Seasoning Savvy: How to Cook with Herbs, Spices, and Other Flavorings

• how to select and use the right seasonings for a recipe and how to tell if a spice is fresh
  
• drying, freezing, toasting, chopping, measuring, and storing herbs and spices
  
• culinary practices in the use of flavorings from chocolate and vanilla to amchur and mastic
  
• flavor combinations, including both well-known and exotic blends, flavored oils and vinegars, compound butters and seasoned salts
  
• how to reduce the intensity of some seasonings such as garlic and chili peppers
  
• an examination of the nature of taste of flavor along with a history of spice usage in the US
  
• brewing teas and tisanes
  
• savvy culinary tips, such as polishing a copper a bowl with lemon juice and salt, or storing a lump of asafetida in the spice cupboard to discourage insects
  
  Seasoning Savvy's tips and techniques will help you bring out the flavor in your food and teach you how to use seasonings to achieve the tastes you like. With this vital book, you will transform your cooking from satisfactory to sensational!
  

Each entry--from Ajowan, an Indian spice with pungent, thyme-like flavor that is also known as bishop's weed, omam, or netch azmud (botanical name Trachyspermum ammi), to Woodruff, the herb that gives German May wine its grassy and vanilla notes, and from Advieh, an Iranian spice mix, to Quatre Épices, the variable combination used to spice French pâtés--is ample without being esoteric. These entries describe how an herb or spice looks and tastes (Winter Savory is like a peppery, pungent thyme while Summer Savory is milder) and how the item is used in its native tradition. Arndt then suggests other possibilities. Hence savory, or sariette, flavors French goat cheese but would be good in a three-bean salad, and it reduces the odor of cabbage during cooking. She also recommends substitutions, suggesting that oregano can replace cilantro, and vanilla extract might replace Kewra Water, a floral Indian flavoring, when necessary.

Because the taste of food is affected by more than the aromatic compounds added by spices and herbs, Arndt explains how heat, cold, and other variables influence our perceptions of flavor. In sum, she makes Seasoning Savvy a user-friendly reference book that cooks of all levels, from beginners to professionals, will value. --Dana Jacobi