HN Books @HNBooksMonth

If you like this channel, Kenji has a book, The Food Lab[0] that is the only place I go for recipes now. I have a hard time eating steaks prepared at restaurants since learning how to properly cook a steak from Kenji. His writing style is also pretty hilarious, and the book is fun to read as it feels like a conversation rather than a fry recipe book.

He also has a new book called The Wok [1] but I haven’t read any of the recipes. I imagine they’ll be delicious though, and also explain the theory of HOW to cook good food rather than just tell you exactly what to do.

[0] The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_D4... [1] The Wok: Recipes and Techniques https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393541215/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_XQ...

⬐ karlshea

I’ve been cooking out of The Wok and it’s also fantastic. The technique sections have been super helpful!

Kenji Lopez (MIT grad chef who is reasonably famous on YouTube and for writing for Serious Eats for years and for writing this amazing cookbook https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0...) gives the exact opposite advice of this blog for salt where he recommends using large flake salt for finishing and "table salt" for cooking.

⬐ ranger_gord

I'm late here, but I just wanted to post that this is either outdated or incorrect info. Here is a post from 2013 where he says he uses diamond crystal kosher for cooking https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/ask-the-food-lab-do-i-ne... and you can see in all his recent youtube videos he uses the larger kosher salt.

⬐ schwartzworld

I can't imagine it matters much in any situation where the salt is going to dissolve, so the cheapest option (table salt) makes sense.

Kosher salt is a fine compromise for most situations.

⬐ varispeed

I would imagine that table salt is more likely to be contaminated e.g. with plastic than large flake one as the contaminants can much more easily "hide" between small grains.

⬐ s_dev

Both table salt and kosher salt are perfectly fine for seasoning or decorating -- michelin starred restaurants use both for each purpose. The only important thing to note is that they have different saltiness grades. Table salt is finer and thus saltier. Real problems emerge when not distinguishing between the two -- either a dish is far too salty or completely under seasoned.

Just specify what you're using and how much and the person using the other one can adjust. 3 parts kosher is about 1 part table salt.

It gets way more confusing if you go to Japan -- instead of 3 or 4 salts. There are 00s. The Japanese are big in to salts.

⬐ mbg721

Also note that in the US, there are a couple major brands of Kosher salt; Morton is noticeably coarser than Diamond Crystal.

Kenji is wonderful. The Food Lab (https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0...) is still the first cookbook I turn to when investigating a recipe I haven't made before. His blog on Serious Eats has been amazing through the years - his advice on sous vide in particular is as good as anyone I've found, but all of his advice is solid.

If you're ever in the Bay Area, his Wursthall restaraunt is well worth a visit. I don't live there but I make it a point to visit at least once a year when travelling.

⬐ jwoodruff31

I just received a copy of The Food Lab. Any recommendations on some recipes to try first.

I've been loving the introduction and Kenji's very scientific approach to cooking. I've always been interested in messing around in the kitchen and hate when chefs in instructional pieces refer to "love" as that extra ingredient. In line with that, Kenji shuts down the notion of New York bagels being better because of the water.

⬐ davezatch

Love this book too! Not crazy complex but his pancake recipe crushes any other I’ve tried :)

⬐ latortuga

I have this book too and I like just sitting down to read it because it's filled with cooking info. His section on beef stew emboldened me to try mixing umami ingredients in other dishes to great effect. He also has an interesting take on how to slice onions for the type of dish you're making.

These two books have nothing but good recipes. The Food Lab also explains why to cook something a certain way. My food is so much better after buying these two books.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Americas-Test-Kitchen-Cookbo...

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0...

Kenji's (cook)book, The Food Lab, is also great, though it doesn't include everything he has on the blog.

It's also inexpensive enough to make a great random gift for foodie friends, despite being a hefty hardcover:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393081087

If you like his stuff, you might also enjoy the Cooking Issues podcast, particularly the earlier episodes.

