Good Things - Recipes and Rituals to Share with the People You Love by Samin Nosrat

[blue_dolphin]

I’ve been chatting about Good Things (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) here and there and apparently I’ve convinced @Smithy to pick up a sale-priced copy so I figured I should share my thoughts. 
This is Samin Nosrat’s second book, following Salt Fat Acid Heat (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) which was quite successful and spawned a 4 episode TV series.  The first 4 chapters of that book are an excellent intro to the elements of cooking.  There are plenty of recipes that follow but IMO, the real meat of the book is in those first chapters. 

In a way, Good Things is similar with a lot of interesting condiments up front and less interesting recipes that follow. I see it as an “Idea” book rather than a “Recipe” book. I was initially frustrated by how many of the recipes I wanted to try required one or several of the condiments or dressings in the front of the book.  I reset my focus, spent a few hours making a few of those “good things” and set off to use them.

The pickled Thai chiles and pickled red onions were hiding in the fridge but were also part of my first prep session. The preserved lemon paste takes a lot of hands-off time to make the preserved lemons but that NYShuk brand is readily available at Whole Foods or online. 
The Calabrian Chile Crisp requires a fair amount of hands-on time but it’s awfully good. I ordered the Calabrian chiles from Oaktown spices but she offers substitutions.

Back to the book, most of the recipes for these condiments are followed by multiple suggestions for their use and the index is very complete in listing all the uses of each condiment, sauce or dressing by name and page number. Even the page of general substitutions is listed. A lot of my cookbooks have similar sections of basics, condiments etc used throughout the book but such a complete index is fairly rare. I’ve spent hours with some books (looking at you, Six Seasons) basically making my own index for stuff like this.  The Good Things index is complete, easy to read, and greatly enhances the utility of the book. 

 

There’s a section of vegetable “recipes” by season that are mostly simple cooking suggestions and ways to incorporate those condiments. Nothing fancy, but I picked up a few tips like roll cutting carrots for roasting. I routinely do that for stir-frying but it also makes perfect thin edges to brown while roasting. I make marinated or pickled beets often but her use of the preserved lemon paste instead of vinegar was intriguing to me. 
 

Included in those veg sections are a number of flow charts for assembling salads or cooked veg dishes. Generally, I don’t find flow charts, diagrams or spreadsheet arrangements to be the best way to communicate recipes but for some reason, these have resonated with me and I’ve been using the roasted veg salad pages in particular for lots of salad ideas. 

These matrix pages are accompanied by examples that demonstrate restraint in choosing a few ingredients and not something from every category.

Those are my highlights of the book, so far.  I intend to work through all the salad dressings and play around with her uses for each. There are plenty of other recipes, a whole chicken chapter, and desserts, too. The harissa chickpea stew and spicy tuna pasta were both excellent but the ideas I’ve gotten from those condiments, dressings and salad matrix pages are the best parts of the book for me. 
 

The book’s not perfect. Its use of metric measurements is spotty which is annoying since it was published at the same time overseas with complete metric measurements so they could easily have been included. 
I thought the popcorn was way too salty, the olive oil fried bread was too oily and my first pass at the preserved lemon paste was inedibly salty but the wins exceed the misses by a lot. 
 

 

Edited Sunday at 10:58 AM by blue_dolphin (log)

[Smithy]

Thanks for that writeup. I haven't had time yet to dive into the book, but from what you write here and what I've seen so far this book seems to be akin to Vivian Howard's This Will Make It Taste Good as far as its approach and likely uses go. Would you agree with that?

[blue_dolphin]

6 hours ago, Smithy said:

Thanks for that writeup. I haven't had time yet to dive into the book, but from what you write here and what I've seen so far this book seems to be akin to Vivian Howard's This Will Make It Taste Good as far as its approach and likely uses go. Would you agree with that?

Very much so.. Especially those first sections. I’ve described it to others as a mash up between This Will Make It Taste Good and the Abra Berens books, Ruffage and Grist that use condiments similarly and tuck a lot of ideas into the recipe variations. 
 

[Maison Rustique]

As I read @blue_dolphin's comments, Vivian Howard's book also popped into my mind. I hope to get back to cooking more once I get moved (which we made some progress at yesterday).

[Smithy]

3 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Very much so.. Especially those first sections. I’ve described it to others as a mash up between This Will Make It Taste Good and the Abra Berens books, Ruffage and Grist that use condiments similarly and tuck a lot of ideas into the recipe variations. 
 

 

That means I'll get double bang from the book bucks: how to make the condiments, but also what to do with the condiments already in my refrigerator! (See: "Condiment Creep" 😀 )

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

40 minutes ago, Smithy said:

That means I'll get double bang from the book bucks: how to make the condiments, but also what to do with the condiments already in my refrigerator! (See: "Condiment Creep" 😀 )

Condiment Creep?  Hey, I resemble that comment! 🤣
 

In advance of the book publication, NYT Cooking shared three of the salad dressings from the book.  Here are gift links if anyone wants to try them out: 

 

House Dressing - This is a modification of the Via Carota restaurant dressing that was very popular when their cookbook came out a few years ago.  It’s not a WOW dressing, it’s less acidic than a lot of vinaigrettes which makes it quite versatile, working well with both sweet and bitter flavors, both of which appear in the Autumn Chicory Salad that includes both bitter greens and sweet fruit (pears, apples or persimmons). I made that salad with a variety of fall fruits, cheeses and nuts for multiple parties over the holidays and everyone loved it. 
 

Creamy Sesame-Ginger Dressing - This is one of my favorites.  The book uses a pickled Thai chili vs the jalapeño in the NYT version.  Either give a little background heat that’s really nice. I’ve made versions of the crunchy cabbage slaw that accompanies this recipe several times. I also tossed it with roasted delicata squash and toasted sesame seeds for a quick and easy side.

 

Creamy Lemon-Miso Dressing - I like this one with about half the amount of sugar. The book offers the option of making a preserved lemon version of this dressing using preserved lemon paste in place of the fresh lemon juice, zest and salt. That version is particularly good on roasted veg. 

Here’s the video that accompanied the NYT article.  All the recipes are also linked in the video description.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 03:04 PM by blue_dolphin (log)

[rotuts]

@blue_dolphin

 

thank you for those references .

 

throughly enjoyed the video .

 

plan to make that last dressing , and try it on roasted broccoli soon.

[blue_dolphin]

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

@blue_dolphin

 

thank you for those references .

 

throughly enjoyed the video .

 

plan to make that last dressing , and try it on roasted broccoli soon.

I hope you like it!  Putting salad dressing on hot, cooked veg wasn’t something I ever thought about but it works really well, either as the centerpiece of a salad or on their own.
Most of the dressing recipes make a generous amount so I’ve been making half recipes for my first pass, until I know how much I can use up.