Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: ACID

A hands-on cooking class culminating in dinner served with wine and beer.

We invite you into the kitchen for this unique and empowering series of classes, taught by one of the most talented and passionate teachers we know, Samin Nosrat. You're welcome to take as many or few as you like, but the series is designed as an immersion and elements of each class will interplay with the others to help give students a comprehensive understanding of cooking.

In each class, Samin will describe and demonstrate for each element its roles and functions, basic science, and effects on taste in a dish. We'll taste and discuss thoughtfully in an effort to give our palates a bit of contextual understanding. And of course, because we believe so strongly in the power of experience (and muscle memory) you'll get a chance to put your new skills to use as we all cook a lovely meal together with the concepts of the day in mind.  

You'll leave empowered and inspired to return to the kitchen, ready to refine your knowledge, and to look at food with a whole new perspective; with practice, you will become a more intuitive cook. Links to the full series: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

ACID

A cook who knows how to use and balance acid in a dish can transform even the most mundane foods into something anyone will eat with pleasure.  Of the four elements, Acid is the least about science, and the most about training your palate, so after laying out the framework for acid basics, in this class we will taste, taste, taste together and discuss how to think about acid in planning a dish.

ACID will cover the following: 

 - Types of acid, including unexpected sources of it 
-  Acid balance
-  How acid relates to salt and fat in a dish
-  When to add acid- What function acid performs in a dish

Together, we'll prepare a variety of dishes for dinner using different cooking techniques to demonstrate the principles of acid.  

MENU (subject to change based on market offerings):

Three Moroccan Salads: Shaved Carrot, Marinated Beet, and Roasted Cauliflower
Little Lamb Kufte Kebabs with Yogurt Sauce
Thumbprint Cookies with Meyer Lemon Curd

Samin Nosrat creates community around food as a cook, writer and teacher in the Bay Area. From Chez Panisse to Tuscany, Piemonte to the northern coast of Iran, she has spent the past fifteen years immersed in a life of cooking and learning beside groundbreaking chefs, home cooks, farmers, writers and artists.  Drawing on this broad spectrum of experience, she brings to her classes a sense of humor and joy as well as a deep desire to empower and encourage her students to find their own comfortable place in the kitchen.  Her first book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: The Four Elements of Good Cooking, will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2016.