Fundamentals of Flavor: 100 Recipes for the Science of Better Cooking

For a limited time we have copies signed by Nik Sharma.

A significant addition to the genre of practical food science cookbooks, Fundamentals of Flavor is the sort of book we can imagine certain people cooking their way through, recipe by recipe, eager to demonstrate for themselves the way Nik Sharma illuminates ingredients and cooking techniques.

Trained as a microbiologist, Sharma uses the framework of the four classical elements to explore the importance of fire, earth, air, and water in the preparation of food. His explanations incorporate gravity, the electromagnetic spectrum, soil composition, the height of oven racks, and a sous vide method for preparing Icelandic rye bread.

Sharma's elucidations are easily comprehensible and to the point, with the risk that you may find yourself diverted by the many properties of baking soda or his method for identifying the hot spots in your oven.

The recipes are written for people who seek innovative and complex flavors, though they often contain techniques you may borrow to apply to food you already cook.  You can learn from the likes of:

• cabbage wedges and chicken thighs with tamarind barbecue sauce
• savory tomato sorbet
• salt-baked new potatoes with gochujang vinaigrette
• cauliflower gratin with sage and nigella seeds
• steak frites with smoky anchovy butter
• salmon with buttermilk-dressed apple pecan salad

On a more everyday level, there are deviled eggs, potato tots, and carrot cake, but even these will teach you new approaches to amplifying and enriching flavor.

Eye-opening and fascinating.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.