The moment chef Samin Nosrat realized cooking’s 4 vital elements

Transcript

John Yang: A lot of you have either just finished Thanksgiving dinner or are sitting down to your dinner right now.

As you enjoy your feast today, please consider guidance from chef Samin Nosrat, the author of the cookbook "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat."

She is featured in the latest episode of "NewsHour"'s Facebook Watch show "That Moment When."

Steve Goldbloom: Tell me the moment when you realized that there were four basic elements common to all cooking.

Samin Nosrat: So, I started cooking in this incredible, elite, world-class kitchen with cooks who are among the best in the world.

They never use recipes. They just use their senses. And they taste it. And they paid attention to what was happening. It was probably a year-and-a-half into my cooking that I had a moment where I realized, oh, salt, fat, acid, heat, these four things, we pay attention to them every day.

And I went up to the chef, and I said, "I figured it out, salt, fat, acid, heat."

And he just looked at me and he was like, "Yes, duh, we all know that."

(LAUGHTER)

And I thought, well, if you know that, and it took me this long of being here, and this isn't any of the books that I have read, that you have told me to read and immersed myself in, then it's my job -- it's going to be my job and my work to explain this to everyone else.

John Yang: You can find all episodes of the series on Facebook @ThatMomentWhenShow.