast chicken is done when pricked at the thigh and the juice runs clear.
Smell
• The aromas of cooking are among the most rewarding sensory treats, second only, perhaps, to its flavors. Familiarize yourself with the smells of cooking onions at different degrees of browning. Do the same for caramelizing sugars. This will help when you’re in the other room, with roasting vegetables in the oven—often the nose is the first to know.
• Spices toasting in a hot pan will often emit an aroma long before they change in color, which is a good sign to take them off and let residual heat continue to do its work.
• Always heed the smell of burning and find its source.
Hear
• Food should almost always sizzle when it’s added to a pan, signaling that the pan and the fat are both preheated.
• But there are different qualities of sizzle . . . once sizzling slows and becomes more pronounced and aggressive, it’s a sputter. Sputtering is a sign that there’s a lot of hot fat present, and can often mean that it’s time to tip some fat out of the pan, flip the chicken breast to the other side, or pull the browning short ribs out of the oven.
• Listen for a boil. Especially when you need to be prepared to turn it down to a simmer. You’ll find that you can hear whether foil-wrapped pans have come to a boil in the oven if you listen carefully enough. It’ll save you from having to peel back the foil to check.
Feel
• Tender meats firm up as they cook.
• Tough meats also firm up as they cook, but they won’t be done until they relax again, and fall apart at the touch or are tender at the bone.
• Cakes spring back at the touch.
• Starches sticking together at the bottom of the pot, difficult to stir, or creating an impenetrable crust at the bottom of the pot are teetering on the edge of burning. Either scratch them off, or switch pots to avoid scorching.
• Beans, grains, and starches of all kinds are tender throughout when cooked.
• Pasta is chewy, with the tiniest bit of resistance in the center.
• Vegetables are done when they are tender at their thickest points.
Improvising with Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat
Now for the fun part: using Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat to compose great dishes and menus. Answer the basic questions for each element to give yourself the clearest idea of how to proceed. How much Salt, Fat, and Acid, and when, and in what forms? Will the ingredients benefit most from gentle or intense Heat? Line up the answers to these questions and a theme will emerge, upon which you can begin to improvise.
For example, next Thanksgiving, use what you’ve learned about Salt, Fat, and Heat, to cook the juiciest, tastiest roast turkey you’ve ever had. Salt or brine it well in advance for tender, flavorful meat. Sneak slices of herbed butter underneath the skin to baste the lean breast as it cooks. Pat its skin dry before you stick it in the oven, so it can brown, instead of steam. Bring it to room temperature before cooking and remove its backbone (this is called spatchcocking) so that it can lie flat, absorbing the intense heat of the oven evenly and quickly. And, of course, let the bird rest for at least 25 minutes before you carve it to allow its proteins to relax. Then, savor every single bite with some sweet, bright cranberry sauce.
Or, when your family asks you to make short ribs for dinner tonight, disappoint them at first by saying no. Instead, feed them Slow-Roasted Salmon, or Finger-Lickin’ Pan-Fried Chicken tonight, knowing you can season and cook either properly on short notice. Promise to reward them for their patience. When you’re ready to make them, season the short ribs generously with salt and let them sit overnight. The next day, get the braise together, softening the aromatic vegetables while the meat browns. Take care to work wine and tomatoes into the base. Slip the pan into the oven and let it simmer, growing ever richer, more tender, and more flavorful. Ponder which herb salsa you’ll make to play the foil, and when you bring it all to the table, watch as their eyes grow large with disbelief. They will swoon with each bite. They’ll ask how you managed such a feat. And you’ll say, “It’s simple—Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat.”
WHAT TO COOK
Now that you know how to cook, all that remains is to decide what to cook. Menu writing is one of my favorite parts of the cooking process, and I think of it as a simple puzzle: first, figure out one part, and then fit everything else in around that.
Anchoring
Choose one element of a dish and make it the foundation upon which you build a meal. This is what I call anchoring, and it’s the best way to create a menu unified in flavor and concept.
Sometimes the anchor will be a particular ingredient, such as the chicken you salted two days ago. It may be a cooking method; perhaps it’s the first day of summer and you’re eager to light the grill. Maybe there’s a specific recipe you’re eager to try. Sometimes the mere thought of leaving the house to buy groceries is overwhelming and the anchor becomes the scraps you’ve got in the fridge, freezer, and pantry.