It's a bantercast mixed with food science, cooking call-ins, and random interviews with culinary cognoscenti. The host is the energetic and interesting Dave Arnold, who recently won a James Beard award for his book on cocktails, and who used to teach food technology at the French Culinary Institute in NYC (now the ICC). It's my favorite podcast of the year.

http://heritageradionetwork.org/series/cooking-issues/

⬐ pimeys

This is unbelievable. The last months I've been enjoying his crazy good lasagne and ragu recipes. Like the best I've ever had, made by me. Yesterday I bought this book and now it's in hn...

If you love food and try to be a better cook, here's some good material. Too bad some ingredients, like chilies are a bit tough to find in Germany...

⬐ jsankey

Chilies are pretty simple to grow yourself, even just by using the seeds from a dried one. A happy plant produces lots of chilies and the freeze fine for most uses. They don't like the cold, though, so depending which part of Germany you're in you might need to keep it indoors (but still with access to a few hours of sun a day).

⬐ pimeys

Planning to do that chili con carne next Sunday, so no time to grow the plants... Also electricity is super expensive in Berlin, so any artificial growing lights will break my monthly budget.

⬐ russell_h

I did a huge batch of Kenji's chili con carne yesterday, probably my fourth time. You won't regret it.

Edit: this place looks promising in Berlin: https://potandpepper.de

⬐ tomkinstinch

I'd love to visit (or work in) Berlin. Can you find whole dried chili peppers, or canned? They're obviously not as good as fresh, but they'll still be delicious.

Dried chiles are very lightweight, so probably not very expensive to have shipped to you in bulk. They're easy to rehydrate (and you can use hot stock instead of water for extra flavor):

http://www.chilipeppermadness.com/cooking-with-chili-peppers...

⬐ pimeys

Germans don't like spicy food in general. There are a handful of restaurants serving something that actually burns in your mouth, but you have to beg them to actually cook it for you. For chiles in supermarket, you get the basic jalapenos and if you're really lucky, habaneros with a premium price.

⬐ donarb

According to Google, there's a place called Pfefferhaus in Berlin, all things hot.

http://pfefferhaus.de/de/Pfefferhaus-Berlin.html

⬐ radicalbyte

Don't you have Turkish supermarkets? They should stock chilli.

If not, mail me, maybe I can help a fellow nerd (ie mail a bag of dried bird's-eye).

⬐ wheels

Peppers aren't that hard to find in Germany. You appear to also live in Berlin. As a Texan and significant cooking hobbyist (I ordered Kengi's book from the US before it was available in Germany), here are some tips:

Major grocery stores:

- Real usually has fresh cayenne peppers, bell peppers, and some long sweet peppers. Occasionally they also have habaneros.

- Edeka more often has habaneros, and often tabasco peppers too, but less often cayenne peppers. Usually also a couple kinds of non-spicy peppers.

- Organic stores usually have peppers too; I have an LPG-Biomarkt around the corner that virtually always has a couple kinds of peppers.

Markets:

- The Turkish market on Maybachufer usually has some peppers available. What is a bit of a mixed bag. As suggested, other Turkish markets and shops are likely to have similar.

Online:

You can get dried chilis here:

https://chilliesontheweb.co.uk/chilli/

They're shipped from the UK, so no (at least for a couple years) customs to deal with.

Don't get too hung up on the specific cultivar of chili. Most chilis are actually cultivars the same species and exist on a couple of spectrums of flavor and heat. Substituting fresh green cayenne peppers for jalapeños isn't going to radically change a recipe.

⬐ pimeys

Thanks for the chilies on the web tip. They have a bit pricey postage, to Berlin almost 10 euros... But let's try them, because they have all the chiles needed for the chile paste. These Berlin shops mostly have the basic chiles. Once there was a chili hamburger place in Neukölln selling home grown chiles with different variety and they went bankrupt in a year. It seems germans don't like spicy food that much.

⬐ linker3000

I don't know whether the postage from these UK guys will be any better - I'm just mentioning them as they are relatively close to me and I have been in their shop a few times:

http://chillipepperpete.com/

⬐ batbomb

Cooking Issues has been my favorite podcast for several years. tptacek also enjoys it.

