A few years ago, my husband and I watched Samin Nosrat’s Netflix show and that was pretty much it…we were hooked. Her love for cooking is completely contagious. It wasn’t long before I tracked down her book, and it’s been a kitchen staple for us ever since.

Salt Fat Acid Heat isn’t really your typical cookbook. It’s more about understanding how cooking works, and that’s what I like about it. Whether you’re already comfortable in the kitchen or still figuring things out, it gives you a way to understand what you’re doing instead of just telling you what to do.

The whole book is built around four things: salt, fat, acid and heat. Samin breaks each one down in a way that actually makes sense. It never feels like you’re sitting through a cooking lesson. You start to understand why something tastes the way it does and what you can do when it’s missing something.

The recipes are great, but I think the bigger takeaway is learning how to make your own decisions in the kitchen. You don’t always have to follow a recipe exactly. Maybe something needs a little more salt, a squeeze of lemon, more heat or a different cooking time. Once you understand what those four elements are doing, you start trusting yourself more. That’s probably my favourite thing about the book. It made cooking feel less like following instructions and more like figuring things out as I went.

We’ve also given this book to quite a few friends and family members over the years, and it’s always been a hit. If you know someone who loves cooking, or even someone who just loves good food, it’s one of those books that’s actually useful rather than something that ends up sitting on a shelf.

It’s definitely one I come back to, and if you haven’t read it yet, I think it’s worth having in your kitchen.