Cooking With Sanj – Page 4

Trial, Error, Music and Cooking

Music is an endless fount of metaphor and inspiration across all areas of life. As philosopher Dan Dennett once observed, “Music is unique to our species, but found in every human culture.” There are few things more natural to us and few things that I’m personally more passionate about than music (perhaps food can be…

A Quick Guide to Dashi

Dashijiru, or “dashi” for short, is the all-purpose Japanese soup stock and is among the pillars of Japanese cuisine. The reason for this is that it’s a veritable (and relatively neutral tasting) umami bomb, which can turn up the volume of flavors on just about any dish (not just Japanese ones) in the right proportions (more…

Demystifying Umami

I find it uncontroversial to say that umami is the backbone of food generally. Western cooks, as a matter of policy, tend to nod politely whenever it’s mentioned. They seem to have no deep appreciation of the concept. After all, in the US, we’re told simply that umami is some sort of weird, fifth, “meaty”…

Marinara: A Multi-Part Guide

Bottles are beautiful things. And I’m not saying that because I’m an alcoholic. Beyond enabling our hydration (via water) and dehydration (via imbibing), they work on many levels as metaphors. Take, for example, the bottleneck. In addition to referring to the physicality of that which distinguishes a bottle say, from a jar, a “bottleneck” offers…

Marinara: Chemical Reactions and Extraction

Understanding the chemical reactions and flavor extraction that occur in food are among the pillars of good cooking. Melding the flavors of garlic and herbs into tomatoes to make a delicious sauce is little more than a combination of chemical reactions and extraction. By chemical reaction, I mean transforming one ingredient into something very different…

Marinara: The Recipe

A thorough, step-by-step guide to making incredible marinara.

The Fat of Our Land

The American diet borders on self-parody. We are fat and we are actually getting fatter. As of 2014, two out of every three Americans were considered to be clinically overweight or obese. The numbers keep rising despite the best efforts of people who have devoted their lives to this issue, expert advocates for health and…