Kenji has a bunch of practical advice and he's a great writer (even though at times his own bias steps in prominently at time), but Dave Arnold is really a step above.

⬐ bwilliams18

We all lament the loss of Jacky Molecules. :'(

⬐ Satchelmouth

Agreed on Kenji. Searching for Kenji + name of dish you need a recipe for is the pro-est of pro-tips.

⬐ jasallen

I would throw Pioneer Woman on as the second Google option. She doesn't have the geeky bent that Kenji does, but has amazing recipes.

⬐ brewdad

Except that eating Pioneer Woman recipes on a regular basis will take years off of your life. You will have have delicious years but fewer of them.

Tangentially, I recently bought Kenji's new book [1], and my friends and I have been having tremendous fun reading through and trying out the recipes therein. Kenji's empirical approach and attention to the science behind cooking (not to mention sassy writing) really appeals to our inner geeks.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Food-Lab-Cooking-Through/dp/039308...

⬐ ThePhysicist

I really hope that the book uses metric units. I recently read "The Science of Good Cooking", which was interesting but unfortunately used US units throughout, which makes it quite unscientific in my opinion.

"On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee is another great book about the chemistry of cooking, and I especially like it since it doesn't try hard to be hip or cool as opposed to some other books about cooking chemistry I could name.

⬐ ThePhysicist

Since this is getting downvoted a lot by "imperialists":

I do not say that one cannot work scientifically using non-metric units, I'm just saying that it has a non-scientific appeal since even in the US scientific publications normally use SI units (kg, m, s) since they are well defined and easy to calculate with.

Imperial units, on the contrary, are based on the length of body parts and sticks or the volume of some arbitrary measurement cup. Granted, the meter is a bit arbitrary as well (but at least based on the geometry of the planet), but the nice thing about metric units is that they can be converted easily: 100 cm = 1 m, 1000 m = 1 km. 1000 g = 1 kg. Try that with inches, feet, yards and miles.

So I really stay with my assessment that working in non-metric/SI units is contradictory to professional scientific work.

⬐ AceJohnny2

Good thing he's a professional american cook, not a professional scientist.

⬐ ThePhysicist

Again, I'm not trying to devalue the work of the author here, I just say that his choice of units is non-scientific.

⬐ andor

based on the length of body parts and sticks or the volume of some arbitrary measurement cup

Let's not forget the weight of a stone!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_(unit)

⬐ Symbiote

I had a look using Amazon's preview of the book.

It uses "imperial" units, though I assume they're actually "English" units (i.e. American rather than British). This matters for volumes, a British pint is larger ("a pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter", as my grandma taught me).

It has a few conversions in the introduction, but with false precision -- an oven temperature of 300F is converted to 149C.

It argues against using volume measures for dry or sticky ingredients, but the only example I see in the preview asks for "2 tablespoons of butter".

⬐ jghn

Kenji has stated many times on SE when this comes up that he's catering to US home cooks with measurements

⬐ jghn

I don't have it in front of me but he typically gives us volume and also grams for measurement. That said I fail to see why semantic sugar like units would really skew your opinion here, at the end of the day his book is aimed at a home cook. It's not modernist cuisine

⬐ ThePhysicist

Yes of course, but if you are used to metric units it's pretty hard to develop a good intuition around pounds, cups, inches and ounces, and I find intuition and the ability to clearly visualize proportions pretty important when cooking.

⬐ comex

Yes, while if you have prior experience with cooking in the US (but are still interested in the science), then you are used to pounds, cups, inches, and ounces, and may find it hard to develop a good intuition around liters and grams. (Also, it will be easier to find things like measuring cups and spoons delimited in the former.) They're just units...

⬐ Jedd

  >  They're just units...

Indeed. Units that correlate (1kg water == 1 litre of water) and are intuitive (100C = boiling water).

The fact that the imperial units aren't even common amongst the two remaining countries that use some number of them is just 12oz of icing on the cake. It's frustrating to find an otherwise fine cooking or science book ruined by the prose pandering to some elderly subset of 5% of the population.

