Salt, Fat, Acid, Crunch
I've been neglecting crunchiness
Dear Sabrina,
Please come back to London immediately. Paddington and I demand it! Thank you for sending so many Hungarian recipes. I am forever grateful to you for introducing me to the joys of Hungarian food. And, I have a new cooking joy to tell you about…
As you know, I am a huge fan of Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Before reading it I hadn’t thought much about acid, and now I use acid to balance almost everything I cook.
I’ve recently had a similar epiphany around another pillar of cooking – crunch.
A crunchy topping always feels like a part of the recipe you can skip – rigatoni without breadcrumbs will still be delicious. A salad without toasted nuts is still nice. So, on a weeknight when I’m cooking something simple I rarely take the extra step of adding something crunchy.
But, recently I have realized that, quite frankly, I am fucking up. I came to this realization via 2 of my newest cookbooks:
Extra Good Things, from the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen – the whole book is dedicated to “extras” you can add to your dishes, with a big emphasis on crunch.
The Secret of Cooking, by Bee Wilson – there are many great things to say about this book, which I will save for another post. But, she has a whole chapter called “Crunch!”, where she talks about crunch as one of the core pillars of cooking, on par with salt, fat, acid, and heat
“In most moods, the quickest way to make a meal more exciting is to give it a bit of crunch.” – Bee Wilson
I have made several recipes from each book, and, per their urging, did not skip the crunch. Both books are right – an added crunch requires minimal extra effort, but it adds a lot of joy.
So, I am been trying to break out of my habit of dismissing crunches, and instead trying to think about a possible crunch to add to whatever I am making. For now I have some very basic ideas, but I will report back when I’m more of a crunch expert.
Some ideas for simple crunches:
Crispy fried shallots
Fried ginger (I just learned that you could do this)
Quick-pickled cilantro stems
Crushed peanuts
Homemade croutons
And, here’s a recipe for a deluxe crunch: spiced pecans
This is my mom’s recipe for spiced pecans, with olive oil subbed in for butter. Or, check out her full recipe for this spinach salad with strawberries, pecans, and crunchy(!) goat cheese.
Ingredients
3 cups of halved pecans
¼ cup of olive oil
¼ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon of coarse salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (or other chili powder) (feel free to add more)
Method
Preheat the oven to 350F. Toss all the ingredients in a bowl until the pecans all have an even coating of oil, sugar, and spice. Spread them on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, until they are toasty.
A running letter between long distance friends who love to eat
Do you miss your best friend? Are really hungry you right now? If the answer to either of these is yes, you know what to do.
My favorite salad ingredient is sunflower seeds! I don’t really like them outside of salads, but they add such an awesome crunch and nutty and are so easy if you get the shelled ones.