At times, the anchor will be a limitation—of time, space, resources, or stove or oven capacity. At Thanksgiving, when oven space is at a premium, make the oven your anchor. Decide which of your menu items must be cooked in the oven, and choose to make other dishes that can be cooked on the stove or grill, or served at room temperature. On a weeknight, your anchor may be the lack of time you have to spend on dinner, so let that guide you in the choice of meat to build a dish around. On a leisurely Sunday, the opposite may be true, and you can build not only your menu but your entire day around slow cooking.
When you’re craving Mexican, Indian, Korean, or Thai food, let the flavors of those places be your anchor. Think about the ingredients that define the cuisine that inspires you, and start to build a meal around that. Consult cookbooks, memories of your own childhood or travel, or call your grandmother or auntie for counsel. Decide whether you want to go the traditional route and follow your grandmother’s advice, or whether you’d prefer to refer to The World of Flavor and simply infuse the spirit of the place into a dish you already know how to cook.
If you’re overenthusiastic at the farmers’ market, as I often am, and come home with more food than you could possibly use, let the produce be your anchor. Sit down with a cup of coffee at the kitchen table and pull your favorite cookbooks down from the shelf—or flip to the recipe section in this book—in search of inspiration.
One of the first jobs I had at Chez Panisse was called garde-manger—French for “eating guard.” I started every morning at six o’clock, and my first task was to walk through each of the four walk-in refrigerators and inventory every single item of food. I quickly learned to wear a sweatshirt beneath my chef’s coat, because the walk-ins are quite literally bone-chilling. I also learned how this task affected the chefs’ menu writing each morning. Only when they had a complete picture of what was on hand, and what was being delivered that day by the farmers, ranchers, and fishermen who supplied us, could they set about creating the best possible menu. If I didn’t do my job well, they couldn’t do theirs.
I came to love that quiet time in the walk-ins each morning, before the kitchen sprang to life with the busyness of the other cooks and the din of the dishwasher filled the restaurant with noise. Soon I realized that taking note of everything on hand was just the first step in deciding what to cook, whether at the restaurant or at home. I also learned that implicit in this style of cooking is an emphasis on the quality of the ingredients. If something doesn’t taste good to begin with, no amount of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat trickery will change that. Try to buy the best tasting ingredients available, when you can.
As a rule, the fresher the produce, meat, dairy, or fish, the better it will taste. In general, foods grown locally and in season are the freshest, and so they taste the best. By shopping before deciding on a specific menu, you’ll ensure that your meal starts with the most flavorful ingredients instead of crossing your fingers and hoping to find a way to work
in the perfectly ripe figs or tender baby lettuces you unexpectedly find at the farmers’ market.
And when you can’t get to a farmers’ market, scour the produce aisles of the grocery store in search of the freshest-looking stuff. In the store, as in the kitchen, let all your senses guide you. If the greens look wilted, or the tomatoes don’t smell like much, head to the freezer section and choose from the produce hidden over there. Frozen fruits and vegetables are easy to forget about, but they tend to be harvested and flash-frozen at the peak of freshness. In the depths of winter—or at other times when nothing much else looks very good—frozen peas and corn can offer a welcome dose of spring and summer flavor.
BALANCE, LAYERING, AND RESTRAINT
Once you’ve chosen your anchor, begin to balance the meal. Precede long-cooked, rich dishes with light, fresh-tasting ones. If you plan to serve a bready appetizer—perhaps Winter Panzanella, or Tomato and Ricotta Toasts—then avoid heavy starches throughout the rest of the meal—no pasta, no cake, no bread pudding. If a custardy Chocolate Pudding Pie will conclude the meal, don’t serve rich Pasta Alfredo, or steak doused in creamy béarnaise sauce before it.
Incorporate contrasting textures and flavors, as well as ingredients, and avoid repetition—unless you’re purposely celebrating the height of a season, with tomato soup, salad, and granita, for example. Garnish soft comfort foods with crunchy crumbs, toasted nuts, or crisp bits of bacon to make things interesting. Serve rich meats with bright, acidic sauces and clean-tasting blanched or raw vegetables. Serve mouth-drying starches with mouthwatering sauces, and recognize that a well-dressed, juicy salad can serve as both a side dish and a sauce. On the other hand, pair simply cooked meats, such as grilled steak or poached chicken, with roasted, sautéed, or fried vegetables glazed with Maillard’s dark lacquer.