⬐ lsaferite

> elderly subset of 5% of the population

He's writing a book for a US audience. The US audience uses US customary units for measurement and has done so since 'forever' basically. The subset of US citizens that knows metric well enough to be comfortable using it for things like cooking is small enough to be irrelevant for his book.

Would it be better to use the metric system for everything in the US? Of course. Will it happen in the next 100 years? Nope.

And I'm really confused about the elderly part of your statement. Do you correlate being young in the US with knowing the metric system? If so you are unfortunately wrong. Actually you are more likely to find metric knowledge in the general populous in the older crowed due to an attempt in the 70's to convert to the metric system. So, outside of areas that use metric internally, the older population is more likely to know metric than the younger ones.

⬐ Avshalom

1/20 of the planet's population is not 1/20 of the market's population, particularly when writing in English.

⬐ douche

Worst case, you can spend $10 and get a set of measuring cups and spoons.

That's a lot better than the complete clusterfuck that is working on most mechanical equipment - you'll all too often find a bizarre amalgamation of metric & standard hex head, allen, torx and other fasteners, all mixed together - wrenches are nowhere near as inexpensive.

⬐ pbhjpbhj

>That's a lot better than the complete clusterfuck that is working on most mechanical equipment //

Wouldn't that largely be fixed by the USA moving to metric.

⬐ douche

That doesn't magically replace 100 years of legacy parts and equipment.

⬐ comex

I understand the sentiment, but I think you are underestimating the subset of the population that traditional units "pander" to - including, anecdotally, me. I'm 23, far from elderly, and like many of the people on this site, work with computers for a living; I'm not uneducated or anti-intellectual. But I have minimal background in the physical sciences, so never got much exposure to metric units that way, and living in the US, I've never really needed them outside of that. Sure, the metric units are for the most part inherently superior (although I'm a fan of degrees Fahrenheit [1]), while especially for cooking the traditional ones are a mess: e.g. the relationship between tablespoons and teaspoons and the two types of ounces is something which, since I haven't invested that much time in cooking either (I'm working on it), I still haven't memorized. Yet the traditional ones are still what I and many others have been almost exclusively exposed to.

Sure, I could go out of my way to buy utensils and look up measurements in metric. On one hand, it would be a bit more forward thinking, especially since I want to try living in Japan at some point and there would be one less change to worry about. On the other, here and now, it would make it harder to talk about recipes with other people.

But mostly I just don't care. They're just units. If units "ruin" a book for you then you should reconsider your standards of evaluation.

[1] http://lolsnaps.com/upload_pic/FahrenheitVsCelsiusVsKelvin-6...

⬐ jghn

That's orthogonal to whether or not kenji was being scientific in his methods

⬐ None

None

⬐ imgabe

The units have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not something is scientific.

⬐ gopowerranger

When you add salt to bread, and the recipe calls for one teaspoon, a teaspoon of kosher salt is not the same as table salt or sea salt. So how much is it? (It's significantly different.)

When something calls for three cups of flour, and it's a humid day, or a dry day, does that affect the quantity? Yes it does. Significantly enough to affect bread.

Both of the above reasons are why bread bakers weigh all their ingredients, including water.

⬐ kbutler

Age and storage conditions of the flour have much more to do with the moisture content than the humidity of the individual day.

But yes, measure by weight.

pounds vs kilograms isn't particularly important (as long as you keep them straight!)

⬐ wil421

Real cooks would never use table salt. Its almost always sea salt or kosher salt. Would you rather have something nature made or something made by a chemical process in a plant?

I own a lot of Grilling/BBQ books and normal recipe books, almost everyone says to never use table salt somewhere in the book.

My Himalayan salt is quite good for seasoning and was deposited millions of years ago. Compare that to Morton's table salt with iodine my grandmother used to use.

⬐ JoeAltmaier

They are very different - table salt conforms to a quality standard while the others have varying trace contaminants. They may add to flavor, but not in any reliable predictable way. And the major active ingredient of both is sodium.

