The miracle of salt : recipes and techniques to preserve, ferment, and transform your food

James Beard Award Finalist “[A] mesmerizing mix of recipes and food history.” — Publishers Weekly , STARRED REVIEW “Duguid has a scholar’s love of research, a cook’s hunger, and a journalist’s talent for storytelling. . . . The recipes are from all over the world and her knowledge is staggering. . . . Simply brilliant.” —Diana Henry, The Telegraph (U.K.), The Best Cookbooks to Buy in Autumn 2022 Naomi Duguid, who’s taken food lovers to many corners of the globe, now invites readers and cooks on a very different journey—a deep dive into the miracle of salt and its essential role in preserving, fermenting, and transforming food. Learn age-old techniques for making sauerkraut, miso, butter, prosciutto, kimchi, salt-fermented pickles, basturma, salt-preserved lemons, brined eggs, and much more. Create a vibrant “salt pantry” filled with enticing blends of salt and spices, and with easy condiments and preserves such as Spiced Green Mango Pickle and Dried Shrimp and Garlic Chutney. Read about essential salt-preserved flavorings such as soy sauce, fish sauce, pickled plums, salted anchovies, and salt cod. The wide range of international recipes that follow invite you to use this umami-rich larder of salt-preserved ingredients and salted flavorings to transform vegetables, soups, mains, pasta dishes, and desserts. Orange and Black Olive Salad balances tangy and salty. Black Bean Sauce adds intense flavor to stir-fries. Bacalao Tortilla is a nod to salt cod as a cornerstone of European kitchens. Shio Koji, a simple salt-fermented ingredient, flavors grilled vegetables and other foods with subtlety and power. Kebabs marinated with a blend of pomegranate molasses and fish sauce are a triumph of salty-sweet-tart umami. And there’s nothing like a layer of saltiness to bring out the best in sweets and desserts, from Creamy Candied Ginger and Miso Ice Cream to Yogurt Cake with Salted Lemon and Nuts, from Breton Salted-Butter Cake to Miso Cookies with Dark Chocolate Chips. Working with salt-preserved and salt-fermented ingredients not only opens up a rich new world of flavors and techniques but also offers cooks the gift of connecting with generations of culinary wisdom. In The Miracle of Salt , James Beard Award?winning author Naomi Duguid takes the same approach of researcher, storyteller, and chef that garnered praise and fandom for her previous books Burma and Taste of Persia , but this time focuses on the world?s single most important food ingredient. Through stories, instructions, and over 100 recipes, Duguid illuminates the many foods born from the power of salt?charcuterie, butter, soy sauce, kimchi and sauerkraut, bacalao, and miso?unearthing their importance to their native cuisine and offering home-friendly recipes that highlight the nuances of salt?s flavor. To start, an elevated larder, from Sichuan pepper salt and Japanese gomasio to salt preserved lemons and Moroccan herbed butter, transform one?s cooking arsenal. Then, recipes for vegetables, salads, soups, grains, fish, meat, dairy and more explore the importance of salt in creating depths of umami, savory, and sour flavor. Orange and Black Olive Salad is a balance of Mediterranean tangy and salty. A Bacalao Tortilla celebrates salt cod as a cornerstone of European kitchens. Shio Koji?Marinated Grilled Fish teaches how salt-based products can flavor a dish without any additional salt added. A deep dive into kimchi has recipes for five different takes, and later recipes show the versatility of this fermented staple across many different cuisines. Desserts bring sweet and salty into perfect harmony with recipes for Tamarind Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips and Yogurt Cake with Salted Lemon and Nuts. Sprinkled throughout are snapshots of places where salt is harvested, ingredient profiles for important products, and stories of how salt has impacted histories and cultures. In all, The Miracle of Salt answers the once overlooked questions of what salt is, where it comes from, what it does, and how to unlock its flavor to its full potential In The Joy of Salt , James Beard Awardwinning author Naomi Duguid takes the same approach of researcher, storyteller, and chef that garnered praise and fandom for her previous books Burma and Taste of Persia , but this time focuses on the worlds single most important food ingredient. Through stories, instructions, and over 100 recipes, Duguid illuminates the many foods born from the power of saltcharcuterie, butter, soy sauce, kimchi and sauerkraut, bacalao, and misounearthing their importance to their native cuisine and offering home-friendly recipes that highlight the nuances of salts flavor. To start, an elevated larder, from Sichuan pepper salt and Japanese gomasio to salt preserved lemons and Moroccan herbed butter, transform ones cooking arsenal. Then, recipes for vegetables, salads, soups, grains, fish, meat, dairy and more explore the importance of salt in creating depths of umami, savory, and sour flavor. Orange and Black Olive Salad is a balance of Mediterranean tangy and salty. A Bacalao Tortilla celebrates salt cod as a cornerstone of European kitchens. Shio KojiMarinated Grilled Fish teaches how salt-based products can flavor a dish without any additional salt added. A deep dive into kimchi has recipes for five different takes, and later recipes show the versatility of this fermented staple across many different cuisines. Desserts bring sweet and salty into perfect harmony with recipes for Tamarind Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips and Yogurt Cake with Salted Lemon and Nuts. Sprinkled throughout are snapshots of places where salt is harvested, ingredient profiles for important products, and stories of how salt has impacted histories and cultures. In all, The Joy of Salt answers the once overlooked questions of what salt is, where it comes from, what it does, and how to unlock its flavor to its full potential. Weaving together history, culinary science, and an expansive array of recipes, The Miracle of Salt is the first cookbook to explore the magic of salt in the global foodscape, from the beloved, innovative, James Beard Award-winning author Naomi Duguid