Its fun to play with cool, colorful salts. By the time the cooking is done, I'd bet cash money no one can tell the difference.

⬐ wil421

If you follow many recipes are use table salt instead of kosher salt I guarantee it will come out salty.

Serious Eats has an article and it really validates a part of both of our points[1]:

>"So long as your salt is going to be dissolved and distributed evenly into the final dish...there's no reason to use kosher salt...Just remember, check your recipes and make sure to compensate for table salt's density when adding it."

If you have access to Good Eats, Alton Brown explains it pretty well.[2]

[1]http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/ask-the-food-lab-do-i-nee...

[2]http://www.thekitchn.com/salt-101-alton-brown-and-the-p-1042...

⬐ ska

   By the time the cooking is done, I'd bet cash money no one can tell the difference.

I suspect you'd lose that bet - informally I've tried many experiments with iodized and non-iodized salts, and the iodine can change flavor.

Besides that, one of the main reasons to use different salts is crystal size which can have significant effect (depends on what you are doing, obviously). For example, koshering salt is called that because of its use in koshering meats, where the large crystal structure helps control absorption. Likewise in "finishing" applications.

⬐ dragonwriter

> Real cooks would never use table salt.

Real cooks use table salt all the time. Other salts are mostly useful as finishing salts (where the subtle distinctions in flavor and texture between different salts, or different sized grinds of the same salt, come out, and where color distinctions can impact presentation) rather than in cooking itself (where they don't.)

> My Himalayan salt is quite good for seasoning and was deposited millions of years ago. Compare that to Morton's table salt with iodine my grandmother used to use.

...and, what? Both are good for seasoning, the table salt with iodine is better for avoiding the (otherwise fairly common) iodine deficiency (conversely, its a good thing to avoid if you are iodine sensitive). I'd rather use the Himalayan salt as a finishing salt for some things.

Also, table salt vs. other salt and iodized salt vs. non-iodized salt are orthogonal distinctions (and table vs. other salt is a different distinction than "made in nature" vs. "made in a chemical process in a plant".)

Kosher, Sea, and some other salts are available iodized, and table salt is available non-iodized.

⬐ soylentcola

Not concerned about whether "nature" made it so much as I am about grain size. The bigger crystals in kosher/sea salt are better for a lot of uses.

At the same time, if you're just gonna boil water and dissolve some salt in it, it doesn't really matter so much as the actual amount of salt.

⬐ wil421

If you are concerned about grain size I doubt the only thing you use salt for is to boil things.

⬐ janwillemb

real cooks use butterflies

⬐ gopowerranger

This has nothing to do with what I said.

⬐ imgabe

Iodized salt is responsible for raising the average IQ of billions of people around the world because iodine deficiency leads to intellectual and developmental disabilities. It's not some sinister additive that people need to avoid. It's one of the most successful public health efforts ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodised_salt

⬐ ska

This is very true.

Given that you have enough iodine in your diet though, avoiding it in seasoning is sensible.

⬐ wil421

I'm sure I would get the recommended Iodine dose from any sort of processed foods I eat or from any cheaper restaurants I frequent that use table salt.

There are many people that dont cook at home and I doubt their Iodine levels are low.

Also I never said it was some sinister corporation spreading false info.

⬐ imgabe

You can weigh things with either metric or imperial units. Measuring volume when you want to know mass is a mistake you can make regardless of what units you're using.

I don't see how weighing the flour will help. A given volume of moist flour will weigh more than dry flour because of the water in it, so you'd still have a problem on humid days.

⬐ gopowerranger

"I don't see how weighing the flour will help."

Said no serious bread baker ever.

⬐ fanf2

You can't weigh things with Imperial units because they are British units of volume. You weigh things with avoirdupois units.

⬐ dlib

Got this book as well, it's fun to read through and I can impress friends with simple yet tasty recipes. Bought it mostly because I'm a huge fan of seriouseats and Kenji's posts especially, so I try to